Sunday, August 23, 2009

Finished: White Concrete Desk Project

The white concrete desk is completed and installed. The cobalt blue and green bottles with the white sand and cement really pops.
The hole for the computer cables was drilled after the desk was installed. I was concerned about the hole breaking during installation otherwise. Some minimal fitting was required to get everything to slide into place.
A completed, very cool, built-in desk.
Next Project: Illuminated bar top
The next project is going to be a bar/buffet top with crushed glass and fiber optic lighting.

5 comments:

  1. Nice project! I was looking for some images of concrete computer desks which others have made - and remembered seeing this on your blog. Thank you for the link to mine, as well... We are installing our creation tomorrow in a Designer Showhouse - will post soon.

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  2. I'm interested in doing this exact same thing, but overtop my kitchen countertops.

    Do you have an exact recipe with amounts/brands for all of the ingredients you used for the concrete mix?

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  3. This white mix was 2:1 sand to cement by weight at a 0.4 water-to-cement ratio. The cement was Lehigh, the sand was standard white silica. If you use regular sand the countertop looks tan. I also included 10% metakaolin clay. Water to latex was 1:1. Latex was Sika R you can buy at home depot. I used 4 oz/cwt of high range water reducer (BASF glenium 7500)and 5 oz/cwt of viscosity modifier (BASF VMA 362). There were two types of fibers in the mix, fiber mesh 300 polypropylene and cellulose (buckeye 500). So the final mix design was:
    Sand 2219 pcy
    Cement 999 pcy
    Metakaolin 111 pcy
    Water 222 pcy
    Latex 258 pcy
    Poly fibers 2.5 pcy
    Cell fibers 2.5 pcy

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    Replies
    1. I am studying up on concrete counter tops and during my studies I came across your projects. I am interested in doing concrete counter tops for my kitchen. I would like to do white concrete, similar to your desk, but I was wondering how I might be able to get more of a granite or marble look to the counter tops? Any advice on how to do this?

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  4. Chris, typically when people want marble or granite they aren't happy with faux concrete versions. If you are just looking for more texture I like to use a couple different related colors, like dark grey and light grey, and not spray but place the concrete in random blobs using tupperware. Be sure not to vibrate so you get a bunch of voids on the surface. After removing from the forms fill the voids with a third color. That's a pretty easy way to get a more natural texture that looks more like rock.

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