[madrina]

sorry pics wont upload try back later

 

[madrina]

Finally got these pics to post, I think... Ill find out in a second.

So this is a 2 part metallic epoxy. Its a floor coating, but we were testing out some new things on some willing guinea pig houses to see what all we could do with it.

This counter top was some really cheap wood, that had been painted. The product says not to lay it over wood, but hey.. who reads labels? (especially flammable ones) We did a rough sand of the counter top and wiped with alcohol. Its been a few good months and the counter still looks like a million bucks.

As far as the edges of the counter, i didnt think the overhang was quite enough as it was under an inch.. so i bought some trim pieces, primed them, poured the epoxy over them let them dry and glued them on to the counter....

 

[TrulyNoble]

That is an awesome idea. Who says you cannot repurpose an item...I love the idea!

 

[Doctor Handyman]

I'm not sure if this is the same product or just a similar concept.
http://www.daichcoatings.com/spreadstone_countertop_kit.html

I heard about this last month at a party and neither contractor had actually tried it.

I too would love to hear any experiences "refacing" a countertop.

Yours looks really good BTW.

 

[madrina]

Thanks! This was the 2nd one I did. The first was over tile and the 3rd over laminate and 4th over concrete. All of which turned out really well.

Its nothing like the product you mentioned, it is messy, it is hazardous chemicals and there is a limited working time. Everything you know about epoxy resin floors rings true for countertops as well.

Ill post the pics of the others when i get home.

I dont what to tell you aside from what I have said in other posts dealing w epoxies... but ill answer any questions you have.

 

[LeeFowler]

Thanks! This was the 2nd one I did. The first was over tile and the 3rd over laminate and 4th over concrete. All of which turned out really well. Its nothing like the product you mentioned, it is messy, it is hazardous chemicals and there is a limited working time. Everything you know about epoxy resin floors rings true for countertops as well. Ill post the pics of the others when i get home. I dont what to tell you aside from what I have said in other posts dealing w epoxies... but ill answer any questions you have.

Looks awesome. I was thinking about making some concrete tops soon but this looks like it might be a better option.

 

[Live_oak]

I like the look of that a lot! I'm marginally familiar with epoxy floor coatings, so I have a couple of questions about what you've done there.

How well does the gloss finish stand up to abrasion? I'm sure kitchen wear and tear isn't as hard as a floor, but you do have some people who cut directly on their counters.

How well does it take impacts? Like a can of beans getting dropped on it?

This is a bit silly, but what about food safety? I know if you don't break off a chunk and swallow it, it's probably fine, but what about Joe making a PB&J sandwich on top of it? (Don't laugh, I have customers all the time who don't want to use a film forming protective surface on a wood counter that they won't be cutting on---because it's not "food safe"!)

Do the epoxy resins yellow over time or with sun exposure?

About where would this fall price wise per square foot? Especially for a small (and probably more troublesome) job like a kitchen counter as opposed to a large office floor.

Looking forward to more pics!

 

[madrina]

This is definitely a cheaper option for resurfacing as opposed to concrete which may be cheap in material costs, but if you ask me its worth every bit of $100 a square foot to make it worth your time .

There is a lot of work involved in concrete countertops whether you build them in place or upside down you still have to build the forms caulk the seems, fit your rebar, the concrete is heavy it's messy and it wastes your skin.

Once they're finally poured its hours of vibrating and troweling and then you have to come back the next few days as well just to check on them. I do anyhow. I take the plastic off pour water on top of them and cover them back up, make sure they're drying as slow as possible.. Unless your customer lives really close to your home they're just a pain in the butt. For everyone.

Once you pull the forms off you still have to wait a month before you can do anything to the concrete. In the meantime your customer has to deal with having bare, countertops and stuff get spilled all over them, like butter and oil and grease and anything else that they can spill that makes it impossible to stain or poor epoxy on top of.

As far as food safety once the epoxy is dry it's no longer hazardous . It is heat resistant and it won't yellow . It's extremely durable I don't think that it would crack if you dropped a can of beans on it as long as you had proper adhesion. But it will scratch if you cut it with a knife.

