How to Replace Formica Countertops With Quartz (Quick & Simple)

so in today's video we are going to show you how to remove your boring builder from mica countertops and we're going to transform your kitchen into something beautiful with this man-made quartz top this stuff is gorgeous [Music] so for mica tops let's just talk countertops for a second because a lot of homes are made with a formica top kitchen and there's a reason for it the stuff is durable it comes in a variety of different colors and textures and glazes and you can get just about any look you want with formica and the price point is usually about 20 to 25 dollars a linear foot of counter space that's why it's used but we're going to transform this because it seems like the new normal nowadays is to have some sort of natural stone that's a bit of an oxymoron because we're going back with quartz on this job which is not natural at all it's a man-made stone and you need to understand that if you're using man-made stone in your kitchen it's been made with a resin and it does not handle heat very well so make sure you never put a hot pot on your quartz that being said let's show you how to remove this stuff and it's really quite simple again we're cutting silicone it's amazing how much silicone is used in the house all right so for the most part countertops are installed with gravity but because formica is installed on a particle board and it is not always flat it is screwed down but it's not screwed from the surface it's screwed from underneath so as long as you know where to look usually four corners a screw like this and nothing in the back corner well that was awfully nice of them gonna have to just remove a couple of drawers here in order to get my drill in we'll lean into the back here's the screw here and one on the front there we go and that is all there is to it we'll put the drawers back right away because we don't need to have access to anything when we put our cords back because it is so heavy if we've done this right and they tiled this right this countertop is now no longer attached to the cabinet and there should be a small gap between the stone and the countertop that's been covered with silicone that we've cut we should be able to just slide this right out i'm going to move the stove just a little bit get a good grip here getting a little bit more silicone in the back here giving me a bit of a fight i love a good fight i usually end up with a black eye though there we go ta-da all right there we go out with the old and in with the new so this little piece of man-made love probably about 100 pounds yeah maybe 120 now we're dealing with a lot of precision here not a lot of room for error we'll get it up here first man that is beautiful now what we're going to do is we're going to throw a couple of dabs of the sealant bond in the back corners just so that it'll have something there to hold it in place nothing needs a whole lot of help it's not going to jump off but it may slide around there we go and then i'll just lift the front and throw a little squeeze in here too you want to put that about two inches back just so it doesn't end up squeezing out gluing your door shut or something there we go and that is an installed countertop amazing how simple that is so if you're updating your kitchen and you're changing your countertops just remember you have a few options uh you've got of course your formica and there are luxury versions of formica so don't discount that it's like i said it's about 25 on the high side per linear foot of countertop we're generally speaking granite and quartz start at around the 50 to 60 range per square foot you're also paying for all the waste and offcut okay so it's not as simple as just measuring out your counter if you have any turns they're going to be cutting that out of another piece of stone and you're going to be buying all the stone that's used in the production process so keep that in mind you also have to deal with two things the man-made stuff the quartz lovely to have for ease of maintenance you don't have to use a sealer and it doesn't take any maintenance but what it does take is discipline you can't get it hot you can't put a hot pot on this because the resin will melt and it'll leave a mark the natural stone although it takes a sealer it's just a surface sealer usually applied every two or three years takes about 10 minutes not a big deal but you can put hot pots on granite and you'll never hurt that surface the other thing is with granite if you ever get a chip or a crack or any other kind of damage you can call up your granite pro from ottawa granite pro and he can come out and he can do a surface repair on site while you wait and you'll never even notice your damage ever again the guy is amazing okay so the reason we are covering stone countertops granite courts and otherwise as a diy video which is kind of strange because you can't do your own countertop in this material the reason i'm covering this is because when you go to talk to your countertop company about this kind of material there's a few things that they're not going to do for you number one they're not going to remove your old cat countertops for you without charging an arm and a leg number two they're not going to disengage your old plumbing and remove it out of the way at all most of these companies won't assume any liability dealing with the plumbing so you're going to have to be in charge of your own plumbing so you're going to have to know how to disconnect turn the water supply off remove your faucet and then reinstate all the plumbing again when you're done this can take a lot of time all right and if you don't know how to do it then it is not a diy then you're hiring three different professionals to come and work in your home and this becomes a very expensive process but the reality is this whole brand new kitchen area here including these two pieces of courts that are seamed together perfect you can't even see it unbelievable this whole project here was just around two thousand dollars and since we're going to do our own plumbing it's not a problem very affordable and since that's the new standard and some new homes today good luck trying to sell an old house with old counters because anybody who comes into your kitchen is going to see and go up guess we're going to have to find a house that's got a finished kitchen most people don't want to renovate after they just finish buying so there we go we're done talking countertops today just a quick overview all i'm going to do now is try to get this customer's plumbing back together before the weekend and if you like this kind of content and information hit the thumbs up button and if you have questions ask them below my god i love answering them for you helping you guys out and maybe at this time i'll say it okay subscribe to the channel if you haven't subscribed i haven't been asking a lot of that lately we've been having great response and really enjoying the growth of the channel youtube's been great we're just loving being here so keep the questions coming looking forward to talking to you next time [Music] you

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 1,498,714

Keywords: home renovision, renovation, bathroom renovation, reality renovision, jeff thorman, construction, diy renovations, renovations, do it yourself, diy, instructional, hrv, quart countertops, counter tops, quartz, quartz countertops

Id: uKAMyWUcG-I

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 15 2018