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If you’ve been around for a while, you probably remember when we painted and epoxied our ugly brown builder-grade kitchen countertops. The internet had lots of opinions about that one. Apparently, a shocking number of people were convinced we painted granite… even though it wasn’t granite. But honestly? Even if it had been… it’s my kitchen. If I want to paint my countertops pink with purple polka dots, that’s between me and my questionable life choices.
I even added veining to make them look like marble! Looking back, I’m actually pretty proud of how they turned out. That said… if I were doing this project today (which I probably wouldn’t because I hate working with epoxy!), I’d use a completely different technique. It gives a much more realistic stone look, and you can see exactly what I mean in this video:
Here’s the before and after! It’s kind of wild how much this kitchen has changed. Along with the countertops, we lowered the raised bar top to countertop height (one of the best decisions we made, it really opened up the whole space!), took our builder-grade cabinets all the way to the ceiling, and gave them a fresh coat of green paint.
If you want to see each part of the transformation, check out these projects:
But now, let’s fast-forward to the present.
As much as I loved these countertops at the time, they didn’t exactly stand the test of time. The epoxy started yellowing way sooner than I expected, and even stained in some places. The edges chipped in a few places from everyday use as well. As it turns out, yellowing is actually a pretty common issue with epoxy countertops. Unfortunately, I also unknowingly chose one of the worst brands for it.
I used Pro Marine epoxy, which has since become pretty well known for yellowing much faster than many other brands. So, if you’re thinking about tackling an epoxy countertop project yourself, learn from my mistake and skip that one. I do recommend Stonecoat Countertops! That’s what I used in my video above for my kitchen island, the white never did yellow after a year+!
After putting it off for way too long, we finally decided it was time to spend the money and replace the countertops with something a little more… permanent and prettier.
We shopped around at a few different places to see what we liked. Our first stop was Nebraska Furniture Mart since we already have a 0% interest financing option through them. (If I can spread out a big home renovation purchase without paying interest, I’m at least going to look.) I’ve never really been a huge fan of the busy look of natural granite. It’s just a little too… chaotic for my taste. But I promised myself I’d keep an open mind, so we wandered through their selection to see if anything changed my mind.
I will say, though… we actually found one that we really liked! It was gorgeous. The photos don’t even do it justice because up close it had so much depth and movement. It was one of those slabs that looked better the longer you stared at it.
But I’m super thankful for ChatGPT! While we were standing there going back and forth, I pulled up an old photo of my kitchen and had Chatty mock it up with that exact granite. It took all the guesswork out of trying to imagine what it would look like in our space.
And the second it showed us those countertops in our kitchen, we knew… it wasn’t it. They were WAY too busy with our current stone backsplash, and let me tell you right now, that backsplash was NOT getting replaced. I worked way too hard installing every single one of those stones for that to even be up for discussion! It was actually such a helpful reality check. A countertop can be absolutely gorgeous in a showroom and still be completely wrong for your space. Thankfully, Chatty saved us from making a very expensive mistake. I will say though, granite is pretty affordable!
So we moved on to the quartz section. I’ve always liked the idea of quartz, but I have one major complaint: so many of them have veining that just looks so fake. Once you get up close, you can tell it’s manufactured. Whether it’s printed on, layered in, or whatever countertop magic they use to create it, a lot of the veining just doesn’t have the natural depth and variation that real stone does.
However, one caught my eye. Instead of trying to imitate dramatic marble veining (and not quite pulling it off), it had this soft, cloudy movement that looked much more natural. It had a subtle depth that I kept pulling me back. It’s actually so popular that they had it installed on one of their display kitchens, so we got to see a much larger section of it instead of just a small sample. That made a huge difference because you could really appreciate how the pattern flowed across the surface. The counter is called Moongaze Quartz, and the more I looked at it, the more I loved it. The gentle, cloud-like movement was exactly what I had been searching for. It let my stone backsplash stay the star of the show instead of competing with it.
