Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

My girlfriend and I recently bought our first home together in December 2015. Having recently done them in his own home, my father offered to pay for materials and install polished concrete countertops into my kitchen for me as our housewarming gift (with my help of course!). I also purchased a new sink and faucet on Amazon to go with the new countertops.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

I dropped the ball on the 'before' pictures, so here's what they looked like on the realtor website we found the house on (Look how ugly that wallpaper was!)

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Short leg. Also, ugly old ceiling fan and potato camera.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Back to modern day; getting as much out of the cabinets as possible.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Goodbye puke-yellow counters! We screwed 3/8" thick hardie board down into the cabinet. This is what the concrete will sit on, and it will stay there forever.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Laying out the pre-made forms. We went with half bull-nose edge forms that were purchased online from 'Z-Form Concrete Countertops'. They have a variety of options, but we found the half bull-nose most aesthetic.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Forms and rebar are up, ready to pour. Duct tape holds the forms in place and seals the cracks between them. Rebar is a steel wire mesh raised from the bottom via little plastic spacers.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Concrete is mostly poured here, my father and his buddy are using a concrete vibrator to make sure the mixture settles into the forms well, hopefully without any air bubbles.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Concrete is poured and curing. Clean-up is a constant struggle, but our little shop-vac picked up most of the dust.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Ready for the new sink. Anything left in the cabinets at this point is in a state of pure disarray.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Pops preparing to remove the forms. They snap off with a little brute force, leaving the concrete inside formed to their shape. (theoretically)

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Oops!! We've speculated that the upward pressure from the dishwasher door caused the form to take the concrete with it when we snapped it off. Make sure everything is in a free-state when completing this step - this wasn't easy to fix! We'll get back to this after we install the sink.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Getting ready to put the sink in. You can see we had to make some clearance cuts on the sink forms with a reciprocating saw (they didn't necessarily need to come off) to get the new sink to fit. With a little finagling we got it to settle.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Making the actual cuts. Also featured: My boxer/lab mix Kylo.

Photo cred: Girlfriend

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Pupper helping his gramps with the plumbing. I'm on flashlight duty. Simple PVC pipe-work here, nothing fancy.

Photo cred: Girlfriend

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

We have running water!

Photo cred: Girlfriend

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

The new sink in all its glory.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Now to patch our little accident. We hand-cut a section of the form and duct-taped it to the broken off area above the dishwasher, with some holes drilled in the top to pour more concrete in. Dunno what an expert would do, but it's the best us amateurs could come up with. A combination of light hammer taps and the vibrator seen earlier was used in the hopes of getting it to settle.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

The patch concrete dried quicker than anticipated and didn't fill in as well as we had hoped, but at least we now had a basic structure to work off of by hand (what you see above the dishwasher is actually very firmly attached to the rest of the concrete).

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Much better. This actually came out extremely well for being done mostly by hand. We simply took wet patching concrete and slapped it on there, guesstimating the shape of the form by blending it with existing surfaces.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

The sink, the big patch, and all the minor patching that we had to do by hand is done (and darker than everywhere else, if you look closely). Now we're getting ready to power-sand it all down using a system of graduated sand paper, ranging from 60 to 400 grit.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Before (or in the process of) sanding.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

After sanding, same corner. Pro-tip, have someone running a vacuum while you do this sanding, it gets absolutely everywhere.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Sanding is done, time to stain. We went with charcoal grey coloring. Three coats, the third of which was disturbed with clean damp rags to create a marbling effect. Also, mom came over to help!

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Stain is done, ready to be sealed. Girlfriend is getting anxious to have her counterspace back, as evident in the clutter.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

The shine you see here is from the seal. The sealant was applied via rag, and soaked into the concrete to fill in any cracks or imperfections and remove as much porosity as possible. This makes it so liquids and the like won't affect the finish.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Now for the waxing. The wax we chose actually didn't require buffing, so we applied three coats with a rag and let it dry. Also, Pupper's tail has quantum leaped into oblivion out of sheer excitement.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Up close. 'Marbeling' came out very nice.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

The most important feature: the coffee maker! Wax finish giving off the most beautiful reflections. Also a sneak peak of what our backsplash will most likely be once it's installed.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Short leg.

Polished Concrete Countertops [DIY]

Over-all a definitive success. The entire project cost less than $700 for tools and material. It's certainly not perfect, but the imperfections give it character, and to have this done professionally or with granite may have cost four or five times as much. I'll update in the coming weeks with pictures of the backsplash if anyone shows an interest.

Thanks for viewing!