How To Make A Concrete Countertop, It's Easier Than You Think

this is my brand-new concrete bench top and I think it might be the best thing that I've ever made if I can you can let me show you how to make one it all starts with cutting a mold out of Miller - the size of the slab you want the two main things to consider here are thickness and overhang in my case I went with 45 millimeters thick and an overhang on the front of 30 millimeters these are numbers that are decided on for my own research so with someone with little to no experience with concrete's I felt safest using someone else's experience I'm sure you could go thin if you wanted but the mix would need something like fiberglass added I then measure the inside length of the mold which would be the total length of the counter top and lined up all the strips are cut earlier I clamp these down and screw them to the base make you should have pre-drilled each hole because you don't want the mill of mine to expand from the screw also make sure the countersink the holes this will make sense later taping the screw holes make sure that if any concrete ends up in there and it will you don't have the problem of getting it out of the screws later then it came time for caulking I'm terrible at silicon but the method I find works best is to use soapy water and a lot of rags this will be the round over on the top so find an object that reflects the edge you want in my case I used a pen you also want to make sure that where the silicon meets the mill of mine there's a feathered edge you cannot believe how precise the concrete shows absolutely every lump and bump rubbing the surface down with olive oil helps to release the concrete from the mold later to add some color to the concrete I used oxide powder I made a bit of a mistake here though I decided to mix my concrete in two batches so I mixed the powder into two halves I should have done this by weight I ended up with two different shades of grey from each batch but I'll show you how to fix that later then it was finally time to mix the concrete I used to high strength mix from my local hardware store all the videos I've watched either use quick creats which I don't think we have here in Australia or it's just not mentioned I get the feeling that any concrete besides quick set would work just fine one thing that is really important with the concrete is to mix it as dry as possible using excess water reduces its strength before adding the oxide powder are mixed it with water this made it mix much better into the concrete but be very careful using the stuck it stains absolutely everything it touches you really want to force their first layer into the corners because you've mixed it dry it's not going to run as much as you think then after the first layer are vibrated using a rubber mallet here you can see the difference in color between the layers but to get around the problem I just mixed it all in together this actually created a really nice detail so it all works out okay now it's time to add the rebar I wish I'd used a sheet of mesh it would have made things so much easier I also researched how concrete uses rebar as strength and this helped to explain where it should be placed in the concrete I'll leave a link in the description to a very good video that explains this then I vibrated for about an hour you can use all kinds of methods for this but I found using the rubber mallet works okay just make sure you tap the entire form as you hit the form you'll see bubbles rise to the surface and then pop as it pops the hole fills with concrete this is what you're after once the stops happening you're done vibrating in my case I didn't really need to screed because I calculated the volume of the mold and used the exact amount of concrete's the other reason you would screed the bottom is to the underneath of the counter top is smooth but really no one's looking at the bottom and then cover the concrete and plastic to keep the moisture in and the humidity high make sure to keep the concrete moist for about four days you don't need to cure it any longer than that do a bit of reading up on sharing if you're unsure it's actually really interesting stuff I then remove the mold as you can see the mill of mine came away really easily so either the olive oil trick is on point or milla mine is just I'm stickable I found that once I'd broken the water seal underneath using a metal spatula I was able to move the top at 120 kilograms it wasn't light but there was also a suction holding it down which made it even heavier then a friend came around and after a lot of discussion we flipped it over don't be a hero get someone to help you out our weight sanded using a sanding block but if I'm honest it didn't really do that much the mill of mine does all the shaping for you so you could probably miss the step I just wanted to knock down any sharp corners and get rid of any debris I let the concrete dry for the next four days before sealing you need it to be properly dryer and to test this you take a piece of rubber and place it on top if there's a wet spot underneath after two hours it needs to dry for longer I used six coats of water-based sealer starting the first coat at 25% strength then moving up to 100% on the last two coats then the countertop was finished and needed to be installed at 120 kilograms it was just easier to move it on the form and then slide it onto the cabinet frame if you've got any questions about the steps involved feel free to leave a comment below we even contact me directly thank goodness it was basically to say that just dropped like a rock so that's how you make a concrete countertop I was really impressed with how this came out and considering how little work actually put into it the results are crazy I guess at the end of the day it's the concrete that's doing all the work so you just need to sit back and wait and let the magic happen I did a lot of research before getting started on this and I think that definitely helps a lot everyone was to fix this channel Aaron messy goes through a very very thorough step-by-step process on how to get a concrete top like this and Mack Montgomery from modern builds has a slightly different take on it but he still comes out with a great looking concrete top so with that said I definitely recommend going and checking out those videos and take your time we really understand the process from start to finish and all stand you in good stead when you eventually pour that first bit of concrete and it has to happen so that's how you make a concrete countertop if I can you can thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please go ahead and click that thumbs up if you haven't already I'd love for you to subscribe thanks again and I'll talk to you guys soon you

Channel: Robin Lewis Makes

Views: 3,533,225

Rating: 4.9044471 out of 5

Keywords: concrete countertops, countertops, concrete, how to, diy, concrete sealer, make your own, home made, homemade, kitchen countertops, make, concrete counter, renovation, lifestyle, modern furniture, design, do it yourself, rustic modern, home improvement, cement countertops, cement countertops diy, concrete diy

Id: 9866dmfJxUU

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/salmon1a]

My cousin did a concrete countertop when he built his house - looked great at first but it has stained over time.

[u/scuders3]

I dunno mate, working with concrete just seems like one of those jobs that keeps getting harder and harder

[u/Raufestin]

Congratulations, it looks beautiful. I was always skeptical of concrete countertops, but i think i may change idea. Maybe i just have seen bad works in the past. Some questions:

1 What kind of reinforcing are you using? In the video you have linked the guy says something about fiber glass, but it seems to me that you are using some kind of mesh.

2 What about the sealer? Is regular polyurethane?

3 What's the total cost of a project like this?

[u/WorkoutProblems]

stains everything it touches

uses barehands. see you like to live dangerously

[u/Nepoxx]

I thought wet concrete could result in chemical burns?

[u/w0nderbrad]

You can mix it wetter than that. That's almost like dry packing. You can also make just the edges thicker and the middle can be formed/blanked out with a sheet of styrofoam. Save a lot of weight (that's what a lot of stone countertops look like if you look closely - you can usually see a seam where they doubled up on the edges). You can also acid stain instead of mixing pigment into the concrete if you're worried about multiple batches having inconsistent color. You should definitely use sealer. There's colored, matte, natural, gloss/wet look.

[u/thatguyworks]

Looks like there's a notch cut out to accommodate some of the conduit running along the wall. Did he do that afterwards or was that built into the mold?

[u/catchfish]

That accent is super hard to place -- South AfricustrailZeland. Looks real nice though, nice work. What will be the purpose of this counter? I suspect this wouldn't be an ideal workbench surface...a missed hammerblow would almost certainly crack it, right?

[u/ReharshedAgain]

Looks great! Congrats