I have to admit that I didn’t get much actual work on the closet done this past weekend. I needed some rest to gear up for the work that needs to be done this week — installing the rest of the molding and trim, moving the washer and dryer into the room, and starting the build for the island. I did get the inside of the washer and dryer cabinets painted, though. That’s not terribly exciting, but I decided the inside of these cabinets needed to be painted to match the washer and dryer instead of being left white.
But other than that, any of my closet-related work was all in planning and trying to make decisions. And the biggest decision I’m trying to make right now is what countertop material to use on the washer and dryer cabinets, as well as on top of the island.
Originally, I had intended to do wood countertops using the same red oak hardwood flooring that’s on the floor. I had a lot of it left over, so I thought I would put it to good use. In fact, I had already cut all of the pieces for the washer cabinet countertop way at the beginning of this closet project.
I’m not ruling out that option completely, but now that my floors have been redone, I’m just not sure about having wood countertops. I’m so excited about how the floors turned out, but I don’t want to go overboard by repeating the same color of wood on three different countertops in the room. There are definitely times when more is better. But there are times when more is just overkill. I kind of feel like adding three more surfaces in the room that are the same color as the floor will fall into the “overkill” category, especially since one of them will be right in the center of the room, and will be 72″ long and 30″ wide.
So I’m pretty sure that I’m going to do something different, and I narrowed it down to three options. I need a total of 30 square feet, so real stone, quartz, etc., is too expensive, even at remnant prices. I don’t want to pay close to or more than $1000 for countertops for a closet. I’ll save the nice stuff for our future new kitchen, but not for a closet.
The first option is laminate. Laminate has come a long way in the past few years. There are ways they can do the edges now which makes some laminate countertops pretty hard to distinguish from real stone countertops…until you touch it, of course. But I thought laminate might be a perfect option for the closet since I don’t need anything that’s really hard wearing in a closet like I would in a kitchen.
The only sample I really liked was this one from Formica called Manhattan Marble. And of course, it’s not cheap. I think the install price came to about $900 or so. I just don’t want to pay that much for closet countertops. It’s crazy to me that the install price for Formica these days is just a little less than the install price for solid stone remnants.
The next idea I had was to do concrete. I know, I know! Been there, done that, right? I have concrete in our kitchen, and I’ve vowed never again to have concrete kitchen countertops.
But again, I won’t be doing anything in a closet that might stain the countertops. I don’t bring mustard or turmeric into my closet, so I think it would be fine. I priced it out for all of the concrete, edge forms, and other materials. The price came to about $450, including shipping. But then I’d have to have someone come help me because I can’t lift and pour all of that concrete myself. And sadly, my brother wouldn’t be available to help me this time around because of his job.
So this leads me to the one option that I’m really tempted to try. I did a faux paint treatment on my living room coffee table to make it look like marble. I know, some of us cringe when we hear (or read) those words “faux paint treatment”, right? It takes us back to the 80s when that stuff was all the rage.
But I think I did a pretty good job on my coffee table! And people who have actually been inside my home have thought that it was real marble…until they touched it. 😀
So I think I might give that a try. It would only cost me the price of two sheets of plywood to get all three countertops since I already have all of the other supplies needed. And I don’t even need to use the expensive plywood, so it would cost less than $100. I think I’ll at least give it a try. If I don’t like it, at least I will have learned something (i.e., keep the faux painting to something small like a coffee table), I can share my DIY faux marble countertop fail with y’all so that you don’t have to go to the expense of trying it out, and I can move to Plan B for my countertops. I think this is going to be my Plan A.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
