7 hours today

C and I worked for 7 hours today on the countertops. The tarping alone takes about two hours, and then we used the grinder for another 5. C has been doing the grinding because he is much taller than me and has a longer reach. He's very good at it! Grinding is such a mess! Water goes everwhere and we have tubs on the floor to catch the runoff from the tarps. We take our shoes off and stand in the tubs (note: the grinder is designed to work in wet conditions).

One of the reasons it is taking so long is that we have two cutouts for the sink and cooktop which need to be perfectly level so the sink and cooktop can fit nicely. This takes a long time. You have to find each place where it is not level and figure out what to do - i.e. how much material and where to remove it. Then the actual grinding takes a while when you are trying to remove lots of material.

The other thing is that we are trying to level the surface as a whole. It doesn't have to be perfect, but we have several places that are pretty high. I think a more experienced person could have trowelled a more level surface. This pass with the grinder (50 grit) is the most important and time consuming due to the shaping taking place. Once the overall shaping is done, we will simply have to pass the remaining grits over the surface. We started the day naive enough to think we may actually be able to get through all the grits tonight, but we didn't even get through the first one! Maybe tomorrow if we can get a long day in.

On the plus side, the countertop looks GREAT! I keep looking at it in disbelief that we created it. We got really lucky - the pebbles in the concrete we bought are beautiful. There are bits of green, which I would have choosen if I could. There are also bits of peach, and a few other colors.

Here is the kitchen ready for grinding. It looks like a quarantine site!


Here's another shot of the kitchen.


We cut a resealable trap door in the tarp for the microwave. By undoing this and the tarp "curtain" in front of the fridge, we can at least make meals. We have to prepare ahead and order in while we are grinding because we can't even get this much access then. In addition to a having to retarp, anytime you disturb the tarps you have to deal with all the water.