LESLIE: Alright, Kendra from Missouri, welcome to The Money Pit. How can we help you?
KENDRA: Hi. I’m updating my kitchen.
LESLIE: OK.
KENDRA: And I have done all of the appliances; you know, disposal; dishwasher, and I put a new sink in. The kitchen, on the whole, is very 70s with yellow; yellow countertops. And my budget is running thin and I was wanting to know is there anything I can do with that countertop, as far as painting it, that will hold up to water and wear for a little while.
LESLIE: Well, what you can do that’s relatively inexpensive is you can relaminate those countertops and you can get pretty much any design, color, style, or look available. There’s a company called Lamin-Art and they make laminate countertops – well, they make the laminate that goes on top of your existing countertop or any prefabricated countertop may have this on it. And if you do a web search for Lamin-Art, you can find a local dealer and they have about, I would say, 100 different choices. And of course, each choice varies in price range, depending on what the look is. But you can easily relaminate your countertop.
KENDRA: Oh, alright.
LESLIE: And you can put it right on top. With just some mild scuffing of the original counter and a good contact adhesive, you can put the new one right on top. But once you adhere it, it’ll really stick. So you have to make sure that as you put it on, you’re very cautious. Work with someone else or if you have to develop like a rolling system, you can use some dowels to create a roller to slide it to get it in place and then pull those out and stick it down.
KENDRA: OK, so that’s better than any paint or epoxy.
LESLIE: I wouldn’t paint a countertop.
TOM: You can’t paint Formica countertops; just can’t do it. You know the other thing that you could do is you could consider ceramic tiling that.
KENDRA: Oh, OK.
TOM: And you could use that countertop as the base and that’s easy to do, too, and that’s a fun project. And you know, use ceramic tile. But I’ll give you this trick, though. If you’re going to use ceramic tile, use an epoxy grout. It’s a different type of grout and it doesn’t absorb stains, so it’ll look a lot nicer over the long haul.
KENDRA: OK, great. I appreciate that.
TOM: You’re welcome. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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