James and I strongly disliked our bathroom counter tops. We initially thought, easy fix! They sell double sink countertops at Home Depot! James had replaced the countertop in our first floor bathroom, and it was fairly straightforward. But to our dismay, our vanity upstairs was NOT standard size. We think they used a kitchen cabinet, which are deeper than bathroom vanities by about 2-3 inches. Who knew?

Though we searched, we could not find a countertop that would fit our vanity. We thought about cutting off the back of the vanity to make it 2-3 inches smaller. But ultimately we decided there are too many drawers that would also have to be cut, too much hardware and not to mention moving the plumbing.  We thought about getting a whole new vanity, but man, that was expensive! So, I thought “why don’t I paint it!?”

*This post contains affiliate links. That means, I may receive a commission for some of the links in this post- at no cost to you. See our Disclaimer page for details*

If you have hung around A Girl and a Kiwi for a while, you know I will try to paint anything at least once. I was definitely skeptical after our last failed spray painting project. But I figured if this didn’t turn out, oh well, we are out $60 bucks and we are in for a new vanity. At least I tried.

Here’s a look at our vanity before.

Related: Paint Tips & Tricks

Lovely, faux leather beige. Anything would be better.

Here’s what you will need:

• Rustoleum Stone Spray Paint
• Painters tape
• Drop clothes and plastic bags
• Sandpaper
• Epoxy kit and supplies (make sure you pull out the epoxy instructions before you leave the store. Our kit did not include many of the supplies we needed like stir sticks, gloves, foam paint brush, notched trowel, disposal mixing bowls, etc.
• Clear waterproof sealant (similar to this)

First, I lightly sanded the countertop with a fine grit sandpaper. Then I cleaned and dried the countertop with just your basic bathroom cleaner. Next, protect the rest of the bathroom. I learned my lesson from our last spray painting project – don’t rush the taping of the drop cloths! So I taped up the whole bathroom to protect it from overspray.

After taping, it was finally time for the fun part!! Spray painting! I used Rustoleum Stone Spray paint in gray stone. I made sure to keep moving the spray in a continuous, circular pattern. Don’t try and get it covered in one coat! I let the first coat dry for about 30-40 minutes, and then after the second coat I let that dry a bit longer, maybe 1-2 hours. As the paint dries, it kind of pulls away from itself, so you likely will need more than two coats. Overall, I think I used 3 or 4 bottles of spray paint.

Related: DIY Spray Paint Tub

PRO TIP 1: Move the spray paint bottle in a continuous, circular patter. Be careful not to hover in one spot too long, or you will get bubbling and too much accumulation of the spray paint. You can see it in the picture below in the edge. We had to redo this part.

Once we were happy with the paint coverage, we let the spray paint dry for a day or two. Then it was time for the epoxy! The feel of this spray paint is rough, like sandpaper, so we definitely wanted to smooth it out to give it that granite-like look. I had never worked with epoxy before, but it wasn’t that hard and I actually thought it was pretty fun!

PRO TIP 2: If you look close at our vanity, you can see some beige flecks which I am pretty sure is our original countertop color peeking through. Because our countertop was a natural looking color, I didn’t mind and I actually think it adds another dimension and lightness to the countertop. But if you have a countertop that you want to cover completely, I suggest priming it with a similar color to the spray paint.

Related: DIY Stenciling Floors

I didn’t take any pictures during the epoxy process because it was all hands on deck once the epoxy was ready (it hardens quickly). James and I did it together and it went very quickly. I’m not going to explain how we did, because I think it’s really important to follow the epoxy kit instructions EXACTLY. That’s what we did.

I will say that we had no idea how much we needed, and we definitely mixed way more than we needed. I would suggest mixing in smaller portions, and you can always make more if needed. I bought a quart kit, and mixed over 75% of the bottle, but I think I probably only used 25% of the bottle. Oh well, you live and you learn!

The epoxy takes several days to completely cure. Once cured, we removed all the drop clothes and tape around the sink. Unfortunately, we didn’t think to remove the tape from the sink BEFORE we epoxied. We wanted to protect the sink from the epoxy, so we didn’t think to remove it first! BUT the epoxy hardened around the tape, making it very difficult to remove. James used a knife to cut around the sink. If you look close, you can still see a bit of green painter tap around the sink…. But from height distance you can’t really tell.

Because we had to cut out the tape and consequently part of the epoxy, we had a small gap between the epoxy and the sink. This allowed water splashed from the sink to get under the epoxy and soften our paint! Ugh. Thankfully once dried, it hardened again and it was a quick fix. James used a clear waterproof sealant to seal around the sinks. You can hardly tell. Problem solved! If we were to do this again, we would remove the tape before doing the epoxy.

So with out further a-do! Here is our new and improved countertops! One more time, here is the BEFORE:

AND HERE IS THE AFTER!

Overall, we are very happy with how this project turned out! For less than $70, we got “new” countertops! We love how it looks, and it really has updated our bathroom. I am so thankful this project turned out better than our last DIY project! What do you think? Something you would try? Let us know in the comments below.

Update April 2020

Update: Whew! This post sure has gotten a lot of traction! We have been living with these countertops now for about a year. And we still love them! But I wanted to point out a few things…

1. They show dirt and water spots easily! I find myself wiping them down a lot.
2. One area where I had a little vitamin C serum resting seemed to penetrate the epoxy and it’s stained now. Thankfully it’s hidden behind my sink.
3. As a few have pointed out, this is not a “permanent” solution. And to that, I would say, no, it’s probably not. We couldn’t afford new custom counter tops for our odd-sized vanity. If our vanity was standard size, we probably would have bought a new countertop from Home Depot and called it a day! If we had the money, we would have re-done the whole bathroom! But for our situation, a $70 “fix” was just what we needed to update our space to make it more live-able. I couldn’t stand looking at those nasty cream colored counter tops anymore.
4. And as always, this blog is to show you what we did and how we did it! It’s not meant to be an instructional manual and we can never guarantee your results will be similar to our results. I hope you got some inspiration from this post.

Thanks for reading!

Create On,

*This post contains affiliate links. That means, I may receive a commission for some of the links in this post- at no cost to you. See our Disclaimer page for details*