DIY Faux Granite Countertops: UNDER $40!

hey guys and welcome back to our YouTube channel today we're going to try out another countertop project if you've seen our videos before you'll know we try to focus we've also tried the wrist oleum countertop paint and most recently we tried a faux marble contact paper hence the reason behind the current state of our kitchen island when we remove the contact paper it actually ripped up the paint that was underneath it so we really need to fix this mess but today we're going to be painting our kitchen island to give it a dark gray granite look last time we did this we had a white base coat and we are trying to mimic a light granite look however I used a polyurethane as a top coat and it eventually yellowed over time but I've learned my lesson and today we're going to be using a poly acrylic I'm really excited to do this faux granite look again last time I had a lot of fun but I think this is gonna be even better this time around because I have a lot more colors to work with and I'm gonna go over the whole entire kitchen island so it's gonna have way more coverage than the white countertops did so materials needed first will have to have an oil-based primer we use this kills brand which was recommended to us next we'll need our base color now for that we're gonna be using these two paints this is a sample size of a bear paint and this is just a regular dollar acrylic paint that you can find in the craft section of Walmart Michaels any hobby store so you're not gonna be using a ton of paint so if you want to get one from Home Depot or Lowe's this sample size is a good bet or just these work just as fine and some additional colors to give it that granite look this is just a lighter gray color and then this is actually a metallic color I'm hoping to get some sparkle or shine into our countertop to give it kind of a realistic look we will also need some sponges which I have here to apply all of our colors you'll want a paint roller and this is a shorter one it's about a six inch one we need two foam rollers you'll have one to apply the primer and one to also apply the polycrylic at the end they won't be reusable so you definitely want at least two for this project and be prepared to throw them away at the end so two foam rollers and lastly two disposable paint trays one for your primer and one for your polycrylic the first step in this project will be sanding the existing surface I would say it's optional if you're painting existing laminate countertops but if you already have paint on top of your countertops like we do I would suggest sanding that off and getting a smooth surface to work with especially for ours it's patchy and running your hands over it's not smooth at all so sand it over so you have a smooth surface to work with [Music] I just got done with sanding the countertops and you can definitely see every project that this island has gone through now just a reminder the point of sanding is just to make sure that you have a smooth surface before I was able to like pick up the paint on these corners here and it would flake off but now it's just a smooth surface and that's what you want so our next step now we are going to apply the primer before you leave have the store mix the primer hours have been sitting in our garage for about a year from a previous project we did and it's separated quite a bit that took a while to stir up but now it looks good [Music] kote one is down so we'll wait for this to dry and then apply a second coat you can see all the patchy spots with the first coat so I'll have to apply second and possibly third coat just to make sure we have an even surface that we're working with this just finished drying so we're ready to apply the second coat [Music] alright the second coat is dry so we'll go ahead and apply the third coat now looks like three coats will do the trick and after this third coat is dry we'll be able to go in with the acrylic paint [Music] so this is the woven rollers you want to avoid this because it will leave lint behind like this all those little bumps in there it's just the lint that this woven roller left behind you can see it pretty good there especially on this edge here so that's what you want to avoid the with the foam rollers you won't get that if you do accidentally use a woven roller instead of a foam roller just go on top with a really light sandpaper and that will smooth out the surface [Music] all right so I just went over it with a 220 grit sandpaper as you can see all of those lint bubbles are gone so we have a nice smooth surface it's smooth to the touch so now we're ready for the fun part grab one of your sponge pieces and dip it into your paint dab off the excess on a paint tray or I'm just using a plastic plate the good news is you can't mess this up because granite is unique and not uniform at all start with light pressure to get a good feel of it you can practice on a piece of paper too if you have any concerns you won't see much of the granite effect until you start adding more colors but with this first coat add enough pressure so you get adequate coverage but not too much pressure that it becomes globs of paint I do that in this clip a couple of times but don't worry your next color will fix it up I'm also going to go on top of it with this solid black color just to give it a darker look and I believe I got this at Walmart for sixty cents less than a dollar now with this black color I'm doing the same thing going across the whole countertop except this time when I'm going through I'm focusing more on filling in these white areas where the primer is showing through [Music] so what I'm doing now is I have this pretty large chunk of a white area so I'm just taking pretty much the excess off of the sponge and just going really lightly so it fills in the white spots but only gives it little speckles it's not big globs like we were doing for the base coat [Music] next I'm going to go in with my second color this is a lighter bear Marquis shade it's in the color Silverstone repeat the same process with any additional colors you have this is when you'll start seeing the granite look come through after you get all of your colors down you can fine-tune your project by going back over with any of your colors to achieve the desired results [Music] what you want to avoid is areas like this you can see that the light gray here is really blotchy it just as a solid light gray color so I want to go back with my face colors really lightly and just give it a nice speckle effect and this way it looks a lot more like granite wood here's the final look of the countertop with all of the different colors on it now we're ready to go in with the poly acrylic to seal it all off now that we have our beautiful faux granite look and we've also gone on top with a coat of polycrylic we're going to go ahead now with a really light sandpaper 220 grit and just lightly sand out the surface so that is smooth to the touch and then we'll go ahead again on top and add at least two more coats of polycrylic [Music] I wanted to take the time to slow this part down in real time to show you how I'm applying the polycrylic I think the polycrylic is probably one of the most important parts of this project since its sealing off what you had just made and you want to make sure you apply it really well so what I did is I used the foam roller poured my poly acrylic into this tray and I'm putting quite a bit on my brush as I was laying it it was absorbing quite a bit of it so I had to put more on my foam roller quite often but it was really dry absorbing it really fast and I actually ended up doing about five or six coats of the polycrylic on top of this counter top and I'm just trying to apply even pressure throughout the counter top going all the way across and when I got to the end here and I stood back and looked at the counter top I noticed I could see streaks from where each of my lines finished if that makes sense so what I did is I went back and just tried to apply even pressure throughout the whole counter top and each time was a little different when I'm doing it here I'm going pretty hard trying to just get the same even pressure throughout the whole thing and other times it was better to just apply a really light pressure or even no pressure at all so just keep an eye out if you see streaks be sure to go back over it and see what looks best whether that's going over hard or soft just make sure you're getting rid of those streaks [Music] you will sand after each coat of your polycrylic except for the last and final coat and after you've given everything enough time to dry this is going to be your finished product let's go over prices for this project The Kills primer goes for nine dollars those eight ounce Behr marquee sample containers run for four dollars a piece but remember you can use any acrylic paint this craft smart paint was 80 cents I didn't show this in the video but we also use this folk art metallic silver paint to give our faux granite kind of a shine or Sparkle effect and this goes for $2 next is the foam rollers in the frame you can get a frame with one roller for about five dollars and then the additional packs can run anywhere from 11 dollars for a 5 pack or just 5 dollars for a 2 pack a bundle of these small craft sponges is about five dollars or you can get a larger sponge and cut it up into small pieces the polycrylic will run you about ten dollars and then the sandpaper is four dollars for six sheets of 220 grit sandpaper and lastly for paint trays you can pick up a three pack for three dollars prices vary and depending on what supplies you already have and what paints you decide to get this project can vary anywhere from twenty to forty dollars thank you so much for watching and I really hope you enjoyed this youtube video if you haven't already please subscribe to our channel and give this video a thumbs up

Channel: brigtoria

Views: 519,185

Keywords: DIY, Kitchen renovation, kitchen, faux granite, granite, kitchen countertops, faux granite countertops, granite countertops, lowes, home depot, michaels, hobby lobby, grey granite, gray granite, DIY renovations

Id: bzrOidoWZdM

Length: 19min 21sec (1161 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2019