DIY Home Remodeling Projects

As most of you know, My Husband and I purchased a house built in 1910, with an addition which was built in 1980. We purchased the House because it was large enough for our family and we could do most of the work ourselves as time and money permitted, other than a good cleaning and some minor repairs, it was move in ready 7 years ago when we bought it.

The first thing we had to do was build some type of decking or steps off our the Master bedroom because in my own words, it had the "French Doors to no where with a 14 foot drop off. 

We have had several projects over the years, and as soon as we get started on one project, something else comes up so it's always a work in progress.

I will be taking you through our DIY projects and how we are making our house a home finally.


In the upcoming weeks ( years) you will see how I am transforming my Kitchen Counters with Giani Granite Counter Top Kits, among other things. My kitchen is one of the smallest rooms in the house, and not something we can afford to expand right now, so I want it to look the best it can in the meantime.



We have also torn out plaster walls, replaced with drywall and expanded door openings with custom archways we did ourselves to open the house up because as with most older houses, it was just very drab, with hardly any lighting and the door openings were your typical boxed small openings. I wanted to open it up to make it look airy and larger.

Giani Granite Review: Transforming My Counter Tops

As most of you who follow my Blog know, We are working on remodeling our 1910 built home. Although I would really love to gut my Kitchen and get a new one , that is just not in the foreseeable budgeted future, so I am doing the next best thing.

The Kitchen has become my first DIY project that I have tackled alone and that Chris actually let me do on my own. 

My counter tops were just plain ugly. I wanted something that looked more modern and made my kitchen look larger than it is. I choose to use a Giani Granite Counter Top Kit to redo the old counter tops. 

Take a good look at what my counter tops looked like before.

As you can see in the picture, I had old tile in some spots and wood in other spots. They were very unattractive.  I choose the Giani Granite White Diamond  Granite Kit to transform my counter tops with.

Giani Granite Counter top kits are super easy and I accomplished it all in a weekend ( most was drying time between steps.

The first step after cleaning them very well was to apply the primer included in my kit, which was black. You apply a very thin coat as you see here.

You let your primer dry for 8 hours before you continue to step 2. It took me about 1 hour to totally prime all my counters. Everything I needed to prime the counter tops was included with my kit.

Next up was applying the 3 minerals included with the kit, which are your prime colors for transforming your counter tops. I applied the Pearl, then the lighter tan color then the bright white. This took about 2 hours to do all of my counters and another 4 hours dry time ( I actually left mien overnight since it was later in the evening when I finished this part)

To apply the color, you use a sponge which is included in the kit, and the best part was that you did not need to wash the sponge out when changing to the next mineral color.

This looks amazing and the picture above is before I put the final sealant on. 

The final step was the apply the sealant. This was the easiest part, and again, everything I needed was included in my kit. This part took about half an hour and was super simple.

My husband was impressed with my accomplishments and at how well the Giani Granite Kit worked. My kitchen still needs work, but this simply made it look so much better already. I have been texting pictures all day to my friends and family because I am in love with my new counter tops.

Below, the final outcome after it had dried for 4 hours.

As you can see, we still have much work to do. The wall paper is 7 layers deep and era 1950's which will be removed and painted  and the cabinets need to be painted ( I am doing this on a budget and all on my own, so I will not be replacing the cabinets)

I was super impressed with the Giani Granite counter Top paint kits and would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to remodel their kitchen or bath on a budget.

Giani Granite has many different Granite Kits to choose from and you can see all the colors HERE