removing and replacing a contact paper countertop

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If you've been following my blog for a while you'll probably know that I covered my old kitchen counters in d-c fix contact paper about eighteen months ago. It's still by far one of my most popular posts and I constantly get questions about it's durability and whether I'm still happy with it, and the answer was always a resounding YES! Honestly, in the eighteen months it was in place it took a lot of abuse, I mean, as far as I was concerned it was an interim measure and I really did absolutely nothing to try and protect it. Water was spilled on it (and left to sit), hot things were placed on it, my "coffee station" which is basically a little tray on pointy legs was dragged across it repeatedly, and yet....nothing. It held up to everything I could throw at it with no lifting, scratching or bubbling. In fact, the only tiny piece of damage it showed was from when my husband dropped superglue on it and tried to scratch it off with a knife, and even that was minimal!

So, the time finally came to replace our kitchen tiles, and as the chipping off of the backsplash lifted the edges of the contact paper it was time to remove it. All along I had thought that this would be the perfect time to replace our counters as well, but when it came to it....well, I was totally happy with the contact paper, so why change it? I mean, a brand new shiny solid wood counter would be lovely, but was I willing to spend nearly a grand on it when I had such a fantastic alternative? No sir, no I was not.

So I contacted the lovely people at d-c fix (they had gotten in touch last year offering to supply me with more paper if I ever had a suitable project) and I got them to send me a roll of their grey marble paper. I was absolutely delighted to discover that they do many patterns in a wider roll now, which meant I could cover my counters horizontally rather than vertically, meaning way less join points and consequently a much more seamless finish.

I'll leave an affiliate link for this product at the bottom of this post ;)

I had loved the more dramatic black vein through the paper I had previously, but I'm liking the more pared back feeling I've got in the kitchen now with the light grey floor and white subway tile backsplash, so I thought a lighter pattern would really compliment that. I definitely wanted to stick with the marble pattern, mostly because I love it, but also because I think the pattern really helps hide any joins in the paper and gives it that seamless look.

So first, we had the fun job of removing the old paper, and after all the questions I've gotten about whether it really doesn't do any damage I was eager to see just how this would go. I gathered my crack demolition team and set to work....

It was really stuck on there! But once you get it moving it came off easily. We didn't have to use any scrapers or tools and it took about twenty minutes to uncover the whole thing. The d-c fix website does suggest you blast it with a hairdryer to aid removal but I didn't feel like we needed to do that.

And just to clear up any "will it damage what's underneath" questions, may I present to you a photo of some paint splashes that I was too lazy to remove before I covered the counter. As you can see they are completely unharmed after removing the paper....and I was able to scrape these off with a knife in seconds afterwards! So honestly I couldn't see this stuff doing any damage to any surface. And there was absolutely zero adhesive left behind anywhere either. I don't know how this stuff sticks, but it didn't leave so much as a residue that needed to be wiped. 

Not a terrible counter by any means, but it still had to go!

The process of applying the new paper was exactly the same as before, and you can find the tutorial here. I cut the pieces to size, peeled back a small section of the backing at a time and started to stick the paper down, smoothing out bubbles as I went with a credit card. If you find any when you're finished you can poke a tiny hole in it with a pin and remove the air that way, but getting it right while you are doing it is really preferable. The paper can be lifted and re-done many times so don't worry if you get a lot of bubbles at any point, just peel the paper up past that point and lay it back down, being more careful to work the air out as you go.

I left a small edge where the paper met the wall/any edges, and went back over that with a craft knife at the end, trimming off the excess. As the roll was so wide this time, technically I could have done the whole thing in two pieces, and I did try, but I found it much too difficult to get a good finish around the cooker and sink this way, so I ended up using more than one piece for each counter, but I still ended up with a hell of a lot less in the way of joins than I did the last time I did this.

And that was that, two hours after I started I had brand new marble counters once more, and I'm loving them! I think the lighter colour really compliments the light grey in the floor now, and I' sure I'll be happy with them for the next two years at least!

If you liked this you might also like:

painted shower grout

painted floor tiles

painted backsplash

€200 one week kitchen makeover

contact paper marble countertops

my new kitchen tiles!!!!

Yes, finally, the new kitchen tiles are in! They've been in for a few weeks actually but I've been too busy enjoying them to blog about it. That and the fact that it's never been clean enough to take photos #reallife

new kitchen tile...it's happening

It's happening. The eyeball-assaulting tile is no more.

It's taken two weeks so far. Two weeks of cement dust, having our fridge in the hall and having to put a bloody bra on every day inside my own damn house while we have guys working on it but it will be worth it!

I must admit I'm a bit pissed off at how long it's taking. I thought it'd be a day of removing the old tile, then a day or two to lay the new ones and stick the new skirting on, and in total that is all it will add up to....if the goddamn builders would stick around for more than an hour at a time to finish the damn thing!!! Now, they assure me that it's because they can only do a section at a time as they have to let the adhesive dry before standing on it, but I'm calling bullshit on that. Other jobs is what's stopping them spending a full day here. The boom is on it's way back guys, mark my words!

We currently have a finished floor, but the backsplash is still in bits and the skirting is still missing with no set day for it to be finished so I may kill somebody yet. The guys seem to have realised this as they've switched to calling Gavin. Smart move.