The product I use cost about $150 a bucket and it comes in 3 gallon kits. The primer also comes in 3 gallon kit but if your countertop is small enough you can use the top coat with the primer pigment and I haven't had a problem with doing that yet. Overall if your countertop can be done with 3 gallons including the primer and the top coat its going to cost you $350 in materials.

I won't even think about doing a countertop for under 700 no matter how small it is. And even that was not worth my time.

 

[madrina]

Heres the latest counter top, not my best work but this chick was pissing me off so bad I couldnt wait to get outta there. I have never in my life walked off on a job, and I didnt walk off on this one but I thought about it. Chick was nit picking EVERY LITTLE THING before I was even done! She kept complaining about the edges, the edges the edges I told her 400 times, I havent even done the edges yet!!!! THIS IS LIQUID LADY JEZZZ ITS NOT GOING TO GO OVER THE EDGE AND LAY PERFECT AND SHARP THE FIRST TIME, Ya have to let it set up a little and then work with it. grr.

i said "why dont you go pick out your backsplash or finish tearing the wallpaper off the walls, or get some paint for the cabinets... and some doors and drawers while your at it? Do anything at all but stand here and tell me how to do my job that I have done countless times and you have done never."

oh btw she wanted to do the design with the metallic, she made some comment under her breath that she could do a better job, so i showed her 5 different ways to do it and she started to do a little bit and then started b()(**&& again and walked off. So I left them just how she left them because she wanted to do it.

Anyway, this was the 2nd time I did this for her, (for free) because she didnt wait long enough for the counters to dry and piled all her dishes on the counter and they all got stuck lol. She burned the countertop with map gas trying to pop a bubble and totally denied it (after she already told me there was a bubble there). The counters were grey the first time and there was a big brown spot with bubbled edges right in the middle of the counter like Im not going to know what happened. The map gas was also stuck to the counter. duh..

Wow. I hate to be so negative but I have never had to deal with such a lying wainch before. Unappreciative too. This last go round, I spent 6 days in a row at her house, I leave to go pick up my kid from school, take her to a sitter and 2 minutes away from this ladys house and she text me telling me she didnt have any money so i didnt need to come back. Well, I went back anyway because I was already out front, I packed up my tools, wiped down her cabinets, vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen floor with a razor blade scrubbed it and wiped with alcohol, took down all the plastic and pulled the guards off and finished the edges, 3 of her friends came by and told her they looked great, I leave, and she text me saying she was sitting in the floor of her kitchen crying because I destroyed her kitchen.???? SHE HAD SCRAP PIECES OF PLYWOOD FOR COUNTER TOPS BEFORE I SHOWED UP!

Im done doing epoxy. Im done doing concrete counter tops too. And im really done doing work for people whos budget is 1/4 of what materials cost.

 

[LeeFowler]

Heres the latest counter top, not my best work but this chick was pissing me off so bad I couldnt wait to get outta there. I have never in my life walked off on a job, and I didnt walk off on this one but I thought about it. Chick was nit picking EVERY LITTLE THING before I was even done! She kept complaining about the edges, the edges the edges I told her 400 times, I havent even done the edges yet!!!! THIS IS LIQUID LADY JEZZZ ITS NOT GOING TO GO OVER THE EDGE AND LAY PERFECT AND SHARP THE FIRST TIME, Ya have to let it set up a little and then work with it. grr. i said "why dont you go pick out your backsplash or finish tearing the wallpaper off the walls, or get some paint for the cabinets... and some doors and drawers while your at it? Do anything at all but stand here and tell me how to do my job that I have done countless times and you have done never." oh btw she wanted to do the design with the metallic, she made some comment under her breath that she could do a better job, so i showed her 5 different ways to do it and she started to do a little bit and then started b()(**&& again and walked off. So I left them just how she left them because she wanted to do it. Anyway, this was the 2nd time I did this for her, (for free) because she didnt wait long enough for the counters to dry and piled all her dishes on the counter and they all got stuck lol. She burned the countertop with map gas trying to pop a bubble and totally denied it (after she already told me there was a bubble there). The counters were grey the first time and there was a big brown spot with bubbled edges right in the middle of the counter like Im not going to know what happened. The map gas was also stuck to the counter. duh.. Wow. I hate to be so negative but I have never had to deal with such a lying wainch before. Unappreciative too. This last go round, I spent 6 days in a row at her house, I leave to go pick up my kid from school, take her to a sitter and 2 minutes away from this ladys house and she text me telling me she didnt have any money so i didnt need to come back. Well, I went back anyway because I was already out front, I packed up my tools, wiped down her cabinets, vacuumed, cleaned the kitchen floor with a razor blade scrubbed it and wiped with alcohol, took down all the plastic and pulled the guards off and finished the edges, 3 of her friends came by and told her they looked great, I leave, and she text me saying she was sitting in the floor of her kitchen crying because I destroyed her kitchen.???? SHE HAD SCRAP PIECES OF PLYWOOD FOR COUNTER TOPS BEFORE I SHOWED UP! Im done doing epoxy. Im done doing concrete counter tops too. And im really done doing work for people whos budget is 1/4 of what materials cost.

