DIY: Repairing A Kitchen Counter

When we bought our house, it had this non-working Jennaire cooktop in the kitchen. It was an eyesore, a hunk of junk, that took up more than half of my counter space next to my stove. I searched for a photo of my kitchen after we moved in, with all my stuff on the counter top to show you how awful it looked, but coundn’t find one. I think I just never took a picture of it because it was so unsightly.

In order to take this thing out, we had to figure out a way to cover up the huge hole it would leave. We can’t afford to replace the entire counter top right now, but we couldn’t just leave the gaping hole there. It measured 34″ X 22″, pretty big:

This is what came out of the hole:

To repair this hole in the counter top, we went to Home Depot and had them cut a piece of 1/2″ plywood to measure 36″ X 24″. I bought some contact paper at Wal-Mart and covered the plywood with it.

Then, Fabgrandpa screwed the plywood down onto the counter top. It isn’t the best solution but it looks very nice. With the contact paper pattern I picked out, it looks like a big granite cutting board.

I am so happy to have that ugly old cook top gone from my kitchen. It not only was ugly, but took up so much valuable space. It made the kitchen look even more cluttered than it was. Now, I have room to put out my hand thrown pottery canisters that my mother-in-law gave me years ago. Doesn’t it look pretty now?

The whole project, from covering the plywood to putting in the last screw, and then rearranging the small appliances in the kitchen only took about an hour.  This is a temporary repair until we can replace the entire counter top in the kitchen, but I think it looks great! Total price: $17.47.

The bonus for removing the non-working cook top is that we also gained use of the cabinets underneath it. Before, the underside of the cook top was huge and took up all of the space under the counter, too. I really like the added space under the counter!