Concrete Overlay Countertops

When we wrote up our budget for our barndominium, we planned on doing concrete countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms. I like the way concrete countertops look and wanted to save money anywhere we could.

I am going to talk about:

Why we ended up doing concrete overlay countertops, instead of pouring concrete into forms.

How we built the concrete overlay countertops.

The cost we spent on this project

Would we recommend doing this type of countertops

Why we built concrete overlay countertops:

When we were building our house, my husband Jeff was doing most of the work by himself. He is also a firefighter/paramedic and most nights at his job he would not get much sleep. So with his job and building the house he was ready to be done. I helped as much as I could, but I had to watch two little boys at the same time. Whenever we were at the stage to do concrete countertops, he was so ready to be done that he did not want to mess with them. He wanted to skip this project and get granite countertops.

Before we built the house we were researching how to build concrete countertops, we came across concrete overlay and I thought that might be an option as well.

I told my husband to let me try the concrete overlay countertops and if it doesn’t work out we can get granite countertops.

How we built the concrete overlay countertops:

We first built the forms, on top of the cabinets, with half inch OSB Plywood and 1×2 trim.

then I applied a thin layer of concrete to the forms. I let it dry, then I repeated this process 4 times.

Once I felt there was enough concrete on the form, I sanded it smooth. I then finished the countertops by applying a water sealer.

Total cost:

$300

Would I recommend concrete overlay countertops:

I do not recommend this type of countertop for inside the house. If you want the concrete countertop look just go with regular concrete countertops. I found that this type of countertop is not kid friendly. My kids would climb and hang on the countertops and now they have cracks in them.

We ended up putting granite countertops in the kitchen but still have the concrete overlay in the bathrooms. One day we will replace the countertops in the bathrooms, but right now it still looks ok. We also have other projects going on that we want to complete first.

I would recommend this style of countertop for a small project. Like an outdoor kitchen countertop would be a great project for concrete overlay.

I am documenting our building process on our Instagram account HuntFarmhouse