For example: renovating the countertop could completely change the kitchen’s look by making it more modern in an easy and non-invasive way. Changing the right detail is actually enough to renovate and modernise the whole room, though. You want about a 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick skimcoat, and do your best to get it as smooth as you can because it's super annoying to have to sand and put another slurry coat on there.Usually people think that in order to give the kitchen a new look it’s necessary to change every element of it. You can pour it directly on the counter and then smooth it out with a trowel. Then mix up your batch for the top, to about a pancake batter consistency. You can use a trowel to smooth it out too if you want it more uniform. It's a little hard to get a smooth finish, but I wasn't too worried about that because I didn't mind getting a more "rustic" finish. Once you've made up your more sticky batch, apply that just with your hands wearing vinyl gloves. Since I wasn't making huge quantities, I could just mix the product and water in a 5 gallon bucket (or smaller for the vertical surface batch) with my drill. I bought a mixing accessory for my drill, which I used to mix the concrete. For the top surface you want it mixed to a pancake batter consistency, but with the vertical surfaces, you want it much more thick and sticky. The first thing you'll do is the front vertical edge, which needs a bit of a thicker consistency to stick, so make up a small batch of that (If you're using the DCI product they send lots of instructions on how to use it/make a batch, and they also have lots of video tutorials on their site which I watched thoroughly before starting). If you're doing a formica counter like me, just give it a sanding before you start to give it some texture to stick to. Our counter is working fine, though, with two coats of the 550 Water Based Polyurethane Concrete Sealer. I didn't realize that I should've also bought a primer sealer which should go on before the 550 Water Based Sealer, so I'd recommend getting that too and applying it before the 550 sealer. And I added on a Magic Trowel because I didn't have a trowel to smooth things out. I also bought the 550 Water Based matte Polyurethane Concrete Sealer in the Matte finish (I didn't want shiny counters). I bought their DCI Concrete overlay, with smooth texture, white base color, and added the Pearl color pack, which was supposed to make it even more white (I didn't make a batch of it without the pearl color added, so I'm not sure how white the white base would be without it, but I think it'd probably be plenty white if you wanted to skip that. They do a concrete overlay product that is specifically designed to skimcoat formica counters, which is what we had. I found what I was looking for with Direct Colors Inc. awesome cool), and I'd just seen a friend do white concrete counters and loved that look, so I went on the search for a skimcoat product that would allow me to do white concrete. Since I'd already painted the cabinets a dark grey, I was worried that doing the regular grey concrete color would just make for too much grey in the space and make it feel too cool (as in cool toned, not like. Butcher block (even the fake Ikea stuff) was around $3 - 400, which is super affordable compared to a lot of counter options out there, but this skimcoat product only cost me $173. Concrete answered both of those problems, as well as the financial issue as well. We're also thinking about eventually putting this house up for rent and I was concerned that a more high maintenance substance like butcher block wouldn't fare as well with renters. Originally I had planned on doing walnut butcher block counters in our kitchen but since we weren't replacing the cabinets I was worried that removing the original counters would damage the cabinets. I did a little research on what product I wanted to use. That last one is really important to us because we just don't have money to throw around on new counters (and to be honest, the reason our backsplash has looked this way for almost 3 months is because I haven't been able to afford the tile). Not only does it create a super cool finish that's a little bit industrial, a little eclectic, a little farmhouse, but it's fast, pretty easy, and it's AFFORDABLE. I'm super thrilled about this DIY for multiple reasons. I was hoping to have my backsplash done in time to take some "after" photos of my counter, but that project is just taking too long to complete, so I'm getting this post up anyway, demo'd backsplash on full display!
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