Before & After: Painting My Countertops

BEFORE & AFTER





















When we moved into our house we had these awful veneered wood cabinets and orange and cream faux marbled laminate counter tops. Without the money to replace either, we made do. This post is about the countertops so lets just stick with that story for now. Maybe I'll show more on the cabinets later.
We took off all of the countertop fronts for this, and replaced them when we were all done. First I cleaned the surface of the counters super good. Use a s.o.s. pad or something abrasive. No need to sand because I used Glidden's GRIPPER primer. Get a good layer of the primer over every inch of counter top.

One the primer was nice and dry, it was time to tape! Since the next step involves spray paint indoors, you want to protect the walls and cabinets really good. Tape plastic around everything that is within a a few feet of the area you will be spraying, sorry I didn't take pictures of the step. Once everything is nice and safe you want to lightly spray a few layers of stone spray paint. There are a lot of different brands and colors to choose from. I used Rustoleum American Accents STONE spray paint called granite stone. Its a gray base with white and black flecks.



I think I did about 3 layers. If you want you can take a feather and lightly run it over the wet spray paint. It will give it a bit more realistic look, not so perfect looking. I skipped that step for fear that I would mess it up. But on my practice boards it looked really good. Oh yeah I almost forgot the most important part... make a few practice boards on cardboard or plywood that you have. Just to see what the look will be when its all finished, because once you put on the EnviroTex (I'll get there in a minute) it changes the color just a bit.
Make sure the spray paint is completely dry before you move on to the next step. If not, the flecks will run together and look a bit blurry in spots (something I learned on my practice board).
Mix your EnviroTex Lite together (you will probably want a mask for this part because it is strong). You can buy it online or at Michael's craft store so you can use a 40% coupon from the newspaper ads.

You might need to do 2-3 coats of the envirotex to make sure all the surface gets super even. I did 2 coats and I have a bit of unevenness in a few small areas. I need to do a 3rd. You can see more examples (some good, some not so good) of other painted countertops and hear real peoples advice at this site.

So there you have it! I did this small section (above) for only about $20. I haven't finished the rest of the kitchen yet. It is all primed and ready to paint....