A great DIY - Concrete Countertops

[engineertwin2]

I know there are a lot of DIY'ers on this forum - after all, that's why most of us are here (well, that and interest and appreciation for others and their vehicles). Here's the DIY that I've recently completed. The attached pictures are of the countertop, but I'll try to remember to load pictures of the final product this weekend or so...The counters in my house were poured upside down into a melamine mold on my back patio. I used Cheng's concrete counter kit at a ratio of 1 ea bag of colorant/admixture to 1 ea 80 lb bag of concrete (this is higher than the prescribed dosage), because it made the math simple.There are two countertops I poured (one for the cooktop and one for the island). The cooktop is 6'8" wide x 2'1" deep x 3" thick. The island counter is 7' wide x 6' deep x 3" thick and features a 12" overhang for dining space.Each countertop was wet polished to a 3,000 grit finish using an alpha wet 4" polisher and a DS 301 12" planetary polisher (ebay steal of the year). The small counter took roughly 12 hrs of polishing using just the alpha polisher. The island counter took only 8 hrs using the DS 301 with small handwork performed with hand pads and the alpha grinder. The counters are finished with a penetrating sealer and topped with a coat of pure carnuba wax.Each counter was lifted into place by me and my friends. The smaller counter was 400 lbs and took three people. The larger (island) counter is 1380 lbs and took 12 people to install. All told, installation cost me $80 (2 cases of beer and 6 Hot-N-Ready Lil' Ceasars pizzas). Installation occurred in two stages - the cooktop counter in January and the island counter the last weekend of April (had to wait for cabinets to be completed).

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[engineertwin2]

End of the pour...

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[engineertwin2]

Polishing complete...

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[engineertwin2]

Near mirror reflection...

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[engineertwin2]

Moving the counter indoors...fyi, it barely fit through the slider (cleared by less than 1/2").

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[lovemyraffe]

Nicely done. This is a great idea and I might use it in the future.

[bodhi_tree777]

Very nicely done!

[BlueCrush]

That's Awesome!!! Nice work.

[Kari]

One thing I'm wondering -- with the weight, will your floors and cabinets support it? It seems a lot heavier than your average countertop.

[engineertwin2]

Weight was discussed with civil engineering here at work. Cabinets are constructed of 5 ply birch grade 2 plywood. In fact, there were design and construction changes made to the cabinets to ensure that they can handle the added weight. Had the countertop been 1-1/2" thick instead of 3" thick, the counter would not weigh much more than a granite countertop.Here in AZ, we typically don't have basements. As a result, I have a slab on grade house. Resultant is that floors can easily take it.

[09vGT]

My dad does well did.. May DIY things.. Yours looks way better than ours did.. Ours actually started cracking horribly over time.. then.. if the counter was wet, and you put down a lets say a newspaper down.. the print would be stuck to the counter forever.. I hated them.. BUT.. our house caught fire and burned to the ground, and those counter tops saved all of the pots and pans underneath.. well, those that it didn't squish.. Good job on yours though!

[engineertwin2]

Thanks for the compliments. There are pros and cons to concrete counter tops. Time will tell if mine crack too, but hopefully the rebar and glass fiber reinforcement will help to mitigate these issues.I can only imagine if the cabinets give, anything under them will be reduced to nothing.

[chevelle_lover]

The plywood will hold fine as that is what is recommended for the granite and marble tops. I would have been worried if they were particle board framed cabinets. Nice looking job they did.

[audiovibe]

Nicely done, I always wanted to do a concrete counter top, but the wife wouldn't let it fly.