The Counters Blog

February 16, 2010 at 10:59 am you should not stop blogging 🙂 and just post your projects! February 17, 2010 at 6:25 pm cheryl, u never cease to amaze me. I don’t even like birds (have a fear) but these are so good! At this point the felted forms were becoming very solid, and it was getting harder and harder to stab in any more detail. Rowen has a few of felted wool farm animals (from etsy of course:)) but she’s started eating them to right now they are on hold in the toy box.I remember you talking about it at nina and eric’s wedding and that you wanted to send them out already. I woulda believed you if you told me you bought them and paid a lot for them. It makes me feel more and more excited as we come closer, can’t wait to see all these details that have such a personal touch! Lets take a look at my very first needle felting attempt! I have been curious about how the felting is done and your birds are absolutely adorable!

DIY Feather Finish Concrete Countertops by tidbits-cami.com

Here is the kitchen from the realtor listing before we bought it. My husband did a wonderful job installing the concrete overlay surface. Once we had the first layer smoothed on, we let it dry overnight and one day. After we applied the sealer, but before we had applied the wax – the water and any food mess would bead up on the surface and easily wipe off with no problem. After wiping, it would darken and look wet until awhile after when it dried. I had a crock pot on for about 6 hours and the concrete cracked and flaked off below. I have a few chips here and there from items being dropped, but were easily repaired. Also the wax and the sealer may be reacting with each other chemically, essentially canceling each other out and creating a porous surface. I used a satin finish polyurethane as a sealer and loved the result. In fact, if my husband had not just finished installing our new solid surface countertops, we may have given it a go any ways. I still think concrete countertops look fantastic and it is so good to hear that it can work. If you do that you weaken the material & once it starts setting, you compromise the integrity of the material. Grout has to be sealed with grout sealer or it crumbles over time. The manufacturer’s suggested amount of water should be added to the product and it should then be mixed according to the manufacturer’s instructions – exactly. Thinning out cement grains with excess water is bad enough but doing it once chemical reactions have started in the bucket makes it much worse. In addition, a wood substrate expands and contracts at different rates and to different tolerances than a concrete skim coat. There would have been less labor and less cost with much less mess if the counters were cast in a simple mold to the proper thickness using a concrete counter top mix with some admixture and possibly some fiber and/or scrim for reinforcement. The best part of this project is husband and wife got to work on something together. One bottle did four coats and then some in my very large kitchen. Wish me luck we will be starting ours over laminate soon! I love this look and although you had issues, it sure is pretty! I would also staple metal lath over the rosin paper next time. Water does leave dark spots but they tend to dry out over time. I chose not to completely smooth out the surface and then chose to fill divits with a grout in a secondary color. There is also a concrete color additive you can purchase that will whiten/lighten concrete. But, anyway, looking forward to seeing you new counters! If you use a product in a non- recommended application — you get awful results! Then we had a baby, and it stayed like this for a long, long time. I feel like his techniques will work great if you are tackling concrete countertop projects yourself. Then he made a flat edging with 1 x 4 pine ripped down to 2 3/4 inch and screwed in place. The hubs gathered a bucket, a trowel, the grout and feather finish. It would thicken up quickly on it’s own, so he had to work fast once he poured on the surface. He came to find out, it was best to use his fingers to press the concrete on the corners and edges, nice and thick. The sealer itself left the surface still feeling a little “chalky” to the touch. My husband spread it on with a buffer and it made the surface slightly glossy, but smoother to the touch. I mentioned, it was very chalky feeling so we applied the wax. It really made no sense why the wax would affect it like this, but it did. I am unsure if that is the reason they are cracking after all. I put it directly over the existing counter surface and haven’t had any cracking like what you showed. I got lazy and only did two coats but after a year the counter is just now starting to scratch easily. I really truly appreciate you taking time to comment and leave such a helpful one. I hope there will be many encouraged by your comment! Adding water periodically and remixing will destroy the necessary bonds required for strong concrete. This may have been helpful with the fast-setting product used here. The slightest bit of expansion and contraction of the wood and the seams in the wood will be transferred right through a thin coating of any concrete product regardless of brand. I do appreciate you sharing in this environment where projects are scrutinized. Also if you thin the mixture too much it won’t set up correctly. Bare wood, even plywood, will wick the moisture out of concrete. The plywood would wick the moisture out of the concrete and cause cracks. I learned the hard way that the glazing will crack in about one year unless you seal the wood first, in the case of windows, linseed oil is recommended. The edges of the counters are chipping, it stains easily etc. Another additive choice that likely would have worked better was to add cement. Also, as someone mentioned above, more water equals less strength.