rejuvanating a kitchen bench

[ghowe]

I am trying to restore a stained & varnished kitchen bench. I do not want to strip the whole thing as that would involve taking back the cupboards as well and this is a project for sale of the house. The benches are stained and varnished with a baltic colour but I have no idea what product was used. There are some worn patches which are just about back to the wood and in these places, when you scratch the surface the varnish and colour appears to peel away. On the whole, though, the benches and cupboards are in pretty good shape and probably just need a good clean and varnish. I think the cupboards are made of pine. I would be interested to know how and what products would be suggested bearing in mind that these are hard-use surfaces and do come into contact with food.

[Master Splinter]

Quick.
Cheap.
Good.

Pick any two.

Sand back bare timber, restain and revarnish the bench with a polyurethane or epoxy varnish. That's the nearest you'll get to a low skill, low cost, not overly time consuming yet still durable finish.

[AngelaPetruzzi]

It will be hard to achieve an even finish if you do not at least sand the top of the bench. With the worn areas, you can at least do some samples to get the colour right. Then sand back and varnish. You will most likely find a stain to match with a Feast Watson proof tint. I would agree with Master Splinter with the quick and cheap part.
To spruce up the whole kitchen, you can then give the whole area, cupboards and all a thin coat of clear....and then ventilate well.

[soundman]

if the rest of the kitchen....frame & doors...are fine remember it is not unreasonable to have a bench top differing from the rest of the work, particularly if all the bench tops are the same.

Once you have a finish film failure and you are thru to bare wood, you have no option to sand back to bare timbe all over.

I recomend going for a satin finish rather than a full gloss and it will look less suspicious and will alo show less imperfections.

cheers

[ghowe]

Thanks for the advice. I thought that might be the way I had to go!