Counter Offer

When we bought our house 3 years ago we sat down and made a list of things we wanted to do to it. The usual, paint rooms, replace fixtures, landscape, have 33 double hung windows installed you know normal list. Most things were inexpensive, tedious home improvement projects we just wanted to do to make the house more our own. And we plowed through the list one by one, even the windows. But one thing that was on the list that kept not getting done was the kitchen counter top update. Mostly because it was something I did not know how to do myself, or so I thought.

I had heard a rumor of people who were brave enough to paint their old laminate, formica counter tops. And then I saw it pinned on pinterest.

It was only $60 and it would take approximately 2 days and it transforms my old, ugly counter tops into granite {ish}!

Here is my thought process--I don't like the counters now--I can paint them to what I want for only $60---If I screw it up I get to buy new counter tops--win/win!

So here is my Giani counter top adventure!

First I scrubbed the counters down with an SOS pad and taped off the trim.

Then I told my little house guest I was going to paint the kitchen counters, but by the look on his face when I started I don't think he believed me.

I put on one thick coat of the primer and the journey had begun!

I already liked it better than the blah grey! And this was just the matte black primer.

The next step was the marbling effect with "mineral paint" And this is when I got really nervous. I mean I can roll a paint roller, but be artistic with a sponge...not so much...but the handy dandy video tutorial assured me it was foolproof, just start sponging and layering. So I did.

Ummmm, it was awful. Like really, really bad. I was devastated. I started researching granite costs and home improvement loans. I mean, it looked like Wesley got into paint and just hand printed all over our counters. But the more I did the worse it got. So Matt convinced me to leave it alone and let it dry. I proceeded to scour the internet for tutorials to fix this mess. And I discovered the key was more layers. It was going to be like camouflage, not patterns. So I started again. And it started looking good, like really good, like granite!

Final step, seal it. This step also threw me a few curve balls. When I rolled on the poly it made a texture, where before the counters had been completely smooth. And of course real granite is stone smooth so texture was ruining my fake granite. But poly shows every single bump, which includes the bumps you make when you layer 50 coats of sponged on mineral paint.  My genius plan was to use a foam brush with the second coat, to smooth the top coat out, yeah all that did is create very visible streaks. So here was the scary thing, it said only do 3 coats and even if I wanted to more, I was running out of top coat, so this 3rd time I had to get it right. I used steel wool to even out the brush marks and made peace with the fact that this was not real granite it was a can of paint and there would be a few bumps and rolled on my last coat. No luck, I didn't have enough poly to finish and everything looked uneven. BOO. I was back on Lowes.com putting in my kitchen measurements and scheduling estimates. Again, my level headed, calm, supportive husband stepped in {after rolling the dry poly with a wet roller, but that's neither here nor there}. He assured me 4 coats would work, he went to home depot and got me a new can of top coat and rollers, came back and finished our beautiful counters. Hero!

 Ta da!!!!!

Wes approves!

A few close ups:

You can kinda see the texture in the close ups. But we've lived with it for a week now and I can tell you truthfully, I don't notice it at all. Now that it's a functioning kitchen with all the appliances and decor back on the counters, it just looks like a shiny black marble surface {That shows every tiny fingerprint, but so would granite!}

We are super satisfied, even if we did try to screw it up every step of the way!