Custom Concrete Countertops – DIY Kitchen Cabinets Ep 10
This is pretty much the last episode in my DIY Kitchen Cabinet series. I make a cool custom concrete countertop. I tried to toss as many c’s in that sentence for alliteration purposes. I learned a lot about concrete countertops through two of Cheng’s books. He is one of the pioneers in the field, and shares a lot of great tips. I highly recommend you purchasing them to learn more details that I leave out.
I made these countertops twice. The first one was a brown countertop that had some cracking issues. That wasn’t a big deal; the slurry hid the cracks. However, we didn’t like the color. It just didn’t fit in, and I decided to do it again. I used the “Jet Black” secrete color, which is what we did for our other countertops, and this looked awesome.
I make some mistakes in the video and highlight them. I also did a stupid setup when cutting the sheets of malemine on some sawhorses, and took a spill. I was really glad to not loose any fingers, and I learned a valuable lesson about setting up your cuts. I rarely make circular saw cuts on sawhorses, and prefer to do them down on the ground. I might go back to that style just to be more on the safe side.
Check out the previous episode here: How to Finish Kitchen Cabinets.
[…] Episode 10 of my DIY Kitchen Cabinet Series went into some detail about what I used for the countertops. I purchased D-FRC concrete from the Concrete Exchange in the bay area (Concord). I avoided paying for shipping by driving there myself and picking it up. They do have affordable freight shipping, but it is still cheaper for me to pick it up in my EV. D-FRC concrete is expensive! It requires a special additive liquid to make it set right. One could easily half or quarter the cost of the countertops by going with traditional Secrete 2000 concrete from Home Depot and adding the color additives. However, I didn’t want the look of secrete where the aggregate shows through, and instead I wanted a very smooth countertop. […]