My Faux Granite Counter Top and a New Use for Fabric Softener Sheets

First I started out by capturing different pictures of real granite on my computer. This was so I could have something to compare with.

Second, I cleaned and rinsed the allowed the counter tops to dry.

After they were dry I painted them with Zinsser water based Primer for all surfaces. This primer is white and can be tinted. My counter tops were gray laminate so it took 2 coats to cover the counters completely. I let each coat dry about 2 hours. Now for the fun part! Based on which granite sample you have chosen and using a small (2-3 inch) sea sponge that is wet but slightly wrung out but not dripping dab into your first paint. I used a craft acrylic paint in expresso brown. your first several dabs will be dark , continue to dab twisting and changing position of your hand while you paint. To have continuity stay with one color and go around the entire counter top. Wetting the sponge more and dabbing your sponge on a paper towel will result in a more watered down color that you can go around dabbing on top of the previous paint. Continue with your next color. I used another brown mixed sometimes with white. Lastly I used a metallic gold for a bit of sparkle. Once dry finished it off with a water based poly.

After I admired my work and began the clean up of the sink ( this was after the 3rd coat of poly and after 1/2 a day of drying) I had dried paint on the stainless steel sink edges. Scrubbing wouldn't take it off and using my old standby, my finger nails, didn't work either. I then remembered a post on how fabric softener sheets are used in a number of ways so I grabbed one and wet it then laid it down on the dried paint. After a minute, a light rub and rinse all the paint was gone. That was when I noticed this

And this

Fabric softener sheets to the rescue! Wet the sheet and lay it on the area that needs cleaning. Let it sit a minute then check by rinsing away the solution. It took a minute to clean the faucet base and 5 to clean the sprayer

Still has some work to do but most of it is gone. Now I KNOW there are chemical in the fabric sheets but I rinse everything off till there's no longer any sell of the softener. Besides stainless steel isn't porous. Some folks will like my idea and some won't and that's okay.