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I live in my kitchen. My kitchen is my reading room; where the dog eats; where I obviously cook our meals; where I get my coffee fix twelve times a day; where I sew the buttons on pants;where I yearn to watch TV.; where I yent on the phone; where I complain about my problems to whoever can hear me in towards the back of the house; and it’s also where I get to do the laundry: Yahoo.

I do all this on a 52″ round clear glass table that shows every finger mark, every crumb, and every coffee cup ring and, to make matters worse, slightly wobbles.

Windex is useless.  Searches on the net suggests 50% water, 50% vinegar and a little alcohol with a lint-free rag to clean this diamond in the rough.  Don’t use newspaper.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, the kitchen is also the sunniest room in the house so when this magnificently large table has been cleaned and the sun shines on it, all the swoops and smear lines show up.

It drives me mad, because not only am I a cook, I am a clean freak. A crazy woman clean freak.  But I am artistic.

So began the odyssey of web browsing on a DIY project that will take this shiny clear 52″ glass table and create a work of art in which not a fingerprint will show.

There exists home sanding, a technique that has you sanding the glass.  No thanks, I’ll pass.

Besides I would have to rent the sander and then replace the glass which will inevitably break and shatter.

There are sticky window liners that I could use, originally these are used on windows to create glass textures, but they are really costly.

Another idea was crackling which I thought also to invasive a procedure for a DIY.

However I kept coming back to one idea: etching. One could etch a water glass with kits that are bought complete; but obviously I needed to look at a much larger procedure.  I bought, at first, 4 bottles of 3 oz etching cream, and a few large cut-out stencils at the Dollar store: a ballerina, a butterfly and the Treble Clef Symbol.

I scotch taped the stencils to the table in various positions encircling the center and outwards (take a piece of scotch tape and circle it in your hands so that it becomes round and all sticky and then place it on the back of the stencil and then onto the table. You cannot tape it on the table at the sides because the etch will not grab.)

Now etching cream is thick.  It needs to be thick so that it etches the glass and creates the scientific friction thus creating the ‘etch’.  However 4, 3 oz bottles did shit.  I couldn’t even cover half the table.

Luckily the store, 15 minutes away, had another two in stock and they were closing in an hour, so like batman I jumped into the batmobile, headed to St. Laurent, through the ‘mountain’ (all Montrealers know ‘the mountain’ is actually Beaver Lake) bought the extra bottles, came home and doused them right onto the table.

Well, by now you know the two extra bottles did shit-all to help fill the empty spots.  Worse, it was clearly past the 15 minutes time constraint put on the bottle and the cream was dry as could be and, oh yes, now I realize the label states not to use on large pieces. Screw it.

Who knew I had to rinse it under the tap?  Stupid I am not, and artistically talented I am, so I spent the next 30 minutes shpritzing and wiping off all the excess etching cream with water in a spray bottle and shmatas galore.  The process was painstaking because you have to make sure the etching cream doesn’t creep under the stencil pieces, for even a touch alters the glass forever.

Mind you, I was smart as a whip to think first of etching the stencils so that in the unlikely event I ran out of etching cream (like yeah…) at least the outlines of the stencils would show out.  And show out they did - magnificently.

But now instead of a beautiful clean and fingerprinted glass table I had an ugly splotched unsightly table.

AND MONTREAL HAD SOLD OUT OF ETCHING CREAM.

Ebay: no good cause the shipping costs were prohibitive…online shopping store in Ontario was sold out…For the next three weeks, until the art store got more etching cream I was up shit’s creek.  No way was I able to finish my DIY art project which also happened to be in the center of the house that was my lifeline.

Well, baby, nothing stops Natalie.  Into the car I went, not before calling the store ahead of time mind you, and towards Plattsburgh, N.Y. I headed, with passport in hand.  To Michaels.  Ahh Michaels, a hobby store: a place I could spend all day up and down the aisles imagining new projects to do, but alas I had an hour’s drive back home so I didn’t get to stick around too long.

Plattsburgh, N.Y. is an hour’s drive away from Montreal proper and when the army base was there years ago, the tiny city bustled with high and low end stores and was a proclaimed mecca for shopping. Then the army base closed and for years it became a ghost town.  Recently Plattsburgh Airport opened up with cheap flights to Florida and a lot of Montrealers do cross the border to take advantage of cheap continental fares; but the life of the city never came back and neither did the stores.

Anyway this time I come home armed with a 22 oz jar of etching cream and another product which I had read about online: Rub N Buff in Silver which when added to the etched table and buffed, would provide a mirror-like shine.

Rubber gloves on hand, I decided this time to remove all Stencils and etch the whole damn table.  Enough of this shit.  I etched and washed and prayed and hoped.

GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS.

Even the outlines of the Stencil pieces were showing through: it was beautiful. Next - the Rub N Buff.

I don’t know, the directions say apply with fingers and buff with rag and it will shine.  Perhaps I put too much, perhaps I no longer had the strength of an Amazon to buff: it wasn’t shining. Plus I think I put too much.

Aha, I have nail polish remover which is also Acetone which is what the directions say to use if too much was applied.  Judiciously I worked that table to take off just enough Rub N Buff, but not too much.

I then spent the next hour buffing and rubbing that silver wax into sheen.  Exhausted and still unhappy I went to sleep.

I dreamt of buffing my table.  I dreamt of etching my table.  This table was becoming a nightmare…and I feared the worst.  That I ruined the table.

Well ruined or not, I was living with this table no matter what.  I was so fed up.  But I had one more idea pop into my head and that was to go to the local Canadian Tire and pick up a car buffer/waxer for $35 bucks and use it on the table.

Don’t you love when an idea works like a charm?  I buffed and it shone.

It took three of us to lift this massive Kitchen table and turn it over; because you cannot put food on the Rub N Buff as its caustic, then with the light from above and the shiny from underneath I behelded/beholded a work of art.  A piece of Art.

Pride rippled from my toes and danced up to my head and I ran for the camera to shoot and shoot and shoot.

And this is what I shot.  Now those two eyeballs peering at you are not lights under the table, THEY ARE THE BULBS OVERHEAD THE TABLE.  That is how shiny the table is.

AND NOT ONE MARK OR FINGERPRINT OR STREAK SHOWS UP…I am in heaven and I am loving my new digs.

So anyone want more advice or hints…just let me know…because a table top like this, without the granite base, would price around a grand.

The Montreal Highlights Festival is beginning soon and we are hosting Portugal :  there are really reasonably priced dinner and lunches to be had.  There are even walking tours through the markets.

The lunch festival’s on Saturday February 26 are outrageously cheap: I know cause it is going to be son’s Birthday Day present but don’t tell him…

AND FOR ALL THOSE WHO THINK IMPETIGO IS JUST FOR KIDS, GUESS AGAIN…..I HAVE IMPETIGO which some anonymous person gave me …so sorry for those I have infected prior to knowing that was a little more than a zit on my face…

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Tags: DIY, etching cream, Rub N Buff, Treble Clef