Giani Granite Our Wish!

This post is part of our collaboration with Giani Granite. All opinions, bad post title puns, and general over-excitement are 100% my own.

UPDATE: The winner of this contest is announced at the bottom!!!

This is an awesome day, friends. Sorry it’s a day late, but I was literally waiting for the paint to dry so I could shoot the photos and put this post together. But better late than never AND now you have some reading material to go with your Saturday morning coffee! There’s a lot happening here at Oh, the Fun today… reveals, DIY projects, before and after photos, and…. a GIVEAWAY!

We partnered with Giani Granite to bring this phase of the downstairs bathroom makeover to you and I could not be more excited to brag on them and show you all of the wonders they have to offer.

When we moved into our house, the downstairs bathroom looked like this…

We stripped the wallpaper off faster than you can say adhesive and gave it a fresh coat of paint.

All was well, but we always felt that the counter top was, well… lacking. I’m not a huge formica fan, but I will be the first to say that it’s come a long way and there are really great options out there now! Ours, however, was not one of them. It always looked like a boring old purple/gray blob and when we painted the room gray, somehow the hue of the paint came out purple-ish too. Let’s just say that the two of them combined left us wanting more. I didn’t know how to fix it or what to do to make it better (you can read more about that here), so it just stayed the way it was and we did our best to ignore it.

When Giani Granite offered to send us a counter top makeover kit, I was stoked because finally (FINALLY!) we could do something about that darned bathroom. Essentially, Giani Granite is a company that has created a product that you can paint onto your counter tops to create a (VERY) realistic-looking marble or granite look. At first I was a little hesitant (that just seems too good to be true!), but after perusing their website and seeing countless beautiful pictures of other makeovers and reading a lot of positive feedback from other buyers, I got more and more excited about the product. Certain colors of Giani products are even sold at big box home improvement stores, like Home Depot (accompanied with tons of five star reviews)!

SO, bottom line… we said YES and Giani sent us a kit of our choosing. We ended up going with the White Diamond kit and could not be happier with the way it turned out.

How great is that?! Looks like marble! And against that sleek black cabinet… ugh, I’m dying. You may have also noticed that we patched the holes in the wall and repainted (which is why you’re getting this post today and not yesterday). Ah, so fresh and clean! And feels like new!

Ok, so here’s how the process works. There are a number of different ways to achieve the marbled look and a couple of different techniques you can use to vary how it will turn out. We started with our original purple-ish counter tops… originally, the vanity had a backsplash, but I pried that off (you can read all about it here) and then patched and sanded down the holes to give us a smooth, clean slate to work with.

STEP 1: Tape off anything you don’t want to get painted… in our case, it was the walls and the sink. Although in hind sight, I could have splatter painted the heck out of those walls, seeing as we just painted over it anyway. 🙂

STEP 2: Apply the black primer. I used the foam brush (included in the package) to get the edges and then went back and filled in the rest with the roller (also included).

Afterward, it should look something like this:

STEP 3: Add your base coats of white.

Use the sponge (or I read that some other people just rolled it on like the primer) to give your surface a few coats of white.

I chose to do 2 or 3 coats to really get it nice and light. You can see the difference an additional coat can make in this shot (left side has one more coat than the right)…

STEP 4: Add your layers. Essentially, you’re building layer on top of layer of “movement” to make it look like the actual stone. One way to do this is by using the sponge to sponge on diagonal “flows”. I opted to use the pour-and-wet technique… just wet the surface, pour a “flow” of paint diagonally, and then go back and spray it down with water to get the marbled effect.

The kit comes with a few different colors to use for this step- White Diamond, Pearl, and Inca Gold. Because we were going for that bright white look, we just stuck with the White Diamond. After a few “flows”, you can start to see the effect! I should note that this process of creating layers happened over many days… you want to create a layer, let it dry, create another, let it dry, and so on.

STEP 5: Create the veins. This step is optional and it took awhile for me to build up the confidence to do it, but I’m glad I went for it because I think it adds some character to the look. Using the black primer and a small brush, paint on some “veins” that follow the lines and movement that you’ve already been creating.

Then you’ll want to go back and mute them a little bit… I did this by going back over them with a clean, wet paint brush… almost like water coloring. After letting that dry, I sponged on some white paint over top to blend the lines in a bit more.

STEP 6: One final coat! I watered down some of the white paint and used a foam brush to apply it to the entire counter. This seemed to help pull everything together and unify the look.

STEP 7: After letting it dry, apply the top coat (I just used the same method from applying the primer). 2-3 coats should do it… make sure you wait for each coat to dry in between, as per the instructions.

That’s it! You’re done! I really really love how it turned out. I used white caulking to fill in the gaps between the wall and the counter and freshen up around the sink. I am thrilled to say that this project is officially COMPLETE! Walls patched and painted, counter top refinished, sink updated, cabinet built and painted. Whew! I think that calls for a nap. But first… pictures!

I am so so happy I decided to add the “veins” in the 11th hour… it just adds so much to the look.

As much fun as this project was, I am glad to be finished with it because now we can actually have our bathroom back… it’s been “under construction” for months now! Pathetic, I know… but this is real life and in real life, these things happen over time. And your house might be all kinds of displaced, but you just live with it because the final product is oh, so worth it! 🙂

Would it be weird to just go in there and sit, just to look at it? Probably. I’ll just stick to ogling over the “after” photos. 🙂

So that wraps up the tale of our counter top and cabinet. Hooray!!! 🙂 Next on the list… a new light fixture and some new art for the walls (spoiler alert: we took down those floating shelves… you can see them in one of the first few pictures). The story continues!

Before we check out for the weekend, we have one more order of business to attend to… the GIVEAWAY! Giani Granite was kind enough not only to make our marble dreams come true, but to gift one of YOU with a kit of your own! Here’s how it works:

PRIZE: One (1) Giani Granite Counter Top Kit in the color of your choice!

WINNERS: One (1), Limited to the United States shipping addresses only (UPDATE: This contest is no longer limited to just the Continental U.S…. Giani Granite will ship to any U.S. address!)

DETAILS: Enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter below. When you enter your email or login via Facebook, your information is ONLY USED for communicating with you if you’ve won. You can earn an extra entry by subscribing to receive our posts via email (sign up in the sidebar on the right!)… we will automatically include all of our email subscribers in the drawing. Contest will be closed at 11:59pm EST on Thursday, November 5th, 2016 and the winner will be announced on Friday, November 6th, 2016! Winner is randomly selected.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations Sherri!!! I will be emailing you with details soon!

Now go head over to Giani Granite and marvel (hold the drool) at all of the beautiful “new” counter tops they have created… seriously stunning! Maybe you don’t want to wait for the drawing and just want to go and buy your own kit… they’ve got a great selection of product to choose from! Happy shopping!

Have a great weekend and HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🙂