Counter Strike

When we first saw our house, one of our first thoughts was, "what's up with those funky countertops?" Soon after moving in, we realized that they were hexagonal tiles which had been painted over by a peachish-beige. Soon after that, we realized that the paint job was more of a quick fix than actual solution, as it soon began to flake off and reveal patches of the underlying tile. Needless to say, this was not one of our favorite features of the house.



We have wanted to do something about this for a long time, but realized our options were limited by time and budget. Replacing them with laminate would have been in the thousands of dollars range. Repainting them as before seemed like it would just get us back into the same boat we were already in. Maren did quite a bit of research into what options we had, and this Christmas break we decided to go ahead and try what seemed like the best one.

We first spent several weekends sanding down the old paint. We were worried that painting on top of poorly adhered paint would just perpetuate our problem. When that was done and the break started, we began to paint. First we used a special chemical to clean the surface and let it dry. Thent we put a coat of primer down on the counter and backsplash. Then we did a coat of "silky" black. We found some paint chips used for texturing, and after running them through the food processor, we liked the size they were. We got an old spice bottle and applied it salt and pepper style while the paint was still wet. Once this dried, we began putting a polyurethane coat over it. We thought that 3-4 would be sufficient, but I guess our paint chips were thicker than we expected, because we ended up doing 10 before we were satisfied with how smooth it was. The polyurethane goes on totally clear, and gives it a nice shine. It's probably not as nice as brand new counter tops, but we did the whole project for about $150 dollars including tools/supplies, and have been pleased with how it turned out. We are also satisfied it will be much more durable than the previous single coat had been with the all of the super durable coating layers we added and the careful surface preparation. Please tell us what you think!