Our main closet renovation has been underway for over a year! It has been a slow project for multiple reasons – doing house renovation projects with a baby (now toddler) is a lot slower for us and IKEA was out of stock of half of the PAX cabinet bases we wanted to use for the closet for nearly 8 months. After what has felt like forever, we finally have a groove to make time to work on projects with a kid and IKEA finally had the cabinets in stock that we needed! So… onward with the renovation!
Our closet is a walk through closet – meaning there is a hallway through the closet into our bathroom. Part of my original vision was to have a tall cabinet for storage and a vanity area on the wall on the left side of the hallway going into the bathroom.
My vision started to come to life and it was time to make some decisions about the countertop. Originally, I wanted a remnant stone for the counter to match the marble in our bathroom, but to keep costs down we went with an inexpensive white laminate desktop for the counter since the amount we needed was so small. The $30 cost for the countertop made the decision easy plus we could cut the material ourselves using a circular saw and I knew if I didn’t want it to be white after installing the counter it could easily be painted.
I quickly determined that I did not want this counter to remain white. I wanted to add a little bit of intrigue to this side of the room, but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to paint the counter. I considered many options and landed on a paint technique that mimics the appearance of soapstone. Faux soapstone painted countertop it is!
The Materials
- primer
- paint (I did not use cabinet grade paint, but would use something like this in the future)
- paint brush
- skinny paint brushes (a variety of sizes is key to getting the veining in the faux soapstone right)
- foam roller
- sponge (any sponge will work)
- sealer
The Process
Tip: If you are going to try this method in a high traffic area (i.e. a kitchen or bathroom), I would recommend using a countertop specific paint like this. Since our closet vanity is very lightly used for doing make-up and putting jewelry on I was not worried about this.
Clean the countertop thoroughly.
Apply the primer, let it dry, then apply the base color of paint. Since I was going for a faux soapstone finish I chose black.
Create a lightened version of your base paint – I did 3:2:1 ratio of water, black paint and white paint. This mixture will be very watery – that is what you want. Use the sponge and sponge paint on the watered down mixture. This is the point in the process where I was starting to doubt that this would turn out! It gets worse before it gets better. This step is what I think truly helps it look more realistic. Soapstone does not have a solid background color as it is a naturally occurring stone, it looks more mottled and cloudy.
After the sponge painting process create a watered down mixture of only black paint. Paint over the light sponge paint – doing a few coats do get your desired amount of the cloudiness showing through. I did 3 full coats of the watered down black paint. It definitely dried darker for me, the below image is when the black paint was still wet.
After you have finished making the mottled effect for the faux soapstone its time to add the veining! This is the part I was the most nervous about. I found an image of a soapstone slab I liked online, had my computer set up next to me, and freehanded the veining using a variety of skinny sized art paint brushes.
When I first added the veining it felt way too stark for what I wanted. So I took a skinny paint brush dipped in only water and smeared the lines a bit to make them look not so perfect. Even after this step they still looked too stark, so I added another two coats of the watered down black paint that allowed just enough of the veining to show through so it looked more realistic.
Finally, add a sealant that fits your needs! I chose a matte polycrylic since I didn’t want much shine to the finish. I added 3 coats of the sealant just to be safe since I didn’t use a countertop specific paint.
I am so pleased with how this turned out! For a fraction of the cost I achieved a soapstone look for our closet vanity counter.