Geez. What a joke. I think you will be much happier when you stop doing things for free. You don't call the lady over to your house to work for free, you shouldn't go to hers. This was a lesson that I learned the hard way.

Regardless, your writing style is great. You should consider writing for contractor blogs.

 

[madrina]

Regardless, your writing style is great. You should consider writing for contractor blogs.

Well Thanks! I have actually been told that a time or two before. I dont know what makes it different than anyone elses, aside from the sarcastic undertone, brutal honesty, curse words and horrible punctuation, but I have always had a passion for writing.

And well I shouldnt have said free because it didnt start out for free, but I think I charged her like 100 bucks in labor. So it only cost me $300. :laughing:

Why I do it ill never know. I kick myself for it every time. I kick myself for letting them "help" too. This chick asked me if her boyfriend helped how much would it cost and I told her, its $200 and if you want him to help its going to be $400. She just started laughing. Omg this guy was sooooo wanting to help "Can I get anything for ya? Can I carry that? Do ya need anything? Want some water? Need the vacuum? Can I hold that, screw that?,find that?, get that?, do that?, turn this on?, plug this in???" But he was doing that to everyone there especially his girlfriend. Barf. And the funny thing is, he never did anything for anyone... just ran around asking. Id send him off to find random stuff I didnt even need just to get him to leave me alone. He wasnt going to come back with it anyway so it didnt make a difference.

I did have a cast on at the time and it was fresh and still hurt pretty bad so I did ask him to lift the 5 gallon bucket of concrete up and pour it on the counter... he gladly took it from me, started walking towards the kitchen, trips on the bucket poured the whole thing on her carpet and then tried to blame it on the bucket. I saw it and just turned around and walked back to the concrete machine trying not to laugh. Poor guy. He's an ex la bare dancer that looks like Roy Munson now. Never owned a tool in his life. DIDNT EVEN KNOW HOW TO GET THE BIT OUT OF THE DRILL. how is that possible?

Anyway Im rambling... Here are the rest of the pics that i promised id post a month ago. The one that looks like tile was poured over tile and the metallic settled in the grout lines so it still looked tiled, but it was smooth as glass on the top. It looked ok, but I ended up pouring over it again to get a different look. The other pics are just before after shots of random jobs... we will see what actually uploads...

i

 

[madrina]

tile and dont let the messy backsplash scare you, it scrapes right off with a razor blade.

 

[pinwheel]

That is some good looking stuff. Never seen it before, but it may have solved an issue in my own home. I've got a hallway & small office that connect to tile in the kitchen & hall bath. 2 different tiles & on the other end is gonna be hardwood. Been looking for a different look, as it will be the primary back entrance to my home.

 

[madrina]

Sounds exactly like how my house is set up. Random spare bedroom off the kitchen by the garage?? Great for guest room or office.

I don't mean to come off like I'm the interior design fashion police but what you're suggesting sounds a little busy. The floor in your home should flow throughout the home. I'm not opposed to doing different flooring systems from the kitchen to living area to bedrooms, however, to chop it up like that from bath to hallway to office to kitchen is a mistake imo.

The metallic epoxy floor is a beautiful system and it is so unique it will draw A LOT of attention. This compounds the problem. It would be too much going on.

Are you partial to the tile? If not, get it outta there and grind the floor down. You have to grind before you put metallic down anyway, and the machine ain't cheap to rent so you might as well get your moneys worth.

