My husband and I have disliked our white laminate counters since we moved into this house 8 years ago. The laminate itself is not the problem, rather it's the fact that it's ALL WHITE. In combination with the white cabinets it was just a bit too much. The counters also stained very easily and the tiniest crumbs were glaringly obvious.
Our laminate counters were in decent shape and we decided they'd be great candidates for one of those paint your countertop approaches.
About nine months ago we painted our counter tops using the Spreadstone Mineral Select Counter top Kit in the color Volcanic Stone. The kit is stated to cover 30-40 sq. ft of counter top. Since our kitchen area was at the high end of this range I decided to play it safe and ordered two kits during their holiday sale (The cost per kit was $97 when I ordered in December of 2014). It looks like right now they are running another sale making the cost of each kit $125 vs the current retail price of $199.
We ordered the kit and then procrastinated for over a year before taking the plunge and painting the counter tops. We removed our sink, but after the fact I don't think that step was necessary. It took us a weekend to do (starting Friday evening and finishing Sunday), but it was the most fun and relaxing home improvement project I've ever done. Most of the time was spent just waiting the specified amount of time before putting on the next layer. So easy! Our renovation involved a lot of time for beer drinking and relaxing.
The end result looked very black until we put our black appliances back in place. Now I'd say the counter top has a dark bluish undertone. The mineral select kit contains small flecks of metal which add some shiny interest to the final product and also a bit of texture to the surface. I've seen the final texture described elsewhere as 'orange peel', that's not exactly spot-on but is a close enough description. I can still write and the kids do homework and art on the counter with no issues - so the texture is not too rough.
We waited about a week after the painting to return to full use of our counter-tops. It's been almost nine months and they are holding up very well. There was one spot on the top-corner of an edge that chipped off, but I had kept the remaining paint and just dabbed some on with my finger. I can't even find that spot now and there have been no other chips.
We ended up using only one of the kits and my sister-in-law liked our final result so much that she bought the remaining kit from us and fixed up her mustard yellow counter tops.
I'm very pleased with our kitchen and how well the counter tops are holding up. For $97 I am exceptionally happy! I intended this solution to be a stop-gap measure until we could do the full counter top replacement that we desire, but now I no longer want a change. I'm going to be satisfied with these counters as long as they last. I am under no illusions that this paint job will last a lifetime, but if things start chipping or peeling we will be no worse off than we were initially (Stuck with ugly counters).
