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Faux Granite Painted Countertops – Guest Post by Creative Kristi

Hey all, I’m super excited to share a sweet friend with you today. I met Kristi at Blissdom and she is one of the most unselfish women I’ve ever met. She blows me away when it comes to her blogging knowledge and business savvy . But, what I really wanted her to show you was her faux granite countertops! If you hate your countertops, you are going to want to see this!

But, first a little more about Kristi’s blog. Kristi truly is creative, she blogs about crafts, home renovations, and oodles of other ideas! Check out this ingenious solution she came up with for hiding an access panel in her home:

She turned it into a cute framed chalkboard!

Be sure to hop over to her blog to get the full effect of Creative Kristi!

Now, please welcome Creative Kristi to Pretty Handy Girl:

 

Hey all! My name is Kristi & I blog at Creative Kristi. A little about me: I’ve been blogging for over 2 years & just love it-it’s my creative outlet. I’m married for 4 years to my wonderful husband, Military Man, who is in the Army National Guard. We have two beautiful kids- Little Man who is 3 & Miss E who is 8 months. We live in Maine & are SO READY for spring – how about you?

I’m so happy that Brittany asked me to share my counter-tops with you during her “Fall in Love with Your Home” series because doing this really did help me fall more in love with the home we have rather than always pine about what we didn’t have.

See, I had these ahem lovely baby blue countertops (with matching wall paint) when we moved in:

While I’m sure many of you are just so jealous of my very 1980’s kitchen, I was not so much a fan. But getting new countertops was not in the budget for a very long time. So I started researching alternative countertops. I loved concrete counters but when I priced it out it was still pretty expensive-even the DIY version. Then one day I stumbled upon someone who had painted their countertops to look like marble. I’m not a fan of marble but I thought surely the same concept could apply to granite counters. Nevermind that I am not an artist-I can’t even draw a person! I decided to just go for it. The materials listed online were very expensive paint and sealer-I figured I could try it with little bottles of acrylic craft paint and a glossy sealer (supplies listed below) I found at my local hardware store.

It took me one week and many bottles of acrylic paint but less than $30 later I had my ‘granite’ countertops!

It worked, looked amazing & two years later it still looks new! (You can read more about the transformation HERE.)

I even put together a video tutorial so that you can do your own if you’d like! You can watch it on YouTube HERE.

Here is a close up of the ‘granite’ I created.

I know that there are counter top paints now out on the market but I can pretty much guarantee they don’t come close to this level of ‘fooling’ people because they are usually only one or two colors, you need multiple colors & varying patterns in order to mimic mother nature. Besides I think acrylic paints, a gloss sealer & paper towels might just be cheaper! I still (2+ years later) get asked all the time when we got our new granite counters!

Supplies:

  • One U-G-L-Y laminate countertop (mine was blue)
  • A cleaner of some type and a rag (I used a 50/50 mixture of vinegar to water- as I do to clean most surfaces in my house)
  • 1 Quart of Kilz primer (or other stain blocking primer-you need something that will ‘block out’ the color underneath & also give your acrylic paint something to ‘stick to’)
  • Acrylic Paint in colors to match a print out of granite you like. (Just google granite countertops and find an online store that has close ups of the granite…find one you like, print the picture and head off to the craft store!)

I used FolkArt brand (made by Plaid) and the colors I used are: 938-Licorice, 425-Medium Grey, 2381-Battleship Grey (I did one section of my counter top in this and didn’t like it so used it very very sparingly after that), 450-Parchment, 602- Country Twill, and applied with an old toothbrush to just lightly mist the counter top: 660-Metallic Pure Gold.

  • An old toothbrush
  • paper towels
  • a piece of cardboard or something to squirt your paint onto.
  • Foam brushes (for clear coat application)
  • Some form of high gloss clear coat-non-yellowing (I used: Water-based Polycrylic Protective Finish in Clear Gloss-I only bought 1 QT. I believe but it will depend on how much counter space you are painting)

Thank you again Brittany for letting me share my favorite tutorial & if any of you try this please feel free to send me pictures-I would love to see them & feature them on my blog!

Have a happy day,

Thank you Kristi. Okay, so seriously, isn’t that an amazing transformation! I love that she was able to re-create the look of granite so successfully.

I know there may be some doubters amongst you that don’t believe that you can repaint laminate counters and have them last. Well, I can vouch for the fact that you can re-paint laminate countertops because ours has lasted over three years. You can see them in my guest bathroom vanity makeover where I painted over the harvest gold counters.

Those counters still look almost new. The only issue popping up is that there are hard water stains right behind the sink, but that would happen regardless of the counter surface. I hate hard water.

I hope you are enjoying the “Fall in Love with Your Home Series”.

 

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