Putting this on the floor is quite a challenge. Stellar prep is paramount. Its expensive, and cannot be spot repaired, so if the system fails for any reason, its a grave waste of money. ADHESION is the biggest prob. You HAVE to grind and the machine gets about 2 inches off the wall so the rest is on your knees w a hand grinder. Pull baseboards first, because you want them to sit on the floor not in it. Plus you'll wreck them w the hand grinder anyway.

This system is great for an all over the house installation, as the sole system or in one room that connects to only one other flooring system, preferably a very bland system such as carpet.

Don't mean to burst your bubble but I just want to keep you from making an expensive mistake.

 

[LeeFowler]

How does it hold up to dogs running around. My Great Dane uses the hardwoods as a launching pad and has stripped them bare in some areas. I was thinking about putting apoxy on the floors but I fear she will just scratch it off.

 

[madrina]

This stuff goes on at 30-40 mils and the primer at 10 so its not going to scratch off ever. If its laid right, its hard as nails and very durable. I have never seen it scuff, but I've never had a dog run over it to see either. It should be fine unless your dog is cujo. Lol. Wow, that's a movie that shows my age! Again, prep prep prep is the key.

You could trim his nails too.

 

[LeeFowler]

This stuff goes on at 30-40 mils and the primer at 10 so its not going to scratch off ever. If its laid right, its hard as nails and very durable. I have never seen it scuff, but I've never had a dog run over it to see either. It should be fine unless your dog is cujo. Lol. Wow, that's a movie that shows my age! Again, prep prep prep is the key. You could trim his nails too.

Ever tried to turn a giant dogs nails when they think you are chopping their paws off? The first time we took her she had to be sedated. Now it's a team building exercise between the grooming lady and her helpers. The problem is she hurls her self down the stairs and has to make a 180 degrees turn on the hardwood. She basically runs in place like those cartoons where they rev up their legs then blast off down the hallway. No amount of walking her down slowly so she can she the benefits of taking easy ever seems to help.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of raft prep though.

 

[hdavis]

You can teach her to sit at the top and bottom of stairs until you give her a release command. Same deal as teaching a dog to sit before walking out door. If they shoot the door when they're released, teach them to go through and sit again.

The whole nail trimming thing is pretty easy, too.

 

[pinwheel]

Sounds exactly like how my house is set up. Random spare bedroom off the kitchen by the garage?? Great for guest room or office.

I don't mean to come off like I'm the interior design fashion police but what you're suggesting sounds a little busy. The floor in your home should flow throughout the home. I'm not opposed to doing different flooring systems from the kitchen to living area to bedrooms, however, to chop it up like that from bath to hallway to office to kitchen is a mistake imo.

The metallic epoxy floor is a beautiful system and it is so unique it will draw A LOT of attention. This compounds the problem. It would be too much going on.

Are you partial to the tile? If not, get it outta there and grind the floor down. You have to grind before you put metallic down anyway, and the machine ain't cheap to rent so you might as well get your moneys worth.

Putting this on the floor is quite a challenge. Stellar prep is paramount. Its expensive, and cannot be spot repaired, so if the system fails for any reason, its a grave waste of money. ADHESION is the biggest prob. You HAVE to grind and the machine gets about 2 inches off the wall so the rest is on your knees w a hand grinder. Pull baseboards first, because you want them to sit on the floor not in it. Plus you'll wreck them w the hand grinder anyway.

This system is great for an all over the house installation, as the sole system or in one room that connects to only one other flooring system, preferably a very bland system such as carpet.

Don't mean to burst your bubble but I just want to keep you from making an expensive mistake.

You're not bursting my bubble, I'm not just some homeowner that has no design experience. I also do this for a living. It really looks like it will be a good fit for this application.

 

[LeeFowler]

You can teach her to sit at the top and bottom of stairs until you give her a release command. Same deal as teaching a dog to sit before walking out door. If they shoot the door when they're released, teach them to go through and sit again. The whole nail trimming thing is pretty easy, too.

Great one of these... She has a release command, I'm talking about when she comes down the stairs. Or do you suggest I train her to walk slowly and painfully down the stairs?. I didn't have her till she was two and something happened in her life that makes her deadly afraid of anyone touching her feet for any reason.