Tile over laminate counter tops?

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Honestly, I asked myself over and over again this same  nagging question.  Can you really tile over laminate counter tops?  Well I'm here to tell you that it can be done!  My wanna be farm house kitchen is living proof that it can be done!




When we moved into our home it wasn't awful at all. However, it was a boring plain Jane kitchen.  If you read my post about painting the kitchen cabinets, then you know it was a basic builder grade no frills kitchen with light wood cabinets. If you know me at all you know that light wood just isn't my thing.  So I took on the monster task of painting the kitchen cabinets all by my self. They turned out so good that I decided to add  these cup pulls , and these knobs from Amazon. The kitchen sat looking something like this for quite a few months.

It was still better than before but as I have stated before I am on a mission to rid this entire house of boring builder grade beige.  I know it could be worse, I've seen some pretty ugly counter tops on my mission to finding the perfect DIY project to upgrade these bad boys.  I've seen a lot of painted counter tops, and I'm not gonna lie I recently painted one of our bathroom counter tops,  However the fact remains that this is not a forever home and resale is always in the back of my mind! I knew slab granite was completely out of our budget but I really wanted stone. So I went "browsing" online and next thing you know I was getting 7 boxes of granite tiles delivered to my door step.

I hadn't really researched how I was going to tile the counter tops before I placed my order. In all honestly I ordered them on a whim... opps.

The boxes of granite sat in the garage for another couple of months. Untouched. The thing was I never really thought about how I was going to face the edges. I thought about a decorative molding but it was kinda blah and totally dated. Take a look for yourself.

If you were doing a white ceramic top you could probably find little edge pieces, but I wasn't and this is not the 90's. Again totally dated. So I enlisted the help of my Pops, and after some research we found these grinding pads or do yourself a favor and get the big pack. They are pricey but so worth it! They make it easy to grind the blunt edges of the tile so you get a nice rounded edge. It takes a little practice to get a bull nose edge but it looks so much better! Slow and steady wins the race.

We cut strips of our tile the exact width of the counter top height. The part that faces out, the edges if you will. That way we could place the tiles with a new bull nose edge right over the top.

The first thing we did to prep the existing counter was, remove the current backslash and the sink. Then it was time to sand! Sand Sand Sand! Once our counter tops were sanded we planed out our layout.  A typical counter top width is about 25 inches. Ugh, when your tiles are 12 by 12, nothing comes easy. Typical. Plus you have to take into consideration the extra width on the front when you adhere your tile strips. Don't forget to account for space to grout! We used dimes as spaces for this part because I wanted a little grout line as possible. Once you have your two tiles laid out and a front tile piece in place you can measure the width for your back strip of tile. I believe ours was just slightly over an inch.  An inch people. It is what is. At least now the granite tiles reach all the way to the wall.

The thing is once your existing counter tops are sanded and prepped, you can tile right over the top of them like you would do anything else.  We had to add a few extra steps, like cutting the front faces and the back strips. We bought this cheap tile saw from Amazon and it totally did the trick. I had no problem at all.  It's less than 100 dollars now which in my opinion is a steal!

W started in the back with our 1 inch strip and then paced 2 more full tiles. Remember we had a slight over hang, we want our bull nose out here. While they aren't as polished as a factory bull nose it is still 100 time better than the rough cut tile edge.  I used a facing for measuring to keep my overhang at just the right spot.  We did the counter tops first and  the facings next. To hold them from sliding down we used tape.  Lots and lots of tape.

I legit got most of my hardware and faucet from Amazon. I'm going to break everything down for ya' in my next post! But for now Ill leave you with a little teaser (Affiliate links)
Faucet  Air Gap Cap  Basket Strainer Drain  Sink Flange

Until next time!
xoxo, Michelle

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