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Concrete Countertop From Start To Finish by Ken's Custom Designs

Feb 27, 2020
Hi everyone, I'm Ken from Ken's Customer Designs. I do decorative

concrete

coatings on

countertop

s and floors and I will stain existing

concrete

and what the purpose of this video is to show you what we do on the

countertop

, whether it's existing or maybe you just got it. your cabinets were built like in this case and there was no countertop and I'm going to do a sort of voice over in this video and explain what's happening and how we get from point A to point B to the

finish

ed product and I'm proud to use products of spot colors and we'll talk a little bit about some of the products in the video and I'll put a link at the end of the video for those of you who are interested in making countertops yourself so I'll try to be as clear as possible and thanks for watching .
concrete countertop from start to finish by ken s custom designs
Well, we

start

ed here with 85 square feet of counter space that needed to be applied and we used 2 3/4 plywood twice to give us an inch and a half of thickness. and we added a foot around the outside edge of the bar and staggered the joints for strength. Now the client chose option number three as a sort of basis for his countertop design so that I would have something to work with and test. to blend with the colors of the tiles on the floor so that's what we chose and it was a combination of desert amber gray black coffee brown pigment and a camel brown pigment.
concrete countertop from start to finish by ken s custom designs

More Interesting Facts About,

concrete countertop from start to finish by ken s custom designs...

Here I had centered the template that comes with the sinks for the bathroom vanities there were two of these and I cut them out with a razor blade and then traced the inside line with a pencil and then took a drill to make a pilot hole to place the blade of jigsaw and I cut both holes with the jigsaw, very important To center them when you cut them and carefully, if you cut right on the line you won't have any problems after