Note to builders: I have zero time for your shit right now. Zero time. And if you keep looking at me like I'm crazy for the things I'm asking for or make one more decision without actually asking me first I'm going to vent my pregnant lady super-rage all over you. 

So it's not exactly the quick makeover I thought I'd get by actually paying someone else to do it, but it is happening, and I know it'll be great when it's finished. It's already a million times better.

So what did we pick? If you read my previous post about choosing flooring for in here you'll know that I really, really wanted a wood floor in here, and I had brought home a lot of samples before settling on a lovely dark-toned matte wood effect laminate. However, this decision was based on the assumption that we would be re-doing the entire ground floor, not just the kitchen and utility. You see, we currently have a solid wood floor in the living room and hall, and while it isn't the colour I would choose that's fix-able, but we were told that the gaps that have opened up between some of the boards weren't. We were basically told that there wasn't anything that could be done with these gaps, and they really bother me because a LOT of dirt gets trapped in them, and some of them are huge!!!! So we thought the whole thing had to go, and we were planning to replace it all with a nice, affordable laminate. Not my dream floor of course, but we don't plan on being in this house forever so we couldn't justify the expense of a better wood floor, even if we could afford it. 

So we were all ready to go, believing our builder, when I thought, "you know what? I'll just quickly google how to diy fix a wood floor". Spoiler alert, it can be done folks, and easily. So obviously we weren't then going to chuck out a great quality floor to replace it with a pretty crappy one, and consequently I couldn't put laminate in the kitchen, cos it wouldn't match. So the decision was effectively made for me, tile it was!

And after many visits to all the tile emporiums Limerick has to offer I realised that they were all very expensive and I am basically poor. Thankfully I finally found "World of Tiles" and they had a really good selection in my price range. (not an ad or anything by the way, just my genuine experience) I chose a nice rectangular, cement-y looking tile called "Phoenix Gris" and got a light grey grout to match. I'm really happy with it, and I can't wait to show you the finished product....if I don't murder the lads installing it before it ever gets to that stage.

out, damned tile!

The time is almost upon us friends, we are almost at the point where we can afford to replace the tiles in the kitchen. My little paint job has served me well, and it's made the tiles so much easier to live with for the past year, but it was always a stop-gap and the end is nigh people, the end is very fricking nigh.

€200/one week kitchen makeover-6 month update!

Hola amigos, I'm finally back with the second installment of the update on how my cheaper than cheap kitchen makeover is holding up six months down the line (you can find the first installment here) Woo-fricking-hoo!!!!

I have two small children and therefore no social life. I am easily excited.

painted tile floor-six months later

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Guys. It's time. 

The other day somebody asked me how my kitchen tiles were holding up and I realised that somewhere in between picking food off the carpet, playing mind-numbingly endless games of "dollies" and answering innumerable questions about such diverse topics as "why isn't there a toy library?" and "how do babies get out of your belly?", more than six freaking months had passed without me noticing!!!

So, it's definitely time for an update. As you might remember, back in August we finally bit the bullet and painted our ugly kitchen floor tiles. (You can read the original post here). 

We didn't have the money to replace them and I had spent months reading blog posts that told me it could be done so we thought "what do we have to lose?!" and went for it.....

the ultimate "new kitchen counter" cheat!

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We've reached the end of the kitchen tutorials now, and I think I've saved one of the best till last. I say best, because this project genuinely surprised me with how easy and effective it was!

I had debated for a long time  over what I was going to do with the counters. What I originally wanted was solid wood butcher block, like we have on the island, and we probably could have afforded it at the time if we installed it ourselves, but the problem was that I hadn't settled on what my idea of the ideal kitchen was. We knew that we would be changing things down the line when we had the money, so it seemed foolish to rip out the old counters to install the ones we wanted now, when we would probably have to rip it all out again next year when we were doing the full renovation.

** update!!! If you'd like to see how my counters are holding up 18 months later you can find that post here

painted tile backsplash-cover those ugly tiles!

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So here we are, another week, another kitchen post, but there's just one more after this and then I'm done, promise! I'm ready to be done with this series, and in future I think I'll post tutorials as they happen and then recap with a full reveal whenever I get it together enough to do that. I feel like I have to finish all these kitchen posts before I move on and it's kinda stifling my creativity ya know? *gag!

pimp my dishwasher

I stuck gold foil tape on my dishwasher!.........

Wow, that really didn't take long enough to explain to warrant a full post :/

Oh well, on to the pretty pictures!!!!

painted tile floor-no really!

First off, can I just say a HUGE thank you for all the positive feedback for the kitchen reveal? It was so great to hear how much you all liked it. I mean, I knew I liked it but to hear all of your kind comments really drove home to me how right I was to go with my gut and just jump into that makeover....even though people looked at me like I was crazy when I told them what I was doing!

So today I'm going to go through the process of painting our kitchen floor....and the pros and cons of taking on a project like this.

€200. One week. Full kitchen makeover!

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Yes, you read that right. We re-did our entire kitchen for under €200. Floor, cabinets, counters, hardware, the lot! And we did it in one week* without losing our minds or ruining our marriage.