Of course, I wasn’t about to make another countertop decision without consulting my design consultant… Chatty. 😂
I had Chatty mock up Moongaze Quartz in my kitchen too, and this time it was a completely different story. The second I saw it, I knew we had a winner. The soft, cloudy movement complemented my stone backsplash instead of competing with it, and it brightened up the entire kitchen without making it feel busy. Sometimes seeing it in your own space is all it takes to know you’ve found “the one.”
Once we decided Moongaze was the one, we went ahead and scheduled the templating appointment. They came out to take all the measurements for the countertops.
Side note: you can see just how yellow and stained the epoxy got in this photo!
Then they sent us the final measurements for approval. Since our signature basically meant, “Yep, these are correct!” I figured I’d better double-check them myself. So I grabbed my tape measure and measured every section myself. Good thing I did, because several of the measurements were wrong… and some of them weren’t just a little off, they were off by a lot!
Here’s the measurements they took below, you can see how I marked them out and put the correct measurements.
After finding those measurement errors, we started second-guessing whether we wanted to use Nebraska Furniture Mart for our countertops after all. To be fair, the mistakes weren’t actually NFM’s fault, they outsource their measuring and installation to a third-party company. But when you’re spending that kind of money, it’s hard not to lose a little confidence when the very first step isn’t right. So instead of signing on the dotted line, we decided to keep shopping and stopped by Jubilee Company in Princeton, Texas, to see what they had to offer.
I have to give Jubilee credit, they were super nice from the moment we walked in. Everyone was incredibly helpful, never pushy, their showroom was amazing and their customer service was honestly top-notch. That alone made the experience really enjoyable.
After looking through their selection, I found a few options I really liked. One quartz in particular was much more in our price range, and up close it was actually beautiful. It had subtle movement and just enough detail to keep it interesting. The only problem? The second you stepped back a few feet… it basically looked like a plain white countertop and that was not what I was going for.
I did finally get to see the gorgeous Taj Mahal quartzite countertops I’ve been drooling over on Pinterest for years… and let me tell you, they absolutely lived up to the hype. They were every bit as beautiful in person as they are online!
Naturally, I had Chatty mock those up in my kitchen too. Seeing it in my actual space helped me figure out whether I loved the stone itself or just loved it in everyone else’s homes.
Then I looked at the price tag. Turns out my Pinterest taste has a champagne budget. The Taj Mahal would have cost about twice what we were hoping to spend, so as much as I loved it, I had to admire it from afar and remind myself that I also enjoy paying my mortgage. But also, I still liked the white countertops in my kitchen over the beige color, maybe I can revisit the Taj Mahal in a future bathroom project. I even mocked up the one that looked plain white from afar, but Chatty did give it way more character than it actually had in person.
For those of you who are like me and have champagne taste on a beer budget, you’ll be happy to know they also make a quartz that mimics Taj Mahal, and honestly, it looks really good! It’s a great way to get that soft, warm, luxurious look without needing to sell a kidney. The only giveaway is the edge. Since it’s manufactured quartz, the coloring and pattern don’t continue through the thickness of the slab like real quartzite does. So when you look at the edge, you can tell the surface pattern doesn’t carry all the way through.
Is it perfect? No. Would 99% of the people who walk into your kitchen ever notice? Also no. So if you’re chasing the Taj Mahal look without the Taj Mahal price tag, it’s definitely worth considering.
Before we gave up on Jubilee, we asked if they could get Moongaze Quartz. To our surprise, they said yes! I was pretty excited… for about five minutes. Then we got the quote…Because Jubilee prices by the slab, we would have needed to purchase two full slabs for our kitchen. Nebraska Furniture Mart, on the other hand, charges by the square foot, so we were only paying for what we actually needed. The difference? About double the price.
As much as I loved supporting a local business, I couldn’t justify spending twice as much for the exact same countertop. So… back to Nebraska Furniture Mart we went. We asked them to come out and remeasure everything so we could be confident the second set of measurements was actually correct before moving forward.
