Going to venture into the first time realm of tiling over countertops. I have gone through the various posts and know that I can scour the formica (a four letter word in my book). However, I have seen various degrees of contention with respect to sealants, backerboards etc. Anyone ever done a straight scour job, maybe some sealant, and away they went? I have backsplash that is molded as a single piece. How do I tile a backsplash like this? Also, looks like my option at HD is Daltile-how do you get even spacing among tiles-they are the smaller tiles. Any help massively appreciated !!
This sounds familiar. I just remodeled my kitchen, which had a one-piece formica countertop in it. For a while I thought I'd try to use the existing 'top as a base for tile, as pulling & replacing the existing one seemed overwhelming. Posted here, talked to a bunch of people, gave it some detailed thought.
Bored one day, I poked around with the 13" section of counter by my stove. It pulled right off. That turned "overwhelming" into "been there done that". The rest came of in less than 15 minutes. Put plywood down, then backerboard, then tiled.
In retrospect - I'm way, way glad I demolished then rebuilt. It kept the counter height and depth appropriate. It *way* simplified dealing with the backsplash (the old one was 3/4" thick, part of the one-piece). Mostly, though, tiling in the backsplash would have looked pretty clunky, at best. It really was the "right" thing to do.
Some pictures:
formatting link
Well, you'd have to tile both in front and on top of it, lots of cutting things exactly to size, corners, and exposed edges to worry about or bullnose. Very fussy, will look pretty clunky once it's tiled over, so again, you might have a much easier & better result starting from scratch with the counter (then you can just tile a backsplash against the wall).
spacing
You have many, many options for tile. But since you have a HD, first thing to do is to take one of their tiling classes. That'll answer a lot of questions (including the even-spacing one) and give you some good ideas.
Julie-thanks for the post. Sounds like your the "model" to a tear down. Sounds like went smooth for you. I am struggling with a tear out, but you may just have been the catalyst that impulses me to do just the same. Thanks again.
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