After my huge countertop fail....I decided to paint my counters. I wanted to stick with the original idea of keeping this project cheap and using materials already had, so painting them fit the bill! Here's how I did it!
This was my counter after ripping off the failed wood slats.
The first thing I did was wash my counters really well. And then I used BIN primer. Do not skip this step! Primer keeps the paint on the counters. And BIN primer is the best. It's oil based so if you have a favorite brush - don't use it with this but it sticks to any surface.
After this - I used leftover paint I had in Tricorn Black. But you can use any black paint! I think a flat/matte sheen works best. Something like this would work great:
Here's what my counters looked like after the coat of black:
After that...I literally took a paper towel and dipped it in white paint and sponged it on. A painting sponge would probably work better for this, but I was trying to use what I had - so paper towel it was.
After this it's going to look scary and you might regret your choices. But trust me it gets better.
After this - I did a black wash. It was about 2-3 parts water and 1 part paint. I just eyeballed it. So here's what it looked like after the black wash:
I liked this step because you get some subtle white peeking through and the texture looked nice! After that dried - I started to paint the veining.
You can use any sort of small brushes for this part. I honestly just grabbed some from my kids craft supplies.
I basically took a wider flat brush and drew a white line, then used a towel to feather it a bit. Then took a super thin brush and made thin lines by it. I think the thin lines really helped it look more realistic.
When that was done - I just used a matte poly to seal it. I'm not too worried about this counter since it's so small, but if you're in a higher traffic area with more water an epoxy might better to seal it!
So what do you think? Would you attempt a counter like this?
Comments