Before they came back out to remeasure, we decided to get a head start. We removed the existing countertops ourselves that were tucked underneath the stone backsplash. Our backsplash is made from individual stone pieces, so the thickness varies quite a bit. We started wondering if maybe that had contributed to the measurement mistakes the first time around. By removing the countertops first, the measuring team would have a clean, unobstructed surface to work from, and there would be a lot less room for error. Plus, we saved ourselves over $1,000 by removing the old countertops ourselves. Why pay someone to do something you’re perfectly capable of doing?
Tyler began with the smallest section of countertop first, just to see what we were getting ourselves into. If it turned into a complete nightmare, at least we’d know before tackling the entire kitchen. Using a hammer drill with a chisel attachment, he carefully chipped away at the grout underneath the stone backsplash to separate it from the countertop. Since we were keeping the backsplash, the goal was to break the bond without breaking the stone.
The countertop was on there. I crawled underneath looking for screws, but couldn’t find a single one. That’s when I remembered something a friend told me years ago. He used to install these laminate-covered MDF countertops, and he explained that they would screw the MDF down first, then glue the laminate on afterward. Which means… the screws end up hidden underneath the laminate. So Tyler chipped away at the epoxy and laminate in a few spots, hoping to uncover some hidden screws before we resorted to brute force.
However… there still weren’t any screws that we could find. So Tyler took a hammer to it.
That didn’t work either. So… out came the jigsaw. Tyler cut the countertop in half, figuring if we couldn’t remove the whole thing, maybe we could take it out in smaller pieces. It turned out to be a much better strategy. Once the countertop was divided into more manageable sections, we finally had enough leverage to start prying it loose. Turns out there were screws up through the face frame that we couldn’t see.
And this is what we were left with. At that point, Tyler went back to the hammer and started breaking the remaining countertop into smaller pieces.
It did leave quite the mess! Which is why I’m not a big fan of the demo process!
With the small section out of the way, it was time to tackle the big countertop, at least a portion of it. He drilled holes in the countertop to fit the blade of the jigsaw through.
Then he pried it off of the cabinets in pieces.
When Tyler removed one section of the larger countertop, some of the epoxy and laminate peeled away with it… and there were the hidden screws! Turns out my friend’s advice was right all along. The screws had been installed first and then covered up by the laminate, so there was no way we would have ever found them without tearing into the countertop first. At least now we knew we weren’t crazy. Once Tyler removed those hidden screws, the rest of the section we’d cut with the jigsaw lifted right up.
You might be wondering why we didn’t just rip out the rest of the countertop while we were at it. The reason is: this demo was just to prepare for the remeasure. It was still going to be several weeks before our new countertops would be installed, and we weren’t quite ready to lose our kitchen sink. So we only removed the sections that were necessary to expose everything for accurate measurements, then left the sink section intact until it was closer to installation day.
Once that section was removed, we finally got to peek inside the mysterious corner of our kitchen… and it confirmed exactly what we’d suspected all along! There was a huge empty space hiding back there. Instead of installing an actual corner cabinet or creating usable storage, the builder simply left the entire area open and empty. Just… wasted space. In a kitchen! That’s practically a crime!
On the bright side, discovering it made me way too excited because all I could think was, “Ooooh… I know exactly what we can do with this.” If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I can’t leave perfectly good storage space unused (like in this post). So naturally, my brain immediately started designing a solution before the old countertop was even out of the house.
At first, we tossed around the idea of installing some sort of pop-up cabinet in the countertop. You know, one of those hidden compartments that lifts up from the counter. It sounds really cool in theory…But the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. For one, it seemed way more complicated than it needed to be. More importantly, I really didn’t want to cut a giant hole in our brand-new quartz countertops. I also couldn’t stop thinking about spills. It’s a kitchen, things spill. Coffee, water, olive oil, you name it. I feel like it would only be a matter of time before something seeped into the seams around the opening, and that just sounds like a future headache I’d rather avoid.
