Faux Marble Countertops

Here's a brief little showing of how I painted my laminate countertops to look like marble for under $85.

Supplies:

Big paint brush (I got a 4" from Lowes's for $10.98)
Plastic drop clothes (@ Lowe's $2.98/ea I got 2)
2 boxes of glaze coat (@ Lowe's $22.98/ea)
6 multisurface acrylic paints (@Michaels $1.69/ea, will show colors later)
Sponge (@ Michaels $3.99)
2" foam brush (@ Michaels $0.99, I only used this to catch drips)
Turkey feather (@ Michaels $2.19 came in a pack of 2, used this for veining)
2 pint sized mixing buckets (@ Sutherlands $1.99/ea, forgot to get this while I was at Lowe's)

I'm in process of fixing up the kitchen so don't mind the missing backsplash.

The first thing I did was scrape the countertops to make sure all the grime and stuff was off of it, As you can see I'll be painting over this speckled blue laminate counter.

There were also some holes that were drilled into the laminate in the back corner (not sure why), so I patched those up with some wall putty...nothing fancy, but it's getting covered up anyway.

After scraping and wiping down the counters I applied 2 coats of a white primer. I also removed the sink because the epoxy I'm using (glaze coat) once it's cured there would be no replacing the sink without cracking everything. So I'm sinkless for about 4 days.

I also covered up my cabinets under the countertops with painters tape and the plastic draping. I would STRONGLY recommend this because it gets messy!

Here are the paints and supplies I used (minus the big 4" brush and an old hand towel). The paint is Folk Art brand. (Vintage White, Camel, Coffee Latte, Bark Brown, Medium Gray, and I didn't end up using the black on the end)

So I watched a ton of tutorials and every technique was different. I feel like I tried most of them. So I started out mixing the paints in separate containers that were labeled (1-6 so I didn't get them mixed up). I mixed 1 part paint to 3 parts water, in my opinion...this was way too watered down. But I used my 4" brush to apply all the colors accept white and black in a diagonal pattern.

It reminded me of a watercolor rainbow...not the look I was going for. So I set down the brush and picked up the sponge. I also started putting the paints on a paper plate and dabbing them on since the watered down paints were SUPER watery (don't worry I used them in the end).

I tried another technique I watched where you get your hands wet and splatter water on top of the paint. It was cool but I felt like for a granite look it would be more appropriate. All I can say is the more dabbing and blotting I did, the more colors on top of colors I added...the more it appeared like stone.

I did that smaller section first as a "test section" turned out being my favorite and now wishing I would have done each step at the same time over all of the counters to make it look more cohesive. Just a little tip you pick up as you go, I'll know for next time. Remember those super watered down colors I was telling you about? Once I got the general shape of the large veins, I used the watery colors and a bunch of white to make them blend better so I didn't have a sharp edge where the color changed.

Now the veining was tricky. I was going off of a picture that I liked (mine turned out nothing like it though) and it had a lot of black, gray and bronze colored veins. I ended up going with just white. More subtle but I was already taking a huge leap of faith just painting the countertops...no need to push my luck. This is where the feather came in. I used the white and watered it down (1:1 ratio) and used the end of the feather and a little bit of the side of the feather. I read that if you used your left hand if you are really right handed that they turn out more realistic, I didn't find this to work for me.

I only let them dry for about an hour then I mixed my first batch of glaze. You have to mix for a total of 12 minutes so let's hope your arm isn't tired from the last 8 hours of dabbing. I used a foam roller brush that I had out in the garage to apply the glaze. You have to work pretty fast to get it covered because it's self leveling and you'll end up with roller marks if you're not careful. You have about 10 minutes to work with it once it's mixed. My counters used both boxes and I really didn't have much left over.

And the 3 day drying countdown begins.

I removed my painters tape and plastic draping after about 3 hours from putting the glaze on. I also checked on it about every 30 minutes from when I initially put on the glaze and used my foam brush to wipe off the drips under the ledge of the counter.

After about 12 hours from when I put the glaze on it's still pretty tacky.

24 hours post glaze application they feel dry, I did move the stove back into place but still going to wait the recommended 3 days before putting the sink back in.

Will check back later once the sink is back in for a final before and after photo.

The glaze dried pretty good, I was a little nervous putting the sink back in but seems to be pretty rock hard. I'm happy I decided to go with this top coat instead of another polyurethane. That's way too much work to only have a thin coat on top.