Giani Granite Counter tops round 2

Hey everyone, I hope you had a great week!  We are preparing for a busy weekend.  A visit with family, whom I haven't seen in years and a trip to the fair with new friends.  But I wanted to get these pictures up and talk to you about my counter tops. Many of you have been asking about them :)


A while back I was offered the chance to try out Giani Granite counter top paint.  My counter tops were less than ideal, you know that old fake butcher block look that was oh so popular in the early 80's.  So I decided to give it a try, nothing could be worse than what I already had, I had nothing to lose.  
 


The first time around went smoothly, you can see the before pictures and read about it here.  But after about a year or so, a few areas started to chip and peel.  Looking a little like this.

Sad.


Mostly in the heavily used areas only, and around the edges.  So I called the company and told them about my problem.  They were more than happy to send along a new kit including a more industrial top coat.  They were having problems with their old one, so they reformulated it and made it more durable.
 
And then, round two of painting my counter tops!  Good times....






Currently we do not have new counter tops in the budget, so this has been a satisfactory substitute for the real thing.

I accessed my creative spirit and tried my best to make this look something like marble.  And I believe I did pretty darn good job.  This is a cheap alternative for those of you out there with imperfect counters.  

 You can find the answers to any questions you have about this paint on their website.  And their facebook page has some great before/after photos.

Happy Weekend!!

Kitchen tour


About 2 years ago we finished our kitchen remodel.  I finally got around to styling it and taking some photos this weekend. 

Let's start with what you see when you walk in the back door.  This area is where we drop our bags, shoes and such.  The bench is a curbside find in my neighborhood.  I fixed it up and now it is a functional piece of furniture.

  

We had this shelf custom made and the hooks are from Hobby Lobby.



The cabinets are painted battenburg, walls are storm cloud grey,
 by Benjamin Moore.







 We worked very hard and on a ridiculously tight budget to create a kitchen we love.  Every thing together cost a little over $2,000.

Here is the before.
 Let's see a side by side comparison, shall we?









We had the bamboo flooring installed, but everything else was DIY.  You can find The glass cabinet tutorial here.

I painted our counter top (twice!) with Giani Granite Paint.  I will share more about that in another post this week.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

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