Fast DIY Concrete Countertops

i'm really excited about the next step in our diy kitchen remodel because we are adding a countertop to our kitchen island and we made this huge kitchen island so i could have a big workspace and we're going to do a contrasting countertop by doing a concrete countertop and this will be my first time doing a concrete countertop and i am so excited because i love the rustic charm that it gives to any kitchen and we're partnering with cts to use their rapid set cemental which is going to make this concrete countertop super quick because most of the time you have to wait 48 hours before you can even take forms off we'll be removing forms within hours and have a concrete countertop that is ready to go within a day so let's show you how we did that the day before our concrete pour we had to get our forms all set up now we're doing a pour in place countertop because our kitchen island is quite big the final dimensions of our countertop is 40 inches by 7 feet and a slab of concrete that big would just be too heavy for us to carry so we're creating our forms directly on top of our countertops and to do that we are starting with a layer of half inch hearty backer cement board the cement board is super easy to cut with just a utility knife and a straight edge so first i got the measurements of our countertop forms these will have a half inch overhang on either side of the countertops and then we will set our forms so we end up with a total of a three-quarter inch overhang hiding the edge of the cement board i put about 10 slices down the straight edge on that measurement and used my weight across that edge to hold it nice and tight while my husband popped the edge to give us a nice clean cut we used three sheets of the three foot by five foot hearty backer board to create the form the base of our forms and again each side is overhung a half of an inch for the last piece i did have to cut it twice so i cut one sideways and one lengthwise to fit it on that final section to secure the cement board to the top of the countertops i did not want to use screws and screw it down into the cabinets because that way this cement countertop would not be coming out without completely banging it into all kinds of little pieces so instead we're using just some clear silicone and we're putting that below the cement board in between the cabinet tops and then once it is dry that is holding a nice and tight i actually tried the next morning to pull it up and i could not get the cement board to move i also added some silicone to all of the seams of my hearty backer because i did not want any of that cement to drip through those seams into the cabinets below when we were pouring so i gave everything a nice thick coating of silicone and then we were ready to add the sides of the forms the sides of the forms for our concrete countertop are made up of melamine coated uh this is actually a shelf it's a 96 inch by just shy of 16 inch piece of melamine coated board i got it in the shelving section at my local big box store i used the table saw to actually rip down strips to the size that i needed for our forms the first strip is placed underneath the overhang of that back hearty backer board and it is attached to it and this is the exact dimension of how much of an overhang i want on my finished countertop because i'm doing inset cabinet doors i'm only doing a three-quarter inch overhang on my cabinet um sorry on my countertop over the cabinet so i ripped three quarter inch pieces to fit flush up against my countertop and attached to the underside of my cement board then i also ripped the pieces to go on the sides now a standard kitchen countertop is one and a half inches thick and that is the dimension that i went for my concrete countertops as well i like that it's nice and thick really substantial looking and it matches the other countertops which we did which are wood countertops on the outskirts of the kitchen so after ripping my skinnier pieces from my melamine board i also rip pieces that were actually two and a quarter inches because my melamine board is three quarter of an inch thick then i had my one and a half inch thick for my countertop thickness once i had all my pieces ripped i went to my miter saw to cut them to length to start creating the forms around that cement board that first board i cut it so it was the exact same length as my countertop that way the second board when it was butted up against it would act as the other side and this is where my first challenge was i decided not to pre-drill through this very fragile tiny strip of board and i ended up splitting it so definitely you want to pre-drill before you add your screws but it was just as easy as adding some screws all the way up pre-drilled in on the underside of my melamine board into the cement board once that countertop is poured you won't even see those screw holes when you remove them i repeated this all the way around the entire kitchen island until i had the first three quarter inch strip in place then i was able to take final measurements and cut the sides of my forms the sides of these forms are attached to the bottom piece of melamine covered board the same way make sure to pre-drill and then secure it in i did end up cutting my board about a quarter of an inch extra thick so that i could make sure that everything was flush and level as i attached it and that came in very handy because as we discovered not everything was perfectly flush so on one side of my countertops it's maybe about an eighth of an inch different thickness than the