Slurry today

Today I had a meeting for a community board I am on, so I had to be up at 7:30. Not so fun after going to bed at 4 a.m. I got home at 3, and we started at 3:45. I foolishly thought we would be done by 8 or so and would be able to enjoy the evening. Boy was I wrong!

Our goal for the night was to slurry. Slurry is a patching material the same color as the concrete used to patch small air holes. We had to get through at least the 400 grit to use it. Since we finished with the 50 last night, we had to get though 100, 200 and 400 grits. I didn't think this would take much time since the 50 grit is really the shaping and removing material grit. I thought we could just pass these other grits over the surface and be done. Not so!

The successive grits were a lot easier than the 50, but they still required a lot of work. It took about 8 hours to get through all three. I thought we were home free after the 400, but the slurry process took more than an hour. I was so tired at the end that I was falling asleep standing up. Have you ever seen someone nod off in class and their head jerks up when they realize it? I was doing that on my feet. I've never fallen asleep on my feet before. Needless to say I wasn't using dangerous power tools. After slurrying, I finally quit at 1 a.m. and C worked until about 2.

Granted this was a really hard night, but it was worth it to push through to have a full day off tomorrow! Yay! The slurry has to cure for two days so we can't do any work tomorrow. At this point, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Monday night we'll grind the slurried surface at 400 (where we left off) and then 800 and then we'll reslurry. Wednesday we'll grind at 800 and then 1500 and then we're done grinding. That will be such a relief. After that, we have to seal and then wax the countertop, and then we can use it. I can't wait! It is so hard to make something to eat when you've got to hold your bowl with one hand and add food to it with the other.

Here is a shot of how the countertop looks now. It is wet, which simulates the sheen it will have when it is sealed. It's been funny to tell people about our concrete countertops because most people have never heard of them. I think people picture a rough, grey sidewalk or a stained garage floor so they think we are kind of strange to want this for a countertop. Everyone who has seen it really likes it though.


Here is a shot that shows the aggregate (pebbles) in the concrete. These are revealed by grinding away concrete. The section at the back has bigger pebbles because it was high and had to be ground down more.



This is the appliance area, and the black square is a granite tile inlay that sits flush with the surface of the countertop. It will be handy for pie or pizza dough (which I've never made in my life). You can also cut on it, but I probably won't. I was in a tile store looking at these tiles, and the salesperson pulled out an exacto knife and cut some paper right on the tile. The inlay does look really cool though!

This is a shot of the side of the counterop during the slurry process. You can see the air holes in the center section which has not been slurried yet. The darker sections on the right and left have been slurried.