Then I had what I think is a much better idea. If you look at the photos below, you’ll see that the back corner of my kitchen actually backs up to our master bedroom. Instead of cutting into the countertop, I’m thinking about cutting into the bedroom wall and turning that wasted corner into hidden drawers that pull out from the bedroom side. That way, I’d still get to reclaim all of that dead space without compromising the new countertops. Plus… let’s be honest, hidden storage is kind of my love language. I already have a few ideas brewing for how to make those drawers blend seamlessly into the bedroom, so stay tuned… because I have a feeling this little wasted corner is about to become one of my favorite projects yet.
But… more on that project in another post! Before getting too excited, we did take a peek inside the wall from the kitchen side to see what we were working with. There is a water line running through that wall, but thankfully it’s high enough that it should sit above where the drawers would go. There’s also a stud that will need to be removed and properly reframed, but overall, it’s looking very promising.
With the countertops partially removed, the measuring company came back out and took a second set of measurements. This time, everything checked out! So we officially placed our order and then did what every homeowner does during a remodel…we waited. A few weeks later, we finally got the call to schedule our installation! Since we still wanted a functional kitchen for as long as possible, we waited until the day before installation to remove the rest of the countertops and pull out the sink. We also removed our pop up outlet and did not plan on putting it back in. We loved having it but, we didn’t want to put another hole in our quartz.
We got the main section of the countertop removed, but the old raised bar top was still hanging on. If I was remembering correctly, we had screwed it in from underneath when we lowered it to countertop height years ago. Which meant there was only one way to get to those screws…We had to remove the beadboard on the dining room side of the peninsula and cut away some drywall to gain access. Past Astin doesn’t always take Future Astin into consideration.
If you’re curious how we lowered our builder-grade bar top to countertop height in the first place, you can read all about that project in this blog post.
In case you were curious, this is what the inside of the peninsula looks like! It’s always fun to see what’s hiding behind the drywall. Inside you’ll find the electrical wiring, water lines, and all the framing.
Tyler finally found the screws! He backed them out, stood up… and the countertop came crashing down. Oops. Thankfully, nothing was damaged and we just laughed it off. I guess we should’ve had someone holding it once the last screw came out. Live and learn!
Next, we removed the MDF island countertop that I had epoxied. That was always part of the plan since I wanted all of the countertops to match eventually. I let Tyler handle this one because a double layer of MDF is heavy, but thankfully it came right off… mostly because I never actually fastened it down, so it had been sliding around every time someone leaned on it.
And then came the part I’d been dreading…removing the countertop hutch that I built. It felt a little wrong taking a pry bar to something I had spent so much time designing and building. But there was no way around it, the new quartz countertops had to slide underneath it, so the hutch had to come off. I’m not going to lie… I procrastinated this part for a while.
We were careful during the removal, with every intention of reinstalling it once the new countertops were in. Still… taking apart something you built with your own hands is never quite as fun as putting it together. And spoiler alert: I didn’t end up reinstalling this same hutch, and you will see why in a future blog post!
Tyler got to work hunting down all the screws I had used to attach the hutch to the cabinet and wall… which, thanks to Past Astin, had all been painted over.
Our neighbor, Shane, came over to help us wrestle the hutch off the wall since it’s also made of MDF… cause again, that stuff is heavy. Unfortunately, we missed a few screws. I think they were hiding behind one of the shelves I installed. Great planning on my part, I know. So instead of coming off nice and neatly, we ended up having to rip it away from the wall. Not exactly how I envisioned it, but we got it down, and thankfully it was finally out of the way.
Once we had all the countertops and the sink removed, we figured it was the perfect time to finally fix the cabinet under the sink. It had been through multiple leaks over the years, and the bottom was in pretty rough shape. Honestly, I don’t understand why manufacturers don’t build sink cabinets differently. A cabinet that literally holds the sink is the most likely cabinet in your kitchen to experience a leak at some point (even bathroom vanity cabinets!). Yet they still make them out of materials that turn into soggy cardboard the second they get wet. Make it make sense.
As we started tearing out the damaged bottom, we discovered it was still soggy… even though there hadn’t been a leak for quite a while. It was amazing (and kind of gross) how much moisture that material had been holding onto, which means mold! Tyler broke it apart pretty easily with a sledge hammer.