other side which is important to keep this nice and level because the concrete will flow into it and you want to make sure that it's flowing into a level surface also it's really important when attaching the other side that you also keep it level to the first side so make sure you have a level big enough as you're installing the second side to keep it level all the way up so that you have a perfectly level form all the way around your entire island and then i finished off the forms by attaching the front and the back again keeping it level i'm gonna see how many times i can say that um in this entire video so make sure everything is nice and level that level became my best friend uh luckily the front and the back were a lot easier because i already have the two sides perfectly level and ready to go now typically with a cement form you will add caulk into the seams of that melamine board but because we only have a quarter inch overhang between the cement board and the melamine there was just no way i could get anything in there to smooth out any um any silicone so what we ended up doing the day of our pour is adding a piece a little bit of duct tape around the outside of the form and the only reason for that was to keep any cement from flowing through and mostly it was because we didn't want it to continue to flow through we wanted it to um actually create a border for it to stop at and it worked out really well because i did have a couple of spots in my form that had a little bit of a gap in them you can skip the silicone and once you've got all four of your sideboards in place prepare for pouring okay we got the countertop forms all built today and we are ready for tomorrow which is poor day and we're really excited because cts is sending out their uh local reps to help us with poor day so we can make sure that we get all of our concrete pouring questions answered and we'll make sure to share those with you guys as well i'm not going to lie but i was super nervous for our concrete poor day because this is such a large countertop right in the middle of my kitchen so i wanted to make sure that it turned out amazing and the reps that came and helped us were absolutely amazing and they definitely put me at ease by answering all of our questions and making really this such an enjoyable experience the biggest thing that we learned is to make sure you have everything prepped and ready before you start prep or before you start mixing your concrete because this is a rapid set product you just have to have everything in place so take the time to make sure you have all of the supplies you need ready to go before you even open a bag of concrete we also did a little more prep to our countertop forms right before the pour so first of all we added wd-40 to all of the melamine surfaces and then wiped it off you just want a very thin coat on that melamine and that will make it so that the forms release that cement really well the second thing was to wet down the cement board the dry cement board will actually pull the moisture from your cement making it set up too fast so if you wet it first it's going to give you a little bit more time on the countertops as you are pouring okay today is poor day and i'm super excited because we are working with cts rapid set and they actually sent out their local reps to come help us they're going to answer all of our questions so that you guys are also prepared to do the perfect uh diy concrete countertops as well so um first of all what product are we using today and why we're using rapid tip cement all you guys told us that you wanted a super smooth finish so cement is going to have our finest sand that we have available in any product that we make it's a silica sand mixed with our csa cement that's going to give us the high speed and the fast setting and also the strength that we want for this type of countertop awesome yeah we're going to do super smooth we're going to be hand sanding it to help release or to minimize dust so that'll be really awesome now uh i always try to be really budget conscious when i'm doing my diys because it can get out of hand but let's talk cost how much how much cement are we using and how much is it gonna cost so we estimated anywhere from seven to ten bags for this project we're probably going to need more in the six to seven bags range uh each bag retails about 25 at your local home depot you can get it a little bit cheaper if you buy it in both if you are doing a larger project i think as soon as you buy 25 bags the price will drop down a little bit but for anything less than that about 25 a bag so we're looking at about 150 to 200 here in cement that is awesome because the same thing in like uh quartz or uh granite would be easy three times that exactly yes we'll also be using some additives today each additive packet that we use runs anywhere from 250 to three dollars so uh include that in your budget as well but like you said even with the additives that we're going to use today which we'll go over later um you're still going to be coming in well under what you said for quartz or granite or even marble for which is really popular right now so those additives um i was doing a lot of reading it's a little confusing so tell us what the additives are meant for um so we make one um it's called set control set control is going to slow us down so it's you add it to the water before you mix your cement product so you're essentially treating that water before you use it to mix each little packet is going to slow us down by about 15 to 20 minutes so just buys you more