I have a art studio that I am creating from the gound up. I don't have much money I need to do most every thing myself. A friend who was redecorating her kitchen gave me her cabnets that she took out the problem is the counter tops are in real bad shape. I would love to do a cement counter top as they will take a lot of abuse from all my projects.
I saw this done on HGTV once by novice house flippers. At first I was like WHAT?? Cement countertops in a kitchen?? But the results were amazing and beautiful. But beware, it looked like it was a VERY difficult project because they had no experience with it. I hope you can do it! Good luck!
We are new home-flippers, and are considering this option. We saw this done with the cement painted like marble. It was breathtaking and cheap (great for DIYers!).
Do you have building salvage yards in your area? See if they have materials you can use until you sell your first piece of art work and make a lot of money.
Not sure how it would be avoided, but cement is likely to splay, that is, chip off. It is a natural characteristic of this material.
To start, I'd suggest placing the cabinets where you want to, then working from there. Have them against the wall, then get 1 x 3 wood and nail that against the edges of the existing countertop (don't drive the nails all the way in, easier to remove later). That will give it a perimeter from which you can pour your concrete. If the existing countertop's surface is smooth, you'd need to rough it up a bit. You can nail some 1 nails all over the surface spaced out about every 6 or so, then put in rebar (an iron mesh thingie) and use wire to tie the rebar to those nails. That should be sufficient for the concrete to grip the existing surface. You'd then need to mix and pour in the concrete (3 parts sand, 1 part cement). Don't pour too much, you'd want only about 1 of thickness at the very most since your existing countertop and this new concrete counter will make it 2+ in total. Smooth it out and let set for a few days. Once set, remove the perimeter. Make some cement with lime (5 parts lime, 1 part cement) and smooth out the surface. After, you can paint with an epoxy paint with whatever design you want. Alternatively, you could disregard smoothing the countertop and put tiles instead. But that will raise your countertop height even more. An alternative is to just replace the countertop with a wooden one. They come in 12' lengths and you'd need to get the trims for the inner edges as well. That is much easier to do and can be finished in half a day. Cost of that will probably be in the range of a few hundred bucks USD. Just rent a jig saw for the day so you don't end up getting a stiff back from all the sawing that needs be done.
