Garden Kitchen/Processing Room

[TnAndy]

I used a knock off Corian (Samsung brand) I found at a salvage building material place locally. Stuff is really easy to work with, the only thing you want to do is sand it outside, as the dust is unbelievably fine and floats all over the shop.

 

[GLyford]

I will just add my 2c for a drywall lift making life easier. I bought a new HF one for about the same money as used ones on CL or a rental, and now my BiL has it for his current project.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife and I were looking into concrete countertops (we like the industrial look and have stained concrete for our flooring). I did a lot of research on line--some good youtube videos on doing them.

I have talked to several people who have concrete countertops and they give mixed reviews on how well they hold up. You would think they would be robust and could be sealed well. Some of the people I talked to showed me chips along the edges (from pans impacting the corners) and one showed me some cracking from thermal shock from a hot pan. Also, the food grade rated sealers are not as robust as the epoxy sealers you can put on a regular floor, so staining can be an issue.

Since this is a processing room, neither of these concerns may matter to you.

An alternative which may not be as expensive as you think is to look at getting stainless steel countertops custom made in a shop and install them yourself. Not only would they match your sink, but the clean up would be just an easy.

Thank you. I'm really not a big fan of going the concrete route, but my wife is and this is for her. I was wanting granite, but she said that was too fancy. I' sort of glad because I can think of a lot of other things to spend the money on that granite would have cost!!! If the granite doesn't work, she wants tile. She really likes tile counter tops and has even asked about it over granite. We have been looking at pictures online, going through a few books I bought on how to do it, and debating on what we hope to get out of granite compared to what I can do with tile. Concrete is still our first choice, but it's close enough that we wont be too heartbroken if it fails.

I never thought about stainless. I personally don't care for the look of stainless appliances. That sink will be the only thing in there that is stainless. If I could have found a porcelain farm sink similar in size and cost, that's what I would have preferred. Maybe. Our ultimate goal is function over looks. I have a strong feeling that the sink is going to be very functional. The three deep bays have both my wife, and my mom, very exciting at what they hope to do in there.

Does anybody have any idea of what to use to die, or make the concrete black? Would sand blasting medium work? I have several sacks of it. It's black. I'm thinking of adding it to the mix along with whatever else I can find to make the concrete black.

 

[mapper]

I did a small project a couple of years ago where I needed to color some mortar to match the concrete blocks in a retaining wall. I found concrete dye powder at home depot that worked well. It is mixed with the concrete so the color is solid. The most difficulty I had was in getting the color to match, when the mortar cured it was a bit darker. This would most likely not be an issue for you since you are going for deep black.

 

[bigtiller]

I thought concrete counter tops were mixed with a special "made for counter tops" concrete mix. Won't regular concrete be to porous?

 

[TheSpoon]

My wife and I looked into doing concrete counters when we were designing out kitchen renovation. We decided not to go with it (did quartz instead) mostly because for it to be cost effective for us we needed to do it ourselves and that wasn't a project I had time for in our "new to us" house. Anyhow, here's a couple links I found immensely useful. You may have already run across them if you've done a little digging. They're both from "the guy" that started the trend I believe.

Concrete Countertops - How To, Ideas & Design | CHENG Concrete Exchange
and
Concrete Countertops FAQ - Fine Homebuilding Article

*EDIT* The "Jet Black" from Cheng concrete: JET BLACK | CHENG Concrete Exchange

 

[EddieWalker]

I thought concrete counter tops were mixed with a special "made for counter tops" concrete mix. Won't regular concrete be to porous?

Shop QUIKRETE Countertop 80-lb Gray High Strength Concrete Mix at Lowes.com

I never saw this before, and as a contractor, I'm at Lowes several times a week at the very least. Then I saw it there about two weeks ago. I'm guessing it's something new, but then maybe I just never noticed it before.

 

[EddieWalker]

Today was the day for concrete counters!!! Yesterday I put the bonding agent on the plywood to help the concrete adhere, or at least just stay in place. I bought 8 sacks of counter top concrete, 8 bottles of dye and two wire concrete panels. So far, I'm into the counters for $200

I read the instructions on the sacks, which said to use 3.2 to 4.3 liters of water for each 80 pound sack. I went with 4 liters using a brand new measuring cup from Walmart. Then they said to let it mix for at least five full minutes. I gave it ten minutes and ended up with a thousand golf ball to marble sized concrete rolling around in the mixer. Too dry, so I added another liter, bringing it up to five liters for each 80 pound sack. That worked better, but it was a very dry, very solid mix. It would now flow out of my mixer, and when dumped out of the bucket onto the counter, it kept it's shape like a giant cake sitting there. It was hard to spread, and a very slow process.







I put a bottom layer of concrete down first, then the wire, then filled up the forms. I screed it, then worked it with my trowel.









I'm still going out there to hit it again and again every hour. It's all firming up, but very slowly.

 

[EddieWalker]

Except for being cheap, these concrete counter tops are turning into a project that I'm starting to regret. I spent half the day polishing them and they are getting a lot smoother. Not great, not pretty. They are just looking like smooth concrete. I was really hoping the stain that I mixed into it would have done something, but it's like I never put added it at all. It was liquid and I poured it into the mixer, so it should have gone all the way through. After polishing, there is no sign of color. I'm going to stain them when I'm done polishing and see if that helps.

To polish the concrete, I bought a Makita 4 inch stone polisher from Amazon. The reviews where all good except for the hose attachment. Some said it was hard to find, others said it was easy at Lowes. I proved to be impossible for me, or anybody else at Lowes to figure out what would work. The fitting on the polisher is just a hair smaller then a garden hose quick attach. Eventually I figured out that I would just slide a hose over the fitting and clamp it down.

Water and polishing is a mess. It's a huge mess!!!! Doing it in place is just crazy. Never do this in your house!!!!

Tomorrow I'll get down to the really fine disks and hope for the best.

 

[EddieWalker]

The counters have proven to be a bigger challenge then I had expected. The polishing disks work great, but they don't last very long. I went through two sets of them to get the counters smooth. The mess factor from the water was pretty bad. I'm not sure what I could have done to catch all the water, and keep it off of the floors. Thankfully they are still just the concrete slab and I just let it evaporate between hours and hours of polishing.

The next big disappointment was the stain. I mixed in the stain sold at Lowes that is made my Quickrete. I had hoped that since they sold the concrete mix for counter tops, the stain would work well together. It left the unpolished counters a nice color, but once they where polished, the color went to grey. Water made it dark again, but just temporarily.

I bought a gallon of ebony colored acid stain on Amazon to make it darker. It had the highest reviews, but some of them said it didn't make the concrete very dark at all. I did two coatings. First one cooked for 12 hours, the second for another 12 hours. They said 24 hours was the max to let it cook before spraying it with ammonia and water to neutralize the acid. The results where ugly, patchy and too light. There was also some brown, rust like areas that developed from the stain that we didn't like.

Finally I found some dye that was jet black and very strong. I thinned it down with paint thinner and rubbed it on like wax in circles. The results where instant, and amazing. Finally, we had what we wanted in the correct color.

I'm at 3 coats of sealer in this picture. They recommend at least two layers, but said that the more you put on, the better the protection and the higher the gloss you will get. I've used less then half the bottle, so I'll probably keep adding layers to it over time when I know there will be no dust to deal with until I use up the bottle.