Countertop Paint

I saw this product one day and I admit I was skeptical. However, I have white laminate countertops with a big burn courtesy of the previous owners of the house, so my husband and I figured it couldn't get much worse. The whole project was a bit time consuming. I did the cleaning and then priming on a Thursday, the sponging on Friday morning, the first layer of topcoat on Friday night, and the second layer of topcoat on Saturday morning.

So I bought this Giani countertop paint in chocolate brown and decided to go for it.

Here's what my counters looked like before: http://i.imgur.com/HYezp.jpg

First, I cleaned the counters several times with brillo pads and then taped everything off. They recommended the 3M blue painters tape for "sensitive surfaces" so I went with that.

Here's the primer (we took out the sink and replaced it too, but that was another project all on its own): http://i.imgur.com/p1prN.jpg

That was the point of no return. Next was the sponging. Please know that I am in no way artistic, but I did all of this by myself. The dvd instruction video that came with the kit was phenomenal. Here's the sponging: http://i.imgur.com/m91ou.jpg

Last was the topcoat, you can't really tell a difference in the picture between it and the sponging, but in person it adds depth and that shininess that real stone would have. Anyway, here's the finished thing with the tape down: http://i.imgur.com/IfDJP.jpg

It was surprisingly easy to do and I'm really happy with how it turned out. All told, we spend about $70 on the project and quite a bit of time. We used 600 grit sandpaper after each painting except for the second layer of topcoat in order to make sure there weren't any bumps or bubbles.

I waited a week before putting stuff back on the counters and using them so that it could harden and I haven't had any problems with it. So yeah, that was my big project recently and I thought I'd share in case anyone reading this had seen the product like me and wondered.