finish

ing all the countertop work, it was time to

start

to apply the concrete and mixed direct colors in white. light coat of base and started applying some into my bucket and using my magic palette and smoothing it out trying to get a nice even surface and making sure everything is covered basically to start I first did a coat on my edges for a base coat which then while I'm - I texture anything that goes over the edge, make it thicker and use the teardrop texture roller, that's how you get that real rock look, that bottle there on the counter is a black pigment that makes a gray box and a 50 lb.
concrete countertop from start to finish by ken s custom designs
I mix it with a little water and maybe spray a little and trowel it to get a gray background. texture roller. I'm rolling it down now and using the release agent to keep the concrete from sticking too much to my tool, sometimes afterward I can move down a little more with the knife or after it's all dry I tap the sharp edges with paper. sand it and it just adds realism to it now here you can see a place where there is a joint and I've actually put some fiber mesh drywall tape in there to give it strength and support the overlap in case it tries to crack in that area , it may not be so.
concrete countertop from start to finish by ken s custom designs
It is necessary, but I like to take all precautions. I'm angry. Now you can see that some pigment was sprayed on. I'm working on that color while testing the concrete. Now I realize that most of you are watching this video. You're looking at me lattice and you're thinking this doesn't look like concrete at all and it's really a special item that has lime and other concrete ingredients, but it's both polymer and concrete and a sustained reaction builds up with the lime ingredients in the concrete that are on the overlay, but it is actually much stronger than concrete and you don't need to apply it as thick and it will stick to almost anything.
Here I'm spraying the top with a camel brown pigment mixed in. I put it in water on the dry concrete and after it dries, I'll come back with my sharp, then that camel brown and the gray give me a background color palette to work with. It is important that the colors go over the edges so that it looks like this. It was cut from a piece of natural stone. Here I'm going out with my name brown brown and I'm going over the tan areas that I just put in camel and leaving some of that and I'm not completely Filling everything in, I'm leaving spaces where everyone sits with other colors and then I'll overlay colors, but As you see, I'm following the edges starting at the edges, here it comes, make a circle.
Don't you try to emulate patterns that you can find in nature? I look at pieces of granite or marble when I go to Lowe's or the photographs are natural rocks, the water flows in one direction and that's why you see everything in a kind of 45-degree angle here to make it look like a natural stone like the water I would have formed it that way with the colors here you can see. I'm going in with a secondary color. I'm filling in a lot of those white areas and some of those. mottled areas in the brown color, I can shoot on them to mix them and when you leave them and first they don't look anything like what they are going to turn out because it is a chemical reaction with the lime in the concrete and then everything you leave it becomes darker and here I am doing all the countertops in three rooms at the same time Zhaan I move a lot, I have a lot of that, but I have to do it so much I know how long I have to work to get the color I want and its allies we use it with water baking soda or we provide Elijah to stop the process when we get to the desired color and always remember that it is going to get a little darker and cause a problem with the final coat of epoxy sealer on the surface.
Here I come with spot color black acid dye and at first it turns a greenish yellow color so I'm filling in and any white spots that are left and then I'm overlapping and I left the white corner there just so I can make it black and I put a dark brown line ahead of that, you know, the transition to amber is kind of like your imagination on things. I always remember from the top to the edges, but you have to be aware of where you put your colors because you can't say you can't paint because they are changing, they don't go with the desired color. they color, they react with the concrete, so when I'm done with this I'll neutralize it and go back to where I won't show that step, then I can add a little more water based pigment if I feel like I need a little more color. or touch up the edges and I'll let it dry overnight so finally here in this step I'm about to wrap it and I pick up my desert amber again and fill in a few more spots and overlap it a little bit to lighten. clean certain areas and just fill the area really well here in this segment of photos, you could see how it looked dry and a satin sealer was applied for a vapor barrier, the colors of which popped a little bit, but ready for epoxy and these.
They are a pig, many children, there is one more and the last part is happy and stirs thoroughly, you have a world of short times, so dr. Doing it alone for the first time is good, so Part A and Part B of the epoxy resin mixture should be mixed well and make sure you get everything out of both cans and then stir for about three minutes, so now I have two quarts. of mixed resident epoxy and start pouring it like a NASPA twist. I'm wearing latex gloves and also the floors are protected and I'm using a direct color five thousand squeegee to move the product that I also have on hand. a chip brush and a roller that you can get in the mini kit I have.
D strip the roller with masking tape so as not to leave fibers in the resin. Anything that gets under this residue will be there for life. It's a very hard stuff once it sets, so I basically put it in there and put it on pretty thick and let it run over the edges and I'll go back with my rolling pin and roll the edges and it'll be white. B on the drips side and will do it for some time before leaving the project. I also have acetone on hand to spray on top to give it a little longer pot life and pop any air bubbles and I have to have a heat gun and I've seen the blowtorch method but you can set the epoxy on fire with that so I don't really like the blowtorch.
I'm rolling the edges still trying to work the area pretty quickly pushing out the excess product and leveling it out quite a bit. it'll even out a little bit, but you need a pretty even coverage to start with, so here I'm rolling the edges more and putting that excess into that rough stone texture and filling it in and it also stops a lot of dripping, which I'll mainly take. Acetone or MEK on a rag and I want to continue cleaning the bottom. Keepo for a one pound bag of t-shirt rags. There I am using the heat gun to pop air bubbles, as the chemical reaction of the epoxy creates a key that causes air bubbles especially.
Since the concrete is Morris and there is a lot of air in those holes, I reduced it by applying satin sealer the day before. This is the fifth day of this project so I work on the air bubbles mainly concentrating on this counter at a time and then mixing enough to do about the same size area at a time because trying to do them all at once the epoxy running away would often be bad for you so here are the finished photos of the final product and with the Epoxy was applied and all the paper was removed and it really blended well and the client loved the rustic look and it really goes well with what what they are doing there and they were very satisfied and I was happy to do it, it was a great project for me and it is always nice to see the finished product and when the client is about to show up and you know the surprise factor, there are many advantages to having concrete on granite, one of them is the price, but here it is before and with the countertop.
So just built and I think they are going to be painted white, they should really go well with that, it highlights the white tiles after, so I can't wait for the client to send a photo after the appliances are in the cabinets and are heavily painted. I have little chance to see it all together, and again, if you're a DIYer, check out the direct color communications. Basically, they're in Shawnee. They have been very supportive and have helped me in my business. If you don't do it yourself, they have the answers, so check them out. Direct colors.
Relax guys, thanks for watching. I wanted to put together a fairly comprehensive video and try to be as educational as possible on what Ken's

custom

er

designs

do. and in fact, those of you who are willing to do it yourself, you know, check out direct color communication. You can also visit my website. It's been at the top of the video the whole time and there's also a link to my Facebook page where there are a lot of photos on there so once again thanks for watching and I hope it was helpful to you.

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