I am on the finishing stages of a kitchen remodel. We have totally refinished the cabinets and doors, floors, cutting a wall in half and making a bar...phew! Now I reeeeally hate the countertops. It is a faux wood looking laminate that looks very cheap and cheesy with all of our other changes. I love the look of ceramic tile countertops and backspashes and would love to do that in my kitchen. Can I tile over the existing laminate or do I have to remove the laminate to get to the wood surface below it in order to tile? Can I just rough up the surface? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. We are determined to do this ourselves! We have experience with ceramic tile already as we have installed it in our foyer already, we just need to know how to work this with the kitchen laminate countertops.

Thanks for any help and advice any of you can give!

 

Lightly Sand and Clean the Laminate. Then set the tile in a Latex Adhesive using a toothed trowel just like you would over a wonderboard of hardibacker substrate and grout as normal.

The laminate will in fact act as a waterproof barrier beneath the ceramic and it is plenty strong enough.

 

If counter is a post form top with rolled edge and backsplash, you will not be able to tile over it. If it has a square edge, it is possible to tile over, but starting from scratch is recommended.

 

There is a good article on doing this in the Fine Homebuilding Projects around the House, Spring 2005 issue I just picked up at Home Depo. The author recommended putting wonderboard on top of the laminate and proceeding from there.