Concrete Countertops Installed
We installed these a couple of weeks ago but haven’t until now taken nice pictures of them. They turned out pretty darn good, I have to say. I should also say that I wouldn’t likely do this project again - it was a lot of darn work. As Greg might say, it took a lot of Grunt Work. Most of the grunting occurred during the installation process which involved transporting the finished counters from the garage I borrowed, down the street and up 33 steps to the house, and finally into the kitchen. The baking center counter is the heaviest - 2 1/2 ” thick and roughly 6’ by 2’. It took 4 of us and a dolly to get it in place, and we were tuckered afterwords. The others were all managable with 2 people.
In case you haven’t been following along, I made these countertops following the techniques in “Concrete Countertops” by Fu-Tung Cheng. I recommend buying his video. It took me about 6 weeks to make 5 countertops.
Here you can see the Baking Center, Island, and Eating Nook. The Fir (varnished wood) in the nook is all recycled.
Close-up of the Baking Center. This counter is lower than the others to make it nice for rolling out pie crusts and stuff.
Here’s the sink area. The dishwasher will be replaced, but really its been a champ. It has been with us through the whole remodel.
Looking North from the back door.
The best part about the Island so far is the trash and recycling bins. I’ll have to post a picture that shows how cool it is.
This is the back side of the sink area. Ultimatly the cabinet will be clad in a nice Fir face frame and panels. The bullnose detail on this piece was a pain to make but turned out really good!
Close ups of the sink:
12 Comments
iloveupstate·June 11, 2007
WOW!! Great job!! Couple of questions…
Was it a pain in the butt because of the sheer number of molds you had to make? Looks like you had more than 5…
Can you include a cost breakdown? I’d love to know how much it ended up costing per square foot.
Nick·June 11, 2007
The molds weren’t much of a pain. The worst part about the molds was building in the bullnose edge. To do that we ripped PVC pipe into quarters and ran it into rabbets cut in the mold. Tricky.
The pain was the many many hours of polishing. The best thing I did with the polishing was not spend $400 on a nice polisher. Rather, I bought a $30 model at Harbor Freight and it worked like a champ for the whole project.
The whole project cost about $1000. There is roughly 50SF of counters, so that’s about $20/SF. The expensive aspect was the Neomix Pro Formula from Cheng, and the Cheng finishing kit.
Derek·June 18, 2007
Those counters look amazing. Maybe I’ll get around to finishing our basement counters this summer. I ordered the stuff from Cheng today, since they now do international orders. Was the $30 grinder variable speed? I have around $100 grinder I was going to use, it isn’t variable speed.
Nick·June 18, 2007
Derek - yes the $30 polisher is variable speed. The main difference between the polisher and grinder is the RPM range. Your angle grinder probably spins about 5 to 10 times as fast as the polisher maxes out at. The polishing wheels work best between 1500 and 3000 RPM.
mindy·July 13, 2007
I don’t know how I got soooooo far behind on your blog, but I’m catching up now and your kitchen looks amazing! Great job - it looks like a very functional layout. I was all about concrete countertops but Teague wasn’t sold on them. If he saw these pictures, he’d know why I was begging for them way back when. They look fabulous.
Julie·July 22, 2007
Really interested to see pictures/description of the island recycling/trash bins. We will be re-doing our kitchen soon and I’m grasping at ideas to tactfully and logically incorporate our glass and paper recycling bins into the cabinets. I’m amazed that companies like the container store or Ikea haven’t jumped on this problem in the first place and produced some sort of cart/shelf system for recycling that is pleasing to the eye.
Jon·July 22, 2007
Your countertops look beautiful! I am trying to figure out an affordable grinder to do the job for my counters. Was your $30 grinder the chicago 7” tool without a water feed?
Laura·October 26, 2007
Did you use a variable speed grinder (which I haven’t been able to find) or a variable speed sander/polisher? The sander/polisher seems to have the RPMs I want.
Nick·January 27, 2008
Yes, the polisher was a $30 variable speed Chicago Electric model from Harbor Freight. No water feed, but a hose works great. (Use a GFI outlet!)
mark·February 6, 2008
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Dan·December 20, 2008
Ok I goto know… what model the harbor freight polisher is… I too am looking for a grinder/polisher/sander. I really like your work !!
Harbor freight has : 7” Angle Polisher; 7” ELECTRONIC POLISHER/SANDER KIT ; 7” VARIABLE SPEED POLISHER/SANDER…
on website : http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/web/search.do?catPath=All%2BProducts%252F%252F%252F%252FUserSearch%253Dpolisher¤tPage=2&lastPage=2&isNext=false&isPrevious=true&category=&attributeValue=&attributeName=&requestedPage=2&resultsPerPage=10&resultsPerPageBottom=0
Ron·October 2, 2009
I am sure you are no longer monitoring this thread but if so where did you get diamond sanding discs for your 7” harbor freight polisher?