Bathroom Vanity with Concrete top

[Jeff Wittrock]

This was my first attempt at making a bathroom vanity. My wife and I decided to try making a poured concrete counter top. All in all I was surprised at how well the counter top came out. I thought I was going to make a real mess of things, but I figured concrete (and my labor) are pretty cheap, so....

In the end I was happier with the top than with the vanity. I kind of messed up on the fitting of the doors (big gap between them and a couple of bonus holes for the handles :rolleyes:), and my wife thinks the panels look like a couple of eyes staring at you. I don't know about that, but I wasn't crazy about the doors once I was done. I made the thing kinda beefy because the top alone goes for about ~100lbs. and by the time I add the sink it'll probably go to 150lbs, and add my 7 year old who will probably climb on top of the thing... If nothing else, it is better than the vanity I tore out.

This is a woodworking forum, but I have to say on this project the interesting part was making the top. First time I ever tried to make something like this from poured concrete. I think I learned quite a bit. The next one I make, i'll be ordering some diamond pads to grind the surface to expose the aggregate. I used sandpaper on this one (a lot of sandpaper!!), and it was a lot of work.

In the end it would probably have been a lot easier to put a granite top on the thing, but I doubt it would have been as fun.

-Jeff

[frank shic]

that concrete top looks fantastic! what product did you use? will it eventually crack?

[Lee Koepke]

Nice job. Did you pour the top in place, or elsewhere?

I have considered doing that on a future project, out of sheer curiosity mainly. The seal coating ( esp for a bathroom ) is pretty important.

[Jeff Wittrock]

what product did you use? will it eventually crack?

I just used Quikrete 5000. There are some mixes made specially for counter tops, but they seemed a bit pricey to have to special order, so I just used the 5000psi stuff from Menards.

Will it crack? Well... the book I read on the subject said that "if it don't crack, it ain't concrete". I poured this about 8 months ago, and so far have had no cracks develop. I used 1/4" rebar and remesh to reinforce the top, especially up front where its narrow. I may just be lucky.

I have not yet sealed it, but I will before we put it into use. I would like to use a penetrating sealer that doesn't make the thing look too "plasticy". I kind of like the stone look of it.

I didn't pour this one in place since it was small enough and light enough (is 100lbs light?) that I could move it around easy enough. I made the form out of 3/4" melamine and had a place in my garage where it could cure for quite a few days.

If anyone is interested in trying this stuff, I would highly recommend the book "Concrete Countertops" by Fu-Tung Chen. It's an outstanding book, and I am sure I would have made a real mess without it.

-Jeff

[Dennis Kelly]

Hey Jeff,
I like the vanity and the counter top! I think the whole project was very creative and you should be proud of that work. I know plenty of people that can't even pour a slab of concrete directly into a hole, let alone make a hole out of concrete:D

Dennis

[Eric DeSilva]

The stuff done by Fu-Teng Chen is pretty spectacular--I like the floors he does that are spiced with little metal bits of odds n ends, so when its ground down there are little shiny bits.

What did you do to the surface after pouring? I've seen people use an ordinary ROS to smooth the surface even more... I've also been somewhat intrigued by the dyes you can add to create various colors. Nice job!

[Jim Becker]

I think you did a fine job on this project including the concrete top!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jeff,

It looks pretty nice to me!

[Jeffrey Makiel]

The whole thing looks nice. The top is really special too.
-Jeff :)

[David Weaver]

I don't want to offend the purists here, so I hope they turn their head when I say this: putty the holes or hot patch them (I would putty them with good quality matching stick-type putty - it'll take 10 seconds) and never be concerned with them again. The vanity is fine quality and better than what you'd get from a consumer cabinet company (even considering ordering semi-custom) by far, even with the holes.

When I worked at an unnamed consumer custom company between years of college, we putted and hot-patched so many things that became otherwise invisible - and all of the puttying was done after final finish.

The whole unit looks fantastic.

[Greg Cole]

Hi Jeff,
Nice job on the vanity & top. I too am interested in the concrete surfaces & I attempted my first concrete top last fall. I'm comfortable withthe process etc, but my first attempt wound up meeting the sledgehammer.:confused:
I'll show the pics of yours to LOML & see if she'll agree to let me make one for the vanity in the works now.....

Cheers.
Greg

[Brian Kerley]

The Rock Solid guys on DIY did a show where they showed how to do a concrete countertop last week. Anyone interested may want to watch it, just to see how it is done. Pretty much what has been said w/ the 3/4 melamine.

[Jozef Kaslikowski]

What did you end up using to polish/sand the top? That to me looks like it would be the hardest and most time consuming part of the concrete counter top projects.

[Jeff Wittrock]

Thanks all for the comments.


...but my first attempt wound up meeting the sledgehammer.
Honestly, I started out thinking thats where mine would be headed. In fact I planned ahead of time where I could put a big chunk of concrete when it failed. I was going to throw it in the back of my little pickup to give better traction for the winter :).


