We don’t often like to brag, but it bears sharing that we recently won a First Place award in the 2008 Cemstone Decorative Concrete Awards.  The category was Residential Interiors, we won for a very cool set of concrete countertops we built and installed in North Oaks.  Here’s a link back to the story about the winning set of concrete countertops.  You can read more about the contest as well as the other winners here.

Not only were our award-winning concrete countertops featured at Cemstone, but they wrote a press release that was picked up on by The Concrete Network! You can read that story here.

Pictured below is the award-winning set of concrete countertops!  Give us a call today if you’re looking to upgrade your kitchen, we’ll be happy to help!

Filed under: Concrete Countertops | 3 Comments »

Here’s one of the “cooler” projects we worked on this year- an all concrete bar featuring a layered poured wall and concrete countertops with fiber optic lighting.  We built this at Jake’s house, here in Belle Plaine MN when we had spare time.  The experts at Countryside Concrete stay pretty busy, since we are very good at what we do!

The concrete bar itself was cast in-place, and poured in stages with various colors of concrete and inlaid with different granite aggregates to give it a veined, weathered look.  The countertop was poured in sections in our shop (state-of-the-art casting facility), using a special countertop concrete mix and 3 sizes of fiber optic lighting cable.  If you look closely at the bottom picture, you can see a “constellation” we added for fun.

Although the pictures don’t show it, we also custom-built the cabinets that the tops rest on.  The end result is a truly unique, one-of-a-kind basement bar in the corner of Jake’s family room that is truly the center of attention.

Check out the night-time pictures with the room lights turned off and the fiber-optics in the concrete bar top turned on!

Filed under: Concrete Countertops, Concrete Furniture & Fun Stuff, Custom Inlays, Fiber Optics, Stamped & Colored Concrete | 2 Comments »

Bill and Cathy have a great home on a small lake in Waconia, MN.  They’ve been doing a TON of remodeling, including a 3-story addition off the back of the house and additional interior remodeling.  They also added a new front stoop and sidewalk constructed from decorative concrete, but were unhappy with the results they got from using a contractor inexperienced with decorative/stamped & colored concrete.  Their landscaping plans in the back included a texture-skinned colored concrete patio surrounded by boulder walls and a water feature.

They were hoping for better results with the new concrete patio in the back yard, and they were referred to Countryside by the general contractor for their addition.  We’ve worked on many projects with Mike and Mike from M&M, and they knew the experts at Countryside had the experience to do the decortive concrete work the right way.  The first picture below shows the patio formed up with steel rebar in place, graded and ready to pour.  The nexttwo pictures show the great-looking new stamped and colored concrete patio.

Filed under: Patios, Stamped & Colored Concrete | No Comments »

We met Victoria and her brother Floyd as a result of our work with Seth at E & S Mix & Fix.  Victoria and Floyd bought a home in St. Paul and have been working on rehabbing it.  The existing driveway/garage apron and sidewalk were in pretty rough shape, and they wanted to add a patio area in the back yard, adjacent to the deck.  Below are some “before” pictures for you to see what we started with.

We removed the deteriorated concrete sidewalk and cut out the worn out concrete and asphalt driveway apron, as well performed some additional excavation for the new patio.  We built formwork for the new concrete, hauled in and compacted a new sand base and placed steel reinforcement.  Then it was time for the Cemstone truck, and the concrete was poured and finished.  Take a look at the much-needed improvement to the property in St. Paul!  Victoria and Floyd can’t wait for next spring to finsih some landscaping and start enjoying the new patio.

Filed under: Driveways, Patios, Restoration | No Comments »

Mark and Cathy found Countryside and brought us a great looking design for a new stamped concrete driveway.  They live in Lakeville and have a beautiful house.  They’ve been doing a lot of improvements to the landscaping in the back yard, and they then decided it was time to give the front yard a facelift as well.  Here are a few “before” pictures for you to look at.

The homeowners drew up a very cool design with concentric circles and a stamped border, and we suggested they consider adding the compass stamp to the center.  They decided it would make a great focal point, and we took it a step further by hand-staining the compass in complimentary tones.  It makes a great centerpiece for a beautiful driveway.

The border was stamped in a 5″x12″ Roman Slate Tile, and the circles were textured with Fractured Slate.  The main area of the stamped driveway was done in a Fractured Slate Random Stone pattern.  Westwood Brown was chosen as the color for the borders and circles, accented with Smoke Beige release.  For the stamped area of the driveway, they chose Mesa Beige integral color highlighted with flashes of Smoke Beige and a Smoke Beige antique release.  The same release was used for both areas to subtly tie them together, and I think you’ll agree that the results are spectacular!

Filed under: Driveways, Staining, Stamped & Colored Concrete | 1 Comment »