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Eric Holme Construction; Chapin, S.C.

Eric Holme, owner of Eric Holme Construction, and his employees love to take on the tough jobs. And sometimes that tough job comes in the form of unique projects. “It makes it easy to get up in the morning and go to work the next day because you know the jobs you’re doing are so different and creative,” he says. A year ago, Holme took on one of those unique projects. His task was to create and stain an outdoor concrete countertop as well as stain a portion of the outdoor patio.

The 30-foot-long countertop required the most prep work, Holme says. The first step was to create the concrete wall the countertop would sit on. Holme says the concrete was 8 inches wide and around 36 inches high. The next step was building forms for the countertop. Holme says the trick to creating a good concrete countertop is to fit the forms properly. Rebar was used to reinforce the concrete in the wall and the 4-inch-thick countertop. Holme says they then poured the countertop and let it cure for 14 days. Then it was ready to be stained.

Holme used Chrome-Etch acid stain from Specialty Concrete Products. Using squirt bottles, Holme squirted Rust Brown and Kahlua stains onto the countertop. “We blend colors. We’ll take two different squirt bottles and we squirt kind of like you’re throwing paint against a wall. A little bit here, a little bit there,” he says. “That way you get a really nice mottled look and you get three or four variations of color going through it because it mottles real well.” He says the squirt bottles are good to use on smaller areas that are being stained because you can get more precise with them.

Once stained, the countertop had to be cleaned to dilute away the acid. Then it was sealed using a 30 percent solid seal from Specialty Concrete Products. Three coats of sealer were applied, Holme says.

Holme and his crew then moved on to create the bottle wall the countertop would sit on. When the outdoor counter was completed, Holme moved on to the patio, which was mostly stone. However, there was a 12 foot by 12 foot area of concrete in the middle of the patio where Holme created and stained a sunburst pattern, he says. A garden sprayer was used to apply stain to the sunburst pattern on the patio. Two colors - Rust Brown and Kahlua - were used for the patio, he says.