DIY CONCRETE COUNTERTOP

Aubrey Barnes
Apr 7, 2017
5 min read

I've been seeing Concrete Countertops EVERYWHERE these days and I've been obsessed with creating one of my own. My husband and I are remodeling our bathroom and I thought this was a great place to try it out. I've read many blogs and watched several tutorials so I felt like I had the basics down. It can't be that bad right??? AND IT WASN'T.........It was also pretty cheap compared to other TLC Home Remodeling Project options.

Here's the cost break down and supply list.

Concrete Patching Material - $10.00 (Used pretty much all of this)

Sand Paper (I already had some from another project so I didn't really include this as a cost)

Concrete Sealer - $30.00 (I really only used about $1.00 worth of this product but I couldn't find it in a smaller container. I'm going to do my kitchen countertops like this so i figured I would use the rest of it in the kitchen.

Optional:

Plywood - $3.00 (Already had a scrap left over from another project)

Concrete Color Charcoal - $6.00 (Only used 1/4 of the coloring)

Total Cost of Stuff Purchased: $46.00

Total Cost used for project: $16.00 (Concrete Patching $10.00 , Concrete Sealer $1.00, Charcoal coloring, $2.00, Plywood used $3.00)

The total cost for this project will really depend on what you already have laying around. I estimate $45 on average for this project. The real costly thing for me was the sealer that I basically had to buy in bulk. If you can find it in a smaller container I would love to know! That would make this project much cheaper.

PRODUCT CHOICE

I've read many blogs and most of them use Ardex Feather Finish or Henry's Feather Finish. Both can be found on Amazon. Ardex runs $31.29 for a 10lb bag and Henry's is $16.97 for a 7lb bag. I noticed that Henrys could be found at Home Depot so instead of waiting I just went there to grab some. When I got there they didn't have any in stock of course. After looking at all there products I decided to go with another brand that seemed to be the same stuff. It's basically just a powder cement that is for patching. The brand I went with is called SAKCRETE. They also have the black powder tint that I was looking for. They ran about $10 for a 10lb bucket of concrete and $6 for the coloring. It came in cheaper than both Ardex and Henry's and I was able to get the coloring I wanted. This was a win/win for me!

Here's what the products look like. I got them all from home depot.

STEP ONE: Rough up the surface

When we did the demo work in our bathroom one of the first things my husband tore off was the ugly formica countertop so I didn't really have a smooth surface to begin with. We also wanted to put a bit of a lift kit on our cabinet because it was super short so my husband took the whole cabinet out and then I sanded it and gave it a good paint job.

*** SIDE NOTE: I'm loving this cabinet color! Its called "Admirality". I just got it from Lowe's. All I needed was a $3 dollar paint sample and I've got about 1/4 of the paint left over. It really didn't take very much at all and I did two good coats. It's amazing what a little bit of elbow grease can do to a 70's bathroom.

When we put the cabinet back in we added a piece of plywood to the top. This wasn't totally necessary but here's why we did it. Cost was maybe $3 (a sheet of plywood costs $12ish however we already had a chunk left over from another project so I didn't really feel like we were spending extra for this)

1. The new sink we were installing needed a smaller hole then the one the old sink had.

2. We thought a bit of extra height on the countertop would be nice.

3. We thought the rough surface of the plywood would be great for the concrete to bond to.

STEP TWO: Prep the space around you

Once it was all in place I taped around the edge. I gave about 1/4 inch of space to allow the cement some room to build up. I wanted a nice clean line around the top since I wasn't planning on adding any molding. I added newspaper because I didn't want to get any concrete on the freshly painted walls.

STEP THREE: The Application

I knew that I wanted an even color and after reading the instructions I determined that I should work in small batches. So I began to mix my first batch. The concrete mix I used said to mix it 4-1 with 4 being the powder concrete and 1 being the water.

Here's my recipe.

1 cup concrete powder

1/4 cup Water

2 Tablespoons Charcoal Powder

I mixed both of the powders together and then added the water. A little water goes a long way so be patient with mixing.

The first coat went on pretty thick compared to several other tutorials I'd seen. I think this mostly had to do with the fact that we used plywood as a base. It has lots of texture and it had a place for all the concrete to go.

Here's what the first layer looked like:

It turned out super Black!!!

What I learned After the first Layer

-For the first coat I had to mix up about 5 batches of this. I could have probably mixed a bigger batch than this but it does dry pretty fast so I wanted to play it safe.

-The black powder tint goes a long way!!! 2 Tablespoons gave me a really dark black color. It was a bit over kill. I changed the recipe up a bit for the 2nd coat.

You will just need to mess around with the color to get the shade you are looking for. I let this dry overnight and then started again the next day for the second coat with this recipe.

2 cup concrete powder

1/2 cup Water

2 Teaspoon Charcoal Powder

This gave me more of the color I was going for.

As you can see in the picture above the first layer was very rough. I wanted to avoid as much sanding as possible so when I added the second layer I really tried to get is as smooth as possible. Check out the video below to see how I got the concrete super smooth before allowing it to dry. After I added the second coat I let it dry overnight again and the next day I sanded. I really only did about 20 minutes of sanding just to get it smooth.

STEP FOUR: Curing Phase

I then let the concrete cure for about a week before adding the sealer. This is just to make sure that as much water as possible is dried from the concrete. The sealer I used said to let your concrete cure for 30 days or so. However, they are talking about thick concrete like a backyard patio. I didn't want to wait that long and I felt like it was so thin that a week would be plenty of time.

STEP FIVE: Sealing Concrete

The final Step is to seal the concrete. The sealer I used was pretty easy to use. I just used a paint brush and put it on in 3 coats with about 4 hours of dry time in between coats. This is what the sealer directions recommend and it worked great. The Sealer is a milky color when you first put it on and then turns clear.

AND YOU'RE DONE!!!