The title is a a little misleading as my kitchen counter DIY was not a total and complete disaster. In fact, everyone that enters my kitchen say they love it! But I think they are straight up lying to my face.

Before we even bought this house I knew the counters had to go. I don’t totally hate laminate, but our counters were this terrible blue laminate that I wasn’t feeling. After reading countless blog posts talking about using Ardex concrete feather finish to give your counters a concrete look, I was totally confident my kitchen could look amazing.

Here is what my kitchen looked like before:

 

 

I decided to jump headfirst into the project one Friday afternoon and as soon as I put the first goop of concrete on the counter, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. It was really hard to spread out and get it even on my counters. It was IMPOSSIBLE to get it to look right on that little lip on the wall. I kept going hoping it would get easier and it did get a little better after I was more used to it.

After putting the first layer on and letting it dry you have to sand it down. That process is when I realized I had gotten myself into a lot more than I could handle. The mess was insane and I was having a giant panic attack. I didn’t take a whole lot of pics of the process, but here are a few.

 

 

So after three day’s of layering and then sanding, I decided to call it quits on just half the counters. After I sealed it, it actually didn’t look half bad and I thought I would finish the rest of the counters one day when I could handle the mess again.

I used a super food safe sealer, which looking back was silly. We don’t ever cut directly on the counter, so I could have gone with something less food safe. About three days after our project we started getting huge stains on the counter. Three months later here is what it looks like.

NOT GOOD. If you have the patience and get the right sealer, I would really recommend this project for a cheap way to update the counters. I am not patient so that was my first mistake going into the project. I also hate create giant messes, and having everything in my kitchen covered in dust was not good for my sanity.

So whats next? We are getting poured concrete counters made right now! The actual stuff, not this fake powder stuff. I’m really excited about it, even though it is not cheap. I’ll keep you updated!