The day the earth stood still...
I thought I was going to die when...
I ruined the patina on our still new copper sink.
This happened...
I have an affliction with benefits. When I am anxious, I clean. When I am procrastinating, I clean. I'm not a neat freak but between anxiety and procrastination, stuff is clean around here.
If I am unable to clean, you'll find something else ridiculously organized.
A couple weeks ago when I was preparing for mom and dad to come, what I really needed to be doing was other stuff. Everything was clean and organized. All I needed to do for them was change the bedding and buy a few meals worth of groceries.
Before I left for the grocery store, I looked in the newly renovated guest bathroom. It was almost spotless. I eyeballed the copper sink and saw a few green spots, so I decided to polish it with ketchup.
Yes, I said ketchup.
I had used ketchup to clean the copper sink once before to make the little green spots disappear. What I obviously didn't do last time was walk away.
I came back a few minutes later to wipe the ketchup off and...
OMG!!!
My stomach dropped through the floor and I felt like I had a fever. Papa Bear was going to kill me.
At the time he was out of town at a photo shoot. I wished so hard that I could just rewind time 10 minutes so this never happened.
I thought...
Was this worse than the time I got my car stuck in the mud on the side of our driveway and ruined the grass? Yes. There's no evidence that ever happened.
Was this worse than the time I backed out of the garage and broke the side view mirror off my car? Yes. There's no evidence that ever happened.
Was this worse than that time I had to leave a photography event to get change, ran over a concrete parking stop and got my car stuck? Yes. There's no evidence that ever happened?
But yeah, this was waaaaaaay worse and it had nothing to do with my car or damaging commercial property. This was seemingly permanent damage to our months old bathroom sink.
I was sick to my stomach. The first thing I did was text mom; she knows that I anxiety clean and occassionally mess up stuff.
I texted, "I went too far!!! I cleaned and ruined our bathroom sink! Papa Bear is going to KILL me."
After I transfered my illness to mom, I googled my problem and found all sorts of warnings about copper and ketchup.
The only thing I was going to be able to do was ruin it further. I had to remove the stain by polishing it with copper cream.
I went to the store and bought Wright's Copper Cream. I came home and proceeded to rub off all the beautiful patina.
I stopped polishing just shy of new penny and the final result was orange. Hideous did not match the bathroom decor.
I could have cried but I didn't have time.
So it's weeks later and obviously Papa Bear didn't kill me. I suffered enough punishment witnessing Christopher's reaction when he got home from school.
What I learned in how to care for your copper sink is that the patina will come back with use. It only took a few days for the hideous to fade. But the sink is not beautiful like when we bought it. It just looks natural - ashy copper - like an old penny.
If I had never tried to clean it, there would be no maintenance at all.
To achieve the look I want, I'll need to polish the sink again to the hideous state. After a week or so when the patina looks like I want it to, I'll need to wax it to slow the patina process.
I haven't done that yet because now I'm afraid of the sink and basically, I just don't go in there.
I vowed to never blog about this but then...
Finish the Sentence Friday happened.
The End
