Hello all! It’s been a while since we posted any renovation-related updates, and I owe you guys a whole bunch of them. The rest of our upstairs is close to finished, I posted a teaser of some kitchen updates that we had to race to finish before hosting Christmas brunch, and we have been installing flooring in our entire downstairs like mad for the last four days. I promise, we’ll get to all of that soon, but today, I figured I’d post about our kitchen update. Here’s a link to our first round of updates, in case you need a refresher.
I agreed to host Christmas brunch for my dad’s side of the family just after Thanksgiving. I don’t usually, but circumstances led to that decision, and I love to cook, so I happily volunteered our house. Our house responded in its usual fashion, by revolting, this time via a broken garbage disposal (See this post for other examples of our house rebelling). This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I had already bought a new sink for our kitchen, and as long as we were going to mess around with the plumbing by replacing the garbage disposal, we might as well just replace the sink too, right? Except I was planning on resurfacing the counters before we replaced the sink. And I was planning on replacing the backsplash before I resurfaced the counter tops. So, because I am a crazy person, I started demolishing my backsplash on December 1st, knowing full well I only had 24 days to get all of my kitchen’s shit back together.
Luckily, this story has a happy ending, and both luck and time were on our side. We already had the backsplash tile in our possession, leftover white penny tile from the upstairs shower. The only thing we had to order was the concrete we used to resurface the counters (Ardex Feather Finish
We ended up starting on the counters first because they take the most time. We resurfaced them using Ardex feather finish, which is normally used to level uneven subfloors before laying new carpet, wood, or tile. There are a ton of DIY blog posts dedicated to this process, so I’ll simply direct you to the one most similar to my own experience (read it here at Young House Love), and then tell you what I did that was a little different. They really went ham on the supplies, but really all you need is a mixing bucket, a small trowel or putty knife and a pretty large one (the bigger it is, the easier it is to keep the counters flat and level), 80 grit sandpaper and 220 grit sandpaper, a level, a sealer of your choice, and of course, your Ardex. Ardex is easy to play around with when it comes to consistency. You’ll want to mix it in small batches and keep it a little wetter than you think you need, because otherwise it’s a little too dry by the end of the batch.
We started by putting on a pretty thick layer the first time around. In doing this, I made absolutely sure that I covered the laminate, even after the first round of sanding. We sanded between each coat with 80 grit sandpaper to help keep things smooth and as level as possible. Every coat after the first, we got out the level and set it on the counter to find any low spots that needed to be filled in. The longer your tool of choice for applying the Ardex, the less this will be an issue for you, as a longer flat surface just tends to help keep everything pretty flat. Applying the Ardex is a lot like applying drywall mud, just over an entire surface instead of at the seams, so if you’re passable at that, Ardex shouldn’t be a stretch for you.
We ended up applying 4 total coats, the last one a more soupy consistency to really fill in any lingering low spots. After your last coat, DO NOT touch it with 80 grit sandpaper. It’ll leave big gouges that are hard to buff out. Just sand with 220 grit until nice and smooth. Then seal with your sealer of choice. We followed the example of John and Sherry of Young House Love and used 2 coats of a concrete impregnator
We tiled the backsplash after the 2nd coat of Ardex, which was pretty quick since our backsplash is only 9 feet long and the penny tile comes in sheets. After the third coat of Ardex, we grouted the backsplash. Then, after cleaning up any thinset or grout leftover by the tiling process, we did the final coat of the Ardex. This compressed our timeline quite a bit, and also was nice because any grout that dripped onto the counters could simply be sanded away and covered over by the next coat of Ardex.
After that, everything was pretty simple. We just installed the new sink, using a clear silicone caulk around the edges, replaced the garbage disposal, and caulked the edges of the counters and tile. We finished up just in time to clean up and prep brunch, and the whole project, including the new sink set us back less than $400 including the garbage disposal (we did have extra tile and thinset, plus tools on hand though).
Did I mention we also got a new (to us) dishwasher and stove? I’ll share more about how I scored a crazy good deal on both of those appliances ($350 for both!) in another post.