Ground and polished second sample

Today's major tasks were grinding and polishing the second countertop sample and doing a big Home Depot run in anticipation of pouring the countertops on Saturday. I'm really feeling the pressure - this HAS to happen this weekend or we risk having our permit expire. If it expires, we have to file for an extension, which may or may not be granted and we also have to pay a large fee. It will be a whole additional set of headaches we don't want! We've had too many late nights, long days and backbreaking work. I'm really tired and sore, my body is battered and my mind is fizzling. We've hardly had any time off in three weeks. Hopefully we can get a little breather if the countertops go well this afternoon.

The contractor was supposed to be here today with a helper, and we were going to work on mold building. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it so we are delayed until tomorrow on the mold building. I'm nervous because it only gives us one day to prepare for the pour on Saturday.

Here is the second sample we did. We just used plain grey premixed concrete in a bag. We wanted to practice doing inlays, using a cement mixer and troweling. The three squares are granite tile samples we had from our research. The are embedded in the wet concrete and the edges should be flush with the countertop. I like the way they look, but they are really challenging.


Here is a shot that shows the sheen of the polished concrete. It is exciting to me that I was able to get such a nice finish on plain concrete with no additives that enhance the product. This was kind of a bad mix - it was way too wet. But even with that, it still came out well.

Here is a shot of one of the inlays. The concrete was mounded around it a bit, and I scratched the granite while polishing the concrete down. Granite is really hard, but the diamond polishing pad will scratch it.