Once we had it broken apart enough to get a good grip on it, the entire bottom pulled right out. It was amazing how easily it came apart… although after years of water damage, I guess it didn’t have much fight left in it.
To rebuild it, we started by making a new base to raise the cabinet bottom off the floor using 3/4in scrap wood, just like the original had. Once that was installed, we laid a full sheet of plywood on top. One unexpected advantage of having the sink completely removed was that we could slide one solid piece of plywood into the cabinet. If the sink had still been there, we would’ve had to squeeze pieces through the cabinet doors and assemble them inside because there would’ve been no way to fit a full sheet through the opening. Once that was installed, we clear coated it and caulked the seams.
Before we got everything put back under the sink, we did add this rubber leak guard to protect to cabinet. Just as an additional layer of protection. Highly recommend! Also, they have these moisture/water detectors we have now placed under all of our sinks just incase one starts leaking, it will alert us right away! They have these that are connected to an app and will send you a notification to your phone, and then they have one that we got that just make a noise when they detect water. Tyler didn’t want another app on his phone.
We got everything demoed just in time for the countertop crew to arrive and get to work! I have to say, I was pretty amazed by the whole process. They basically turned our driveway into a countertop fabrication shop. Any small adjustments they needed to make, they did right there in the driveway. They even cut the sink opening on-site! 🤯
Watching someone confidently take a giant saw to your brand-new quartz countertops is a little nerve-racking, but these guys clearly knew what they were doing. Every cut was precise, and being able to make those final adjustments on-site meant everything fit our kitchen perfectly. It was actually really cool to watch the installation process from start to finish.
They started by installing the smaller countertop sections first. It was fun watching the kitchen finally start coming back together after all the demo.
Then it was time for the big one. After cutting out the sink opening and faucet holes in the driveway, the crew carefully carried the massive slab into the house. I’m not exaggerating when I say I held my breath the entire time. Watching them slowly maneuver it through the kitchen and gently lower it into place was nerve-racking. When they finally set it down, it fit like a glove. It was such a relief! I believe they used epoxy to join the 2 slabs that were touching, but I could be wrong. It was very strong smelling stuff, I had to turn the over stove vent on and wait outside for a bit to help with the smell, don’t worry, I took the animals with me.
Then it was time to put everything back together! We started with the back side of the peninsula. Since everything was already torn apart, I figured it was the perfect time to make one more design decision. I had been toying with the idea of wrapping the paneling all the way around the peninsula instead of putting back the original Accessible Beige beadboard. Of course, before committing, I had Chatty mock up the Pewter Green paneling for me, the updated paneling versus the original look.
Seeing them side by side made the decision so much harder…because I loved both!
When I first shared this view online and asked what everyone thought, I’d say 90% of the internet voted to wrap the peninsula in the new Pewter Green paneling with this view. Once people could see the dining room view and that the entire room already had the Accessible Beige beadboard, the votes shifted to about 50/50.
Honestly, I still think wrapping the peninsula would look really beautiful. But it would’ve cost more money, taken more time, and if I’m being completely honest… I was kind of over the kitchen project at that point and I still had a kitchen hutch to rebuild and doors to make.
Putting the drywall back up and reinstalling the original beadboard was easy, free, and it already matched the rest of the dining room perfectly. Plus, I still genuinely love the way it looks, so it wasn’t exactly a compromise. So that’s what I did! I put the drywall back up, reinstalled the beadboard, added the baseboards back, caulked everything, gave it a fresh coat of paint, and called it done.
The new quartz countertops are thinner than the old MDF countertop, which left me with a gap where the beadboard used to overlap the countertop on the back wall of the peninsula. Could I have filled it with caulk? Technically, yes. Would it have looked good? Absolutely not. The gap was just too big, and I knew it would bug me every time I walked by.
So… off to Home Depot I went to buy an entire 4×8 sheet of beadboard just to replace this one little strip. I am 4’11 and wrestling that huge sheet of beadboard onto the cart myself is always a challenge, but I make it work! It’s even worse outside getting it from the cart into my truck when it’s windy!