What did you end up using to polish/sand the top? That to me looks like it would be the hardest and most time consuming part of the concrete counter top projects.
Well... I threw just about everything I had at it. I've got a cheap harbor freight belt sander and ROS that I didn't mind trashing, so I used these with 100, 220, and 320 grit belts/disks. I had to keep plenty of water on the concrete while grinding, so these kind of scared me even when plugged into a GFI. I actually had better luck (and was less nervous) just using a heavy rubber sanding block with 100, 220, 320, 400, and finally 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper, lots of water, and lots of elbow grease. Yes, it was a lot of work. If I were to do it again, I'd invest in some diamond grinding pads. As I said, my labor is cheap, but I gotta draw the line somewhere. If I had an air compressor, I'd even think about getting a cheap air grinder to put the diamond pads on.

I think using the diamond pads, someone could have ground this top down in maybe 2-3 hours. I worked at it on and off for several days, and I'd hate to think how many hours I spent. The other thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to grind it down as far as I did. It was actually smooth to start with because of the melamine form. I just had some spots where the water leached out of my form (didn't seal it well enough) and I wanted to show some of the aggregate.

-Jeff

[Rob Wright]

Jeff -

The project looks great. I like the grain pattern on the door panels - you are right they are staring back at me!

You commented that your form was melamine and I assume that you cast this upside down based on the extra detail on the top. How dry it you mix the concrete? I did a counter in our garage last year and I followed the DIY instructions that I found on-line. They said to place it pretty dry. I had a heck of time getting the top (that was against the form) fully smoothed out no matter how much I vibrated the form. The next time I think that I will use more water ( I know - this can reduce curing and ultimate strength).

SO - how wet was your concrete when you placed it?

Thanks - Rob

[Craig Stueve]

Both the vanity and the top look great to me Jeff. I have been looking at whatever I can find online for info on doing concrete counters and am glad to see your results.

Craig

[frank shic]

wow, that fu tung cheng stuff is pretty nice work:

http://www.chengdesign.com/

[Brian Kerley]

We have a shop here in Phoenix that also does some really interesting things with concrete countertops and sinks.

http://goredesignco.com/

The cool thing is that these guys happily give out advice if you are trying to do it yourself.

[Danny Thompson]

Beautiful execution, Jeff.

[Steve Clardy]

Very nice top ;)

[Jeff Wittrock]

Jeff -

You commented that your form was melamine and I assume that you cast this upside down based on the extra detail on the top. How dry it you mix the concrete? I did a counter in our garage last year and I followed the DIY instructions that I found on-line. They said to place it pretty dry. I had a heck of time getting the top (that was against the form) fully smoothed out no matter how much I vibrated the form. The next time I think that I will use more water ( I know - this can reduce curing and ultimate strength).

SO - how wet was your concrete when you placed it?

Thanks - Rob

Yep, it was cast upside down. I left the mix as dry as I thought I could work with. I didn't have a "slump cone", so I just used a big plastic cup that had sloped sides to it and did a really poor mans version of a slump test. I would say my mix only slumped down about 10%, so I think it could be considered pretty dry.

I had a heck of a time getting this dry mix down through the fine remesh and rebar. I really kind of threw the mix down into the form to help it seat into the bottom, especially where you see the small raised portion on the back side. Then I beat on the sides of the form with a hammer while I was filling the form. After I had the form filled up, I lifted the bench I had the form setting on a couple inches off the floor, and let it fall several times. Finally I tapped all round the form with a hammer for several minutes. I was afraid all this abuse might crack my form, but I was even more worried about having voids near the narrow raised portion.

As it turned out, I didn't really have any voids. The one problem I ran into was that I did not seal the form well enough at the raised portion. Some water leached out here and left a rough surface. I patched this up as well as I could, but it's still noticeable.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about concrete to know how wet you can make it before you have trouble. In my case, I guess I'm glad it was pretty dry so it helped minimize the water that leached out on my bad seal.

-Jeff

[Carl Brothers]

How is the concrete holding up with the water nowadays??

I have the cheng book and DVD, which gave me all the ideas for my concrete countertops, but never liked the idea of waiting nearly a week to get a working countertop back in the kitchen. On an episode of Rock solid, they turned me on to another type of concrete mix that is SUPER strong and sets up fast, Quickcrete's Precision Grout. Using that I was able to pop the forms in 24 hours and clean up some of my mistakes.

I am preparing to do the final one, which has a cut-out/void for the sink and am a bit worried about the effects of the constant water. Any words of wisdom?

Thanks,

Carl

[Jim O'Dell]

You might experiment of some test pieces on the rough spots. Use the same concrete mix, but without the stone in it and create a slurry to fill in the voids and smooth over the rough spots. It should dry to match the rest of the piece. But do it on a test piece first, I've never done this, so I don't know for sure how it will cure. Jim.