Hiding burn marks in laminate countertop?
When I rented, I used wallpaper on an old, cracked bathroom counter. Was a bitch to maintain, but looked nice. The only laminate repair I’ve done was use a ceramic filler type of product (for use on appliances) on a white countertop. That didn’t look great because the damage was too great, like a crater with the sides upturned from the previous tenant not taking care of it quicker. I’d go with the simple DIY methods first.
This is hard to answer w/o an idea of the size and number of the burns. Remember that you’re not looking to repair, you’re looking to change the appearance to make it as inconspicuous as possible. You hope they overlook it or make it such that you can claim it was missed on the previous inspection. Remove the surface imperfections as necessary and try to get the scorch out or cover it with a matching color. You can buy small 3oz paint samples at Benjamin Moore or other paint companies and apply it with your fingertip to try to blend.
To summarize what’s been said and suggest you don’t specifically need to buy laminate filler: Carefully gouge out the burns. Fill the depressions with anything super-hard, such as a good epoxy. Carefully sand down the epoxy so you don’t scratch up the existing undamaged surrounding laminate. If you apply the epoxy carefully it may “pour” and gently coax into the depression and settle flat, making sanding unnecessary. Apply some appliance paint or a heavy enamel (potentially with epoxy-like stuff in it, like the paint used to repair scrapes on ceramic covered metal washing machines) to your filler. If the countertop is white, it’s a breeze–just buy white hard-drying appliance paint. If the countertop is a mottled faux-marble or somesuch, buy some brown and black (or whatever colors you need) and kind of dab them on filler for a mottled effect that blends in with the marbling. It’s a theatrical effect, but most people just never examine countertops closely enough to notice. This has wor
Oh, and if the countertop is white or mottled-white, you can often just gouge out the burns just a little and fill right up with white appliance paint (the kind with epoxy in it for repairing ceramic-covered metal appliances.) This type of paint is often so thick that one or two coats act as a filler as well as cover paint.