Then I removed the old piece of beadboard and used it as a template for the new one.
Of course, I couldn’t just trace it and call it a day. Since the new countertops are thinner, I had to make the replacement piece a little taller to cover the extra gap. So I took a few measurements, made my adjustments, and transferred everything onto the new sheet of beadboard.
I made my first cut with my track saw and, naturally, it started sprinkling. So I packed everything up and moved the operation into the garage. Thankfully, I had already made the long rip cut outside, so I only had the smaller piece left to work with indoors. The best part? My track saw doesn’t make much dust, so I didn’t end up coating the entire garage in sawdust.
I finished the rest of the cuts with the track saw and then held the new piece up for a test fit. (Have I mentioned how much I LOVE this track saw!? I wish I purchased this first instead of a circular saw and clamps!!)
Once I knew all the outside cuts fit perfectly, it was time for the outlet cutout. I used the old piece as a template again, traced the outlet opening onto the new beadboard, then drilled a starter hole big enough to fit the jigsaw blade through. From there, I simply followed the lines with the jigsaw to cut out the opening.
Then it was the moment of truth! I installed the new piece… and it fit perfectly.
Then all that was left was a little caulk and paint. I sealed all the seams, gave it a fresh coat of paint, and just like that, you’d never know I had replaced that section.
One last little detail we had to tackle was the grout along the bottom of the stone backsplash. Since the new quartz countertops are thinner than the old ones, they left a small gap underneath the stone just like the beadboard. More on the stone backsplash in this post. Thankfully, it wasn’t a big deal. We just mixed up some grout and filled in the gap to blend everything back together. Well… Tyler mixed up the grout and filled in the gap. I happily handed that job over to him because grouting is a huge pain, and squeezing grout out of those bags is basically a forearm workout I wasn’t interested in. We are using this grout in the color Avalanche, that’s what I used on this backsplash when originally installed.
Once the grout was in place, Tyler let it set up for a little while before finishing it. At first, we tried using a damp sponge like you’re “supposed” to… but it just wasn’t doing the job. Instead, he used a paper towel to gently smooth the grout and push it deeper into the joints between the stone and the countertop. It actually worked much better and gave us the clean finish we were after.
At one point, Tyler got a little creative and grabbed one of Mia’s little frozen yogurt spoons. As ridiculous as it sounds… it worked perfectly! It was just the right size to push the grout exactly where it needed to go in the shape we needed. It was still a messy job, and he had to smooth everything out with a paper towel afterward, but sometimes the best DIY tool isn’t a fancy specialty tool, it’s a random plastic spoon you found in the kitchen drawer. (or a cheese grater!)
Here’s a close-up of the countertop pattern, and I have to say… I love it.
The soft, cloudy movement gives it just enough character to keep it interesting, but it’s subtle enough that it doesn’t compete with the rest of the kitchen.
Oh, and here’s the new sink we installed! We decided not to reuse our old sink. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, it was a great sink! But since we were replacing the countertops anyway, it felt like the perfect time to upgrade to an under mount sink. I’ve always loved the clean, seamless look of an undermount sink. Plus, being able to wipe crumbs and water straight into the sink instead of catching them on the rim? That alone is worth the upgrade.
Tyler also got the new faucet installed and we LOVE it!!! We got it in the multi color graphite black. While I really wanted a vintage one like this, we didn’t want to put 3 different holes in our countertop. It would be easier to find a replacement with one if we ever needed to.
I’m not going to reveal the whole kitchen just yet… because we’re not done! There are still a few finishing touches left before I can show you the final reveal, so you’ll have to come back for the next post.
If you remember from my last kitchen update, we removed the microwave and built a vent hood in its place. The problem? The stone backsplash didn’t extend high enough behind it, and of course… Floor & Decor discontinued the exact stone I originally used. 🙃
So instead of panicking (okay… maybe a little panicking), I had to get creative and come up with a solution that would blend seamlessly with the existing stone, just like we did for our fireplace when I wanted it to match the backsplash.
Did it work? You’ll have to check out the next post to find out!
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