Kitchen Counter Transformation
How to transform a Formica kitchen counter to granite in two days.
I promised I would share everything we did to our house to get it ready to sell. I haven’t been able to give you all the details in a succession of posts as I had originally envisioned as the moving process is time consuming and just a tad bit stressful.
However, now that we have moved and the process is behind us. Here is a post detailing how we staged and then sold the house in 10 days.
As you probably know, when selling a house the location is usually one of the biggest features. After that, kitchens and bathrooms rate pretty high.
When Ed and I bought our house 22 years ago, the builder had already put in oak kitchen cabinets and Formica counters. We didn’t have a choice unless we wanted to pay to rip everything out and have new cabinets and a kitchen counter installed. That was not in our budget. We lived with the natural oak cabinets for awhile, but as you know I ended up painting them white.
Over the years, I even painted them a second time to a whiter white and tweaked the decor from time to time, but the Formica counters stayed. Since they were a neutral light beige and in good shape we were content with them, until it came time to sell and our Realtor friends told us we needed to have granite to give the kitchen a more upscale and updated look.
Picking out slabs of granite, having templates made, and living without countertops for a few weeks while the granite is cut then installed, can take weeks or longer. Depending on the quality of the granite and square footage of the counters, it can also get very expensive. None of this could be done in our timeframe and budget.
Then one of our friends told us to check out Granite Transformations. He had recommended them to many clients and could not say enough good things about them. We decided to check the company out and were quite pleased with what they offered.
If you are not familiar with what Granite Transformations does, in a nutshell, they make engineered countertops that are 95% granite mixed with a composite that can be installed directly over your existing counters. The process creates less waste, takes less time to make and install, and limits the time you lose the use of your kitchen. We decided to go with them to update the counters.
This is not a sponsored post. We paid for the new countertops ourselves and could not be happier with the results.
After I chose to go with granite in the color Perla di Modena, a template maker came to the house to make templates for each counter and the island. He made them out of cardboard and hot glue.
It took him about an hour and a half.
After a few days, we got a call that the countertops were made and ready to be installed. The day the installers came was the only day I didn’t have access to the kitchen.
The only thing we needed to do before they came was unhook the kitchen faucet and remove the sink. It took them about 8 hours to install 3 countertops. The longest counter is in an L-shape and has one seam.
Even though I know where it is, I still can’t find it as it is invisible. On my Formica counters you could see every seam.
The new counters fit perfectly over the existing counters and are glued into place. I didn’t have to do anything to the existing tile backsplash.
They are shiny and cold to the touch since they are real granite. You can do anything on them that you can do on a granite countertop. Plus, if anything goes wrong with the countertop over the next 10 years, the fix is covered.
We are very pleased with the updated look and also at how nice our local franchise was to work with right from my initial call. This includes the sales guy who came to the house to show me the different types of quartz, granite and recycled glass, the template maker, and then the installers. It was all complete in less than 10 days and there were only 8 hours when I couldn’t use the kitchen.
We then put the sink and Delta Touch 2 O faucet back into place. The transformation was complete.
Kitchen Countertop Staging Ideas:
- Declutter the counters by removing the majority of countertop appliances. Doing this allows the buyer to see the counters they are buying, not the appliances which will be going with you.
- Place a cookbook on a stand to suggest that the kitchen is perfect for cooking and baking.
- Place a plant or a vase of fresh flowers on the counter.
- Bake something yummy and place it on a pretty cake stand.
Kitchen Counter Transformation Option
Now that we have moved I wanted to share another kitchen counter transformation with you that is very budget friendly. The kitchen in our new house has Formica counters.
I wanted to use Granite Transformations again, but there wasn’t an installer anywhere near us.
Instead I painted them to look like Carrara Marble. They came out fabulous. Here is the link to the post:
How to Paint a Kitchen Counter to Look Like Carrara Marble
More Home Decorating Ideas
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