working time you can use up to four so you can buy yourself an extra hour of working time um other things go into the working time like your working temperature your environment we're going to be mixing outside it's a little bit of a cooler day so we're already going to get a little bit more working time once you've controlled all those extra elements the set control just gives you that extra customization that you need the other additive that we're going to use is flow control it also comes in a little two ounce packet and that's going to be added while we mix the product to make it a little bit more soupy when you're making a countertop you want it to flow you want to flow out of the bucket so that way it almost comes out like a pancake batter um this does that uh gives you that effect without adding more water so it's going to increase your strength that's what basically you get out of it so for example when we mix this bag of cement all that we're going to mix instead of using five quarts and getting an i wouldn't say a weaker product but weaker than you would get with four quarts we could drop that water content down increase the overall strength but still get a soupy pancake batter like consistency which is what you want for a concrete countertop okay so last question for any diyers out there what's the one question they should be asking the pros before they start a project like this um air bubbles uh so whenever you're doing a countertop you want to make sure that there's no air bubbles in your mix the best way to do that uh we talked about it earlier is uh they make vibration tools uh for these uh that they just kind of clip onto the uh to the forms here you can also use like a sander which is what we'll be using yeah just kind of go along the sides basically what you want to do is you want to just vibrate the edges so that way as you're pouring you're getting all of your air bubbles agitated and mixed out out of the product if you let the air bubble stay in you're going to see the pin holes and just just different imperfections that's the main thing that i would uh take into account when doing this type of project okay well i'm excited are we ready to start pouring yes let's get it let's get it going okay because we're using multiple bags for our project we need to make sure that we use the exact same amount of water for each pour and to do that we measured out the water we started with four quarts of water we measured it out and put it into a bucket and then used a sharpie to make a mark on the bucket so with all of these subsequent pours we already had that mark there and could just measure in the bucket we did end up going with an additional quart after we did the first mix and lots of things will affect how much water you need to use but you definitely want to stay on the lower side and then use that flow control to get your nice pancake batter consistency and that's going to make sure you don't have to worry about any strength problems so once you get your water measured and everything is ready it's time to start mixing because we were working with a lower temperature day we only used half a pack of set control per bag of cement oil and we included that into the water so the set control goes into the water then the cement all gets poured into the water while you're mixing to get that all mixed up once you get mostly mixed up you can throw that flow control in to get it really to that soupy consistency that you want and you can use up to four bags of the cement control and the flow control per 55 pound bag of cement all we ended up using one and a half packets of flow control and only half a packet of set control for our project and this is where the extra sets of hands really came in handy so we have two people in the house and we were pushing the product into the forms to make sure that it was filling in all of the corners well two more went outside and mixed the next batch remember this is a fast setting product so you really do have to work fast and that first one started to dry a lot quicker because it was the first one in there even though we'd wetted that cement board so you really do want to work super super quick getting that second batch and third in and then it was just a matter of quickly mixing another batch up pouring it on top smoothing it out and we did that and ended up using a total of only five bags for our concrete countertops after we got a couple bags poured in while one person was smoothing it out another person was using that sander to get rid of those dreaded air bubbles and it really is just a constant process all the way around the sides vibrating it smoothing it out and just working it together in tandem to get the perfect top on that and once all of the um bags well we had four of the bags in already so it was starting to look very full we grabbed a straight 2x4 to use as a scree and we used that to start pushing the any high spots into the low spots and also it helped us identify where there are any low spots and you want to do this at an angle as you go over the top of the board until you can get a really nice flat surface and with the form completely full we used a little bit more smoothing on that entire surface and that required a couple trowels and when you're traveling you want to kind of go in a large arch motion you also want to have your trowel at a very slight angle and it's really like frosting a cake you have such a light hand on that and it'll take a little bit of getting used to but because you've got corners on that trowel you've got to keep it nice and