Low Cost Kitchen Makeovers Part 2

Our former kitchen had a lot of “phases” in our ten years there. This is part 2 of some of our low cost makeovers. Part 1 covered tin ceiling backsplash and kraft paper countertops. This part 2 shows you our concrete island countertop and then granite counters.

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We have a close friend who is a producer for an National Association who was hired to shoot several video segments for the DIY channel’s website. One of them was on how to make concrete countertops.

In the course of this conversation he mentioned he didn’t have a location to shoot this particular skill. He couldn’t find anyone willing to do it- that man knows us well! We’re up for anything around here… It was a fun video to make. Yes, that is my sweet husband doing all the work. A fun few days of a small camera crew invasion and we all had a great time. In the end it looked like this:

Not bad, right?

Fast forward a few years. It was time to do something about the kraft paper countertops. We hadn’t ever sealed them again after putting them in, and the edges around the sink were needing some attention. We never really got around to caulking around the sink either…. it didn’t look bad, it just would have been a bit more durable if we had.

So my husband decided to sand them a bit and then reseal…. well, that didn’t really go so well. He got aggravated and ripped it all off. Of course that looked horrible.

Rather than spend the time to get it all off and start over, my friend recommend I call her friend who owns a Granite store. We have (if I remember correctly) 84 feet of countertop. For those of you that may not understand- that is a RIDICULOUS amount of counter space and the reason my kitchen is always a mess. WAY too much flat space in there to just drop stuff- also not conducive to a low cost on replacing them.

Gratefully, we lucked out. Not sure how, we just did. We managed to get a steal of a price (the bathroom guy even told me so when he still liked me) and were able to replace everything with a granite called Baltic Brown. It’s pretty common which helps the cost AND if we ever have to replace something, it should be easy to match.

I opted to leave an extra 12 inches or so on the end of the peninsula section of the counter. I plan on building a bookshelf under there one day when I can trust those bad babies not to tear everything off of it. :o)

The counters were installed while I was in Florida at a conference (lucky me!) and I came home to the cleanest kitchen I had ever seen. The only sad part- I had to lose my wonderful amazing black granite sink I loved so much. The cost of change I suppose… That was Jan. Then in Feb, hubby and I spent a few days taking out the tin ceiling look tiles and installing new self-stick stainless steel look subway tiles. Boy did that make a difference!

Those funny painted edges were my concern they might look odd once the tiles were installed. I needed have worried and it was completely unnecessary.

That’s pretty much it. I want to try a few more things. Maybe some faux stone around the bottom of the island.. and of course that bookshelf… this house is kind of like life- always a work in progress.