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In my column "A Lasting Impression" (see January 2009 Concrete Contractor), I talked about quality work and customer satisfaction leading to more jobs. In this column, I want to share with you one of those "more jobs" - the decorative concrete work at the Olde Blind Dog Irish Pub in Milton, Ga. Although we've been involved in more complex applications, the Irish pub project was fun because it included a variety of techniques - one-of-a-kind bathroom vanity tops, an overlayed cobblestone floor and vertically stamped Irish rock walls.

Getting started
Since we were not able to work onsite for the first several weeks of the project, my collaborator Cody Dawkins of Create-A-Crete and I got busy with fabricating two bathroom countertops and four sink vessels in the shop. The designs were based off a countertop in our showroom that the clients liked, but they asked us to add a little more "flair" to their versions.

Cody and I produced the sink vessels that were later coated with copper metallic epoxy. Once the sink bowls were complete, we built the perimeter forms for the vanities based off a template obtained from the jobsite. One of the main concerns was achieving a sink vessel height that would satisfy ADA requirements. This determined the diameter of the knockouts in the countertops - the smaller the diameter, the higher the bowls sit while the bigger the diameter, the lower the bowls sit. Once the sink and faucet knock outs were placed and the forms and steel reinforcing were complete, it was time to pour some concrete.

Two and a half hours after we poured the concrete, we covered the countertops with pre-cut strips of torn paper and poured a white cement-based skim coat on top of the paper. We troweled the skim coat over the edge of the paper onto the exposed concrete in order to create an organic-looking vein. The next day we sanded the skim coated area and engraved a vein using the air-driven KaleidoCrete Wasp concrete engraver at the edge of the skim coat to create a recessed river which we later filled with metallic epoxy to match the sink vessels.

Once the counters had sufficient curing time, were colored with dyes and had a couple coats of clear, it was mission accomplished. A few bystanders could not believe they were pieces of concrete and said they reminded them more of natural stone or fossilized wood.