We installed the completed green marbled concrete countertop in the kitchen it will grace this week. The overall effect was very eye-catching once it was in place; it’s always a pleasant surprise to see it “in situ”, working off all the other design factors present, which of course were incorporated into the castings. The green and white tile backsplash area, the brand new stainless steel appliances, the faucet and installed undermount sink, the seaming…

We placed quarter inch stainless bars at the edges of the drainboard to tie in with the appliances; we used an angled puzzle seam at the sink bridge seams front and back to add a functional design flair; we formed an ogee-style profile into all leading edges; and of course the multi-tone marbled veining to match the owner’s interior color palette.

This is concrete kitchen countertops at their finest – it’s all about  custom, personalized, functional concrete art!

Hand-pressed in gray and blue

Sorry folks – I haven’t been able to steal a minute and post lately… the phone’s ringing off the hook. With the launch of Concrete Detail’s website almost three months ago, the news is spreading and the interest is growing. A recent client (the Vermont Verde Antique-inspiration project) was just relating to me a story about their recent trip down South: nearly everywhere they turned, they saw concrete countertops – at a resort, a hotel, in several homes… And now they will have  one of their own in Brattleboro, Vermont! We have calls coming in from Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and of course Vermont. Concrete countertops have caught the conservative eye of New England and made a good impression; and why not? Concrete is a reflection of the owner and the artisan, a collaboration of art-formed. Always original, always extraordinary.

PS   Final install pictures of the marbled top coming soon…

I posted awhile back about an upcoming kitchen in which we were inspired by Vermont verde antique stone, a native variety with a deep green/black background and highly variegated veining in green, black ,and white. We took this as a departure point to design a new look in a concrete countertop, with a somewhat brighter green background and less “busy” veining, combined with a classic ogee-style edge. We poured the first section yesterday (the peninsula/breakfast bar) and demolded it this morning. It turned out beautifully – one never knows what magic will happen in the form, until the unveiling upon demolding. Nice!

We are working up our official sample sets, comprised of 15 beautiful earthy colors of concrete, showcased by 3 1/2 inch square “chips”  labelled and housed in a very nice wooden box with a hinged lid. These sets will be available for showrooms and designers to show prospective clients the range of expression possible in an artisan concrete countertop; of course, there is always the custom color option, since with concrete there are no limits! The colors were cast in small sheets at 3/4 inch thick, polished and sealed, then diamond sawn into squares, the cut edges eased for handling,  and each variety labelled with the color name for identification.

These are our fifteen colors (which will probably evolve over time – change is inevitable!):Night, Thunder, Fog, Bone, Stone, Fossil, Sage, Saffron, Slate, Moss, Mocha, Cayenne, Terra, Caramel, and Wine. And that’s just for starters.

I posted awhile ago about the Fourth Annual Business Plan Competition sponsored by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). I had decided to enter the fray again (I made it the finalist stage last year) and once again made it to the last round. I ended up with a 22 page business plan document, which was a vast improvement over the previous effort, and a very good mental and planning exercise besides.

The spoken presentations were held at the Marlboro Tech Center in Brattleboro, Vt before a panel of judges drawn from the financial and business sectors in the area. They had reviewed the written plans carefully over the previous week and this was an opportunity to witness and question the person proposing the initiatives under scrutiny. The presentation went very well (I thought) and later that afternoon the awards were announced by the governor of Vermont himself, Jim Douglas. This year’s judges decided that there was a three-way tie for first place and that Concrete Detail was one of the winners! The article in the Brattleboro Reformer sums the award ceremony up with its usual competence…

The next concrete countertop project we are forming involves a molded edge along the entire perimeter in an ogee pattern; one of the countertop sections, a peninsula, has an overhanging end rounded to a 48 inch radius. Certainly, there are many ways to achieve a given effect – inthis case we opted to use a strip of flexible 1/4″ acrylic sheet, ripped on the table saw with a fine tooth hollow ground blade to the 1 1/2 inch desired thickness. The radius pattern is traced on to the form base sheet and a series of backer blocks are placed along the arc, set back just enough to accomodate the acrylic strip. Then the strip is sprung into place and held in compression by two squeeze blocks at the ends.

The ogee edge is formed with 3/4″ wooden cove or scotia molding, waterproofed with several coats of polyurethane and tacked into place with a brad nailer. In order to make the sweep of the arched peninsula end, the molding is very carefully relieved on the back side with a series of saw kerfs and again sprung into place and brad-nailed. Everything is circumspectly caulked to maintain watertightness and smooth transitions and then set aside ready for the pour. It’s all in the details.

We completed the kitchen installation of a new concrete countertop yesterday, in a home with a beautiful view of the Connecticut River winding between the Vermont and New Hampshire hills. Poured in our “Night” color (a perennial favorite) which is a deep charcoal black with the sparkle of tiny mica chips and other multi-colored sand grains, it emulates the midnight sky punctuated with a myriad of stars. This was a “remove and replace” countertop assignment – the contractor pulled the original laminate tops and modified the cabinetry to accept a larger drop-in cooktop. Then we came in,  installed the reconfigured concrete countertops, and undermounted the granite composite sink (which had been self-rimming in its earlier incarnation).

We incorporated a few little nuances to the design ambience of this project – those particular touches that deliver on the personal appeal of an artisan concrete surface. A triple emboss on the leading edge of the breakfast bar, seen as you walk into the room, transitioned to a stepped terrace edge on the radiused corner to the right. A matching terraced edge was cast into the opposite corner of the work surface, across the room, allowing us to make the height change from the concrete’s inch and a half thickness down to the abutting maple butcher block at an inch and a quarter. A couple of gently indented eased corners and the effect was complete – less is more and enough is enough when it comes to extra touches. Matching backsplashes completed the new surface in this concrete kitchen redux. Bon appetit!

Basic ingredients of concrete

Cement is to concrete what flour is to bread – it’s the binder, the ingredient that holds it all together. The bits that are being held together – the aggregates, such as sand and gravel – are generally locally sourced and little processing is needed to render them suitable for use in the concrete mixture. But your typical cement is another story; very substantial amounts of energy are needed to fire the raw natural ingredients and convert them into the substance we call Portland cement. This is the aspect which remains to be dealt with, as far as sustainability and environmental impact. Through efforts to lessen this carbon footprint, the green appeal of concrete as a material choice can be expanded even further beyond its existing impressive credentials as a sustainable choice.

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has published an article discussing some timely efforts in this regard. Other methods of dealing with this issue are being pursued as well, notably the actual displacement of part or all of the Portland cement ingredient with alternative cementitious materials. Some of these are recycled products, a double-benefit whammy, such as fly ash, blast furnace slag, VCAS, and silica fume. Some are alternative cements with an improved carbon footprint report card, such as the calcium sulfo-aluminate (CSA) cements. These options all hold great promise by increasing the intrinsic appeal of concrete further. Concrete Detail is active in exploring these exciting developments – we already use fly ash and VCAS as supplementary cementitious materials (SCM’s) in our artisan concrete countertops and other products, and we are beginning testing with slag  and CSA cements. Never a dull moment around here…