Painting/wrapping laminate kitchen countertops?

[jellyjellyjellyjelly]

I recently bought a flat with nasty laminate kitchen countertops - it's an institutional-looking, plasticky, speckled grey that must've been the cheapest option back in the 90s! I was initially going to replace the whole kitchen, but the longer I live here, the more I realise it's a perfectly nice kitchen in good shape - it would be a shame to rip the whole thing out just because of the ugly countertops.

I've been advised that the cabinet carcasses probably wouldn't survive if I were to rip out just the countertops.

There are mixed messages online about how effective wrapping or painting laminate is, so I thought I'd try my luck on here. Has anyone tried either painting or wrapping, and what was the result? Did you do it yourself or hire a professional (I am reasonably handy but it'd be my first time doing this)?

Or has anyone successfully masked their ugly laminate in another way I'm not aware of?

The worktops just let the whole kitchen down and I'd be so grateful if I found a way to give them an update - thank you I'm advance!

@AwkwardPaws27 Thank you that sounds positive. I'm tempted to give it a go eek!

@spuddy56 I also wrapped a manky yellowed plastic bath panel and that's still stuck on despite getting wet regularly

Yes ours is still well fixed around sink and it’s 2.5 years since we did it. My DP used clear sealant around the sink after the DCfix was applied.

I totally feel your pain when it comes to ugly laminate countertops - I had the same issue when I moved into my first apartment. I considered replacing the whole kitchen, but as you said, it would have been a shame to rip out a perfectly good kitchen just because of the countertops. I did a bit of research and, after reading about the pros and cons of quartz countertops, found that you can actually paint or wrap laminate countertops to give them a new lease on life. I ended up painting mine myself and was really happy with the result. It definitely takes some time and effort, but it's doable. If you're not feeling confident about painting them yourself, you could always hire a professional to do it for you.

My next door neighbor had something like this done and they look great:

granitetransformations.co.uk/

@BlakeLiu oh wow, that's really good to hear! Can I ask which paint you used? I get so many contradictory results when I look online...

Can't believe I posted this 8 months ago and still haven't done anything about it! lol

Those countertops look fab. We've got a burn mark on a work top. The kitchen units are absolutely fine though so I'm going to try wrapping the worktops until we can replace the kitchen.