A few years ago, my wife and I bought a house and after doing all the interior improvements we moved to the backyard to improve the outdoor spaces with a great DIY project to help us create the perfect outdoor amenity. We love to host family and friends all the time and we felt the need to create a central serving hub for our backyard. It needed to be movable, use recycled materials, have a modern concrete and wood combo aesthetic, and of course, be a DIY project. We put our creative minds together and did some quick sketches for our "Central Serving Hub". The result, a spectacular serving/bar station with a concrete countertop and recycled wood slats that turned out fantastic. Being designers and do’ers ourselves, we love the art of DIY and are pleased with the end result. Of course, our growing collection of RYOBI tools helped along the way.
This was one of my first time experimenting with concrete and it turned out great. The main challenges on this project was my inexperience with concrete. Youtube was my best friend when it came to guidance on pouring the concrete.
Some tips I learned along the way....
1) Use naturally rot resistant wood like cedar and redwood for the main structures and to further protect the wood, use a waterproof sealer. I also sealed the concrete countertop with a concrete sealer.
2) When mixing your concrete don’t over-water the concrete because it weakens the concrete and it creates a watery film on top when vibrating the bubbles out, I learned this afterwards.
3) Give yourself attachment points in the concrete to facilitate connecting the countertop to the wood structure. I used a wood piece that spanned across the mold, like a bridge over water, and I hung bolts down into the concrete. The wood kept all the bolts at the same depth. After the concrete dried I removed the wood and the bolts were in place for connecting the base lumber
4) Concrete is heavy and the countertop was very heavy. If I could do this again, I would reduce the amount of concrete. I would keep the outside edges the same thickness but the middle can be thinner. I saw another DIY use foam to reduce the amount of concrete on a similar project and removed the foam once the concrete cured.
5) Do not be afraid to ask a friend for help in lifting the main components, otherwise you will wake up the next morning with a sore back.
We have gotten lots of compliments from family and friends and hope you guys enjoy this project as well. Feel free to ask me any questions.
Pedro
A few years ago, my wife and I bought a house and after doing all the interior improvements we moved to the backyard to improve the outdoor spaces with a great DIY project to help us create the perfect outdoor amenity. We love to host family and friends all the time and we felt the need to create a central serving hub for our backyard. It needed to be movable, use recycled materials, have a modern concrete and wood combo aesthetic, and of course, be a DIY project. We put our creative minds together and did some quick sketches for our "Central Serving Hub". The result, a spectacular serving/bar station with a concrete countertop and recycled wood slats that turned out fantastic. Being designers and do’ers ourselves, we love the art of DIY and are pleased with the end result. Of course, our growing collection of RYOBI tools helped along the way. This was one of my first time experimenting with concrete and it turned out great. The main challenges on this project was my inexperience with concrete. Youtube was my best friend when it came to guidance on pouring the concrete. Some tips I learned along the way.... 1) Use naturally rot resistant wood like cedar and redwood for the main structures and to further protect the wood, use a waterproof sealer. I also sealed the concrete countertop with a concrete sealer. 2) When mixing your concrete don’t over-water the concrete because it weakens the concrete and it creates a watery film on top when vibrating the bubbles out, I learned this afterwards. 3) Give yourself attachment points in the concrete to facilitate connecting the countertop to the wood structure. I used a wood piece that spanned across the mold, like a bridge over water, and I hung bolts down into the concrete. The wood kept all the bolts at the same depth. After the concrete dried I removed the wood and the bolts were in place for connecting the base lumber 4) Concrete is heavy and the countertop was very heavy. If I could do this again, I would reduce the amount of concrete. I would keep the outside edges the same thickness but the middle can be thinner. I saw another DIY use foam to reduce the amount of concrete on a similar project and removed the foam once the concrete cured. 5) Do not be afraid to ask a friend for help in lifting the main components, otherwise you will wake up the next morning with a sore back. We have gotten lots of compliments from family and friends and hope you guys enjoy this project as well. Feel free to ask me any questions. Pedro