smooth the first few times as you're getting used to it it's okay because you can really fix those but as you get a little bit better at it you're going to start having the flow then your product is going to start setting up so it'll be more important to keep a very smooth hand and at this point it was all hands on deck vibrating out air bubbles and smoothing off the surface to get that nice smooth top that we wanted for our countertops for the very last step of the smoothing of the top we used a special trowel that has rounded corners and that made it so that we were able to kind of polish out any uh last imperfections that we could see without having those harsh corners that could scrape up the surface and now it was waiting time you have one hour of waiting between finishing that pour and before you can pull off those forms around the edge of the countertop and this part it's very important to keep the countertop wet so for that whole hour it's wetting it and then you kind of wait as that water starts to evaporate and wet it again and this is going to make sure that it doesn't crack or have any other problems as it is curing that first hour is just super important so um we got to stand around and just enjoy some quiet time while we waited and watched that water evaporate and kept that surface nice and cool and moist now if it's a um cooler day you're gonna have a little bit less water a little slower evaporation if it's a hotter day more so just be really um careful to keep that surface nice and wet for that first hour and after the long hour of waiting it was finally time to start removing the forms and this was nervous as well as super exciting because you know you're just praying that everything worked out as it was supposed to which of course it did spoiler alert so um i started by taking out all the screws but learned that i didn't need to take out the screws on the side really once you release the screws into the cement board from underneath the sides popped off which was good because those sides also have had a lot of cement in the screw holes so it almost made it impossible to remove that so remove all the screws around the bottom and then you will carefully kind of just pop that edge off and with the wd-40 attached to the side it really did just pop right off and now it's time for sanding now sanding does have to happen very quickly because this is a fast set product it also is really hitting its top strength really quickly so right after we got those forms removed it was time to do some hand sanding now we are doing a more of a rustic to smooth countertop look it's not going to be high polished it's a glow sheen which matches all of the matte finishes that i already have going on in my house so we're doing hand sanding and we started with 220 grit and i just put some 225 wet sandpaper on a block and lots of round motions to sand it around and this first layer is the most important because this is the layer where you're getting the cream off the top of your countertop and it is important to get that cream off because that is the layer on the very top of the concrete that is most prone to scratching which obviously we don't want on our concrete countertops so you'll notice as that cream starts to go away because as you are sanding you will see a white film that you will create and then you will clean it up and do some more water sanding and eventually you'll start noticing that that white creaminess to the sanding just tends to go away and once we got through that whole top layer with the 220 we switch to a 400 and a 600 grit for the final two sandings i did start using the lower grit or i guess technically higher grit sandpaper with the block as well but i found it actually was a lot easier to do by hand so we just made sure to keep that surface wet and a lot of hand sanding it's a really good um arm and shoulder workout but it's actually very satisfying to see that surface come to life you can sand as much as you want with your countertop we did again we kept it very rustic now we did have some pitting on some parts of it and i considered trying to sand it more or even skim coat it out but once everything was dry it was very hard to see it's really not noticeable on our final concrete countertop and i actually really like the look of it so it was a happy accident i guess you could say and so once you're happy with the sanding on your countertop it's time to just give it a nice cleaning and then you can clean up the entire area and let the entire thing cure now you do need to let it cure for 16 to 24 hours before applying a sealer so i would really keep it protected from any water especially any oil or citrus acidic foods for that entire 24 hours before the sealer is applied and after the sealer is dried it is all done that was such a easy project when i look back on it and i cannot wait to do more cement projects this rapid set cement really does make it so you don't have to set aside a whole week to do a project and the color on it it's a lighter almost whitish gray color which is absolutely gorgeous and it works perfect in our diy kitchen so i really want to thank um cts rapidset and their amazing reps that came out and helped us to create the perfect kitchen countertop for our kitchen and i am so excited to put it to so much use

Channel: Houseful of Handmade

Views: 208,553

Keywords: diycountertop, ctsrapidset, diyconcretecountertop, easycncretecountertop, pourinplaceconcretecountertop, housefulofhandmade, concretekitchenisland

Id: tjpIHB9XsjM

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021