Houston, We Have Counters: One Room Challenge, Week 4

Hey all!

We're past the halfway point in the One Room Challenge, and we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! The breakfast nook is about 80% there - we've installed the chandelier and picked up the bench seating from Ikea, so at this point it's the finishing touches between us and the finish line.

The biggest update this week, and the main focus of this blog post, is the progress we've made on the kitchen counters. If you remember from previous posts, one of the biggest transformations we're making in our kitchen is to the beige tile countertop. Brand new quartz or granite counters just aren't really in the budget right now - so instead, we're going with a more economic alternative and covering our countertops with white feather finish concrete. Feather finish concrete (we're using Ardex Feather Finish, linked here) only costs around $50 a bag. We think we'll be able to make it through our counters with two or three bags, for a total cost of only $150. It comes as a powder (so I'd strongly recommend wearing a mask to avoid breathing in the dust) , and you mix it with water to create a pancake batter-like consistency. We used an small trashcan to mix it in!

Once we had our mixture, we used paint stirring sticks to scoop it out and put globs on the counters, and then drywall knives to smooth it over the tile. It definitely takes multiple coats - the first couple coats are mainly to fill in the grout, if you're doing it over tile.

From there, it's just a lot of rinse-and-repeat. One of the biggest strategies we learned from our reading on feather finish prior to attempting this project was not to make too much at once - it will start to dry after about 10 minutes, depending on the amount of water, so you want to make sure to be able to use all of the concrete you've made and spread it before it dries up.

One of the trickiest parts for us was getting the edges of the counters - the easiest way to accomplish that ended up being to use our hands (though it was definitely messy). Spreading it with your hands enables you to spread it effectively over the corners of the counters, whereas it gets tricky using a drywall knife.

It took a few days - but ultimately, we got to a place where we were happy with the coverage. The next steps are sanding (which is happening as I speak!) and then sealing and waxing with food-safe wax.

That's it for the week! Next week we hope to have counters and be on our way to painting the cabinets. Stay tuned for a big transformation!

Much love,

Claire