Repair Countertop? You're in For a Pleasant/Unpleasant Surprise

Repair your countertop?

It can be done.  It can' t be done.

Well, which is it?  Truth is, there is no rulebook for repairing countertops, and when you pull in other factors--DIY? professional? material type?--it gets even more confusing.

I think that most homeowners--myself included--are longing for an easy solution that allows them to press some kind of color-matching goop into the crack, let dry, and be done with it.  This is mostly not possible.

The worst countertop to repair is laminate--Formica, Wilsonart, etc.  It just doesn't bond well to filler materials.  Peel off the old laminate and re-bond new stuff?  Forget about it!  You'll end up pulling off half of your substrate in the process.

The best countertop to repair is ceramic tile.  A tile installer can chip out the old tile and replace one-for-one with a new tile--and he can do it in his sleep.  It's simple for a pro.  Want to replace it DIY?  It's harder--and you'll want to expect a cracked surrounding tile or two--but possible.

"That's not a tile repair!" you shout at me.  I say, "My point exactly (refer to paragraph 3 of this blog post)."  If you're dead-set on a tile repair, that's possible, too.

Recently, I saw a ceramic tile counter that Tyler Murphy and his crew at Miracle Method Seattle repaired, and it looked great.  They fill in the divots, holes, cracks, whatevers--then refinish the entire counter with the same material they use when refinishing bathtubs and showers.  So, they side-step the whole issue of "Why doesn't this patch material match the rest of my tile?"

Image of Corian Copyright DuPont