Barefoot in the kitchen...

Well, I'm back in the kitchen. Barefoot.


 'Mmmkay, yeah...no. I'm not barefoot in the kitchen (Luhvah wishes!). But I am working on getting the kitchen where I want it (i.e. not looking like a cave). I could should have started with the cabinets but I'm still burned out on painting cabinets from before at the Kingdom (and continued painting in general here at the Miracle). So, instead, I decided to start with the countertops because it was something new and different.

I hated the way the counters looked in the Miracle from the second I saw them.

Never mind that they are laminate. I could handle that. But the faux granite look was so messy. I've always hated it- I mean, even if it were real granite I still wouldn't like the look. I can't stand how splotchy it is, messy-like. It's very popular but I prefer a more subtle look.

After living with the counters I hated them even more. The uneven splotches made it very difficult to tell if the counters were clean. Are there any bread crumbs? Did you spill any sauce? I mean, everything blended into the counters. They may as well have been camo counters (Kindred, can you imagine?)! In fact, I ran across this blog post complaining about that very thing- and her real granite counters look very similar to mine.  I even found a pic of counter tops in camouflage (ick):

Anyhow, I was continually running my hand over them to make sure that they were smooth and no jelly was left from the Monkey's afternoon snack. It was rather annoying.

I want white kitchen cabinets so I decided black countertops would be preferable. My first stop was Pinterest (of course) to get ideas.

Then, I hit up Home Depot to check out countertop options to see what I might like. I planned all along to paint them when I saw multiple tutorials for painting laminate counters. I think this is the one that first got me thinking about it though. Still, I needed an up close inspiration piece to use for reference.

At HD, I found this:

I liked how it was subtle but still had some variety in it. Up close you would see texture, but from far away it would still look like a black counter top. My counters didn't end up exactly like that but it was more of an inspiration piece to guide me.

I started by taping everything off and priming the countertops. I used 2 coats of this primer:

I already liked it better with the primer. More calming than that busy pattern.

After the 2 coats I started with basic black. I got lucky one day a few months back at HD and found this on sale:

I knew it would be perfect for the countertops (even helps that it's an exterior paint so it's more durable). So I snagged it right up.

3 coats of it gave me a great base. Here it is after 1 coat:

Each of the base coats of black, and the primer, I let dry almost 24 hours between to make sure the paint set well. Here's the 3 coats of black:

After that, I used 2 different colors of acrylic paint (a dark gray and a light gray) and a toothbrush. I experimented a little until I got the look I wanted. Luckily this was very easy. If I didn't like how it looked all I had to do was paint back over it again and start over. Easy peasy.

(Tip: if you want to replicate this the key is a dry toothbrush. I kept an old towel handy and a bowl of water, every 2-3 sweeps of the brush and I'd swish it out and dry it. If the brush gets too wet it doesn't splatter as evenly and you'll get a blotchy mess).


To give it a little more interest and movement, I also added glitter. Not obscene amounts mind you, just sprinkled across after I'd already gotten the look I wanted with the acrylic paints (the very fine glitter too). That way, when you looked at it from certain angles the glitter did its thang. It looked good. Made it look less flat (the inspiration piece above had a glitter surface too). I tried to get a good pic of the glint of a piece of glitter but it didn't come off well in camera- in person it looks amazing-makes it look more like granite or quartz or whatever:

Here's the finished look:

As you can see, from far away, it just looks like black countertops.

But an up close look:

 

 

I love, love, love it.

To seal it all I used a polycrilic in semi-gloss (multiple coats). The polycrilic said it's good withstanding water which was my big concern. All in all, this cost me 20.00 to do (and 16.00 of that was the sealant). It would run you more based on how large your counters are (I already had the primer and I got the base paint on clearance-2.00).  I think it turned out great. I can't wait until I can paint the cabinets to see how much better it looks in here. I'm already thinking it looks amazing just having those busy looking counters gone!