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Interior designer Alvin Wayne is seasoned in the art of rental renovations. In his Long Island City apartment alone, he covered the cabinets in faux brass contact paper, mounted an articulating sconce to a pillar, and swathed the dining room in a scenic mural. Your first question is probably, How does he get away with it? Wayne admits he’s the ask-for-forgiveness type, but his building is also aware of what he does for a living, so they’re open to letting his personal upgrades slide. His latest hack might just be his most genius one: covering his kitchen counters directly with another kitchen countertop.
The existing white quartz surface was by no means offensive, but for someone who is obsessed with marble, it was a bit of a bummer. “I knew I couldn’t reno the whole kitchen, but I thought if I could do something with the countertop, the space would feel custom,” says Wayne. While chatting with the owner of his go-to stone fabricator, Beyond Stone, the designer floated the idea of adding a slab on top of his counter, almost as if it were a table. “He’d never done anything like that before but he’d always really wanted to,” says the designer.
Their sole focus was the large peninsula (the other slivers of quartz on either side of the range were too small for this coverup hack to work). That was fine by Wayne. The first step was the most fun: selecting the stone. The designer had come across Calacatta Vintage marble while sourcing materials for a client project—there was just one slab of it left. “It has blacks and tans that almost look brown, but also this bluish gray color. It has a ton of movement,” he shares.
Beyond Stone came out and measured the peninsula to the T, accounting for the sink and faucet so they could cut the slab perfectly. The secret to this very uncomplicated hack is Econo Runner, a thin, foam-like barrier that is scratch-resistant and acts as a barrier between the two surfaces. “They literally just rolled it on top, cut out a portion for the sink, and then placed the stone,” says Wayne. No construction adhesive. No L-brackets. No miter bolts.
Because the stretch of heavy stone is so massive, it doesn’t slide around on top of the quartz. The only way you’d know it’s covering something is by running your hands underneath the overhang—then you might feel the half-an-inch gap between the two surfaces.
While the faux brass contact paper Wayne used on his kitchen cabinets was a cheap Amazon find, this rental reno was a splurge. If he hadn’t been gifted the stone, he estimates the project would have cost around $6,500 total ($3,000 for the fabrication and installation; $3,500 for the material). “That’s a lot for most people, but the good thing is, once you move you still have the slab,” he points out. “You can cut it down and make it into whatever you want.”
Wayne’s already dreaming up the other DIYs he’ll spin out of his countertop hack: “I love plants, so I’ll probably make it into a planter. Or it could be big enough for a really good coffee table.”