Old School Material Surfaces in Contemporary Looks
By Gina Dostler
Concrete’s utility goes way beyond foundations. Kyle Hart of Hart Concrete Design fashions beautifully made countertops, tables, firepits and more from concrete. The son of a mason, Hart specializes in customizing concrete for architects, builders, landscapers, interior designers and artists.
Q: How does one end up creating designer pieces out of concrete?
A: Well, I was surrounded at both ends. My sister was really into interior design and my father was a mason who worked with brick and block. I was in high-end real estate at the time and tried to convince my dad to make concrete countertops, something I saw gaining popularity. Instead I ended up fooling around in the garage creating mixes of my own out of trial and error, picking at my dad’s brain and surfing online for information to make items for my friends and family. The concrete mix I had was super heavy at the time. But through a long process of fine-tuning, it now is so much lighter and better.
Q: So how light is light?
A: Well, I came up with a mix design that is a fraction of the weight of most stones like granite or marble. Most of those weigh in at 22 lbs per square foot. My mix is at 10 lbs per square foot. This concrete is lighter and easier to work with yet it has incredible durability and a great finish. Concrete can be made in any color and any look such as mirror smooth to stone-like textures.
Q: You knew Jack Cole of Skipjack Sports Fishing Boat.
A: My first shop was next door to Jack’s and he had a ton of experience in mold making. He’d cruise over to my shop to see what was going on, go back to his shop to think about a project I was working on, and then cruise on back with some answers for me. I’ve moved to another location since, but really learned a lot from Jack.
Q: What type of process is involved in creating your designs?
A: It is a long one that is labor intensive. More so than what a guy working in granite has to do. We first make a template of the design, then a mold of the template. After the casting process, the piece comes out of the mold where we apply the finish and touchup work. Afterwards we polish, seal, and wax the concrete. The last part of the process is the installation.
Q: Is your business a high-production shop?
A: Absolutely not. We have various popular items already cast for purchase through our website. Yet most of work is custom and prices very competitively with other ready-made concrete products. So many other concrete shops make a rubber mold and push out as many pieces as they can out of it. After awhile, the mold looses integrity and the product turns out grainy. To fix, they blast out the imperfections. Instead we’ve constructed a process that produces really smooth, polished pieces such as dining tables and countertops.
Q: I’m sure you’ve had some challenging requests.
A: I successfully made a 30-foot long concrete hearth all in one piece. It took one and half weeks and as far as I know it is the largest piece cast in my industry. The mold process was the same, but just on a much larger scale. It took 17 guys walking very, very slowly to move it. But really, we have all kinds of requests, from big to small that we can do. Say for instance someone needs a certain plant container for a specific space, we can make it.
Q: What about sustainability?
A: We have a number of different mix designs, depending on what we are building. Some manufacturers use fly ash, an artificial pozzolan or filler. Instead we are able to use post-consumer pulverized glass to replace 15 – 20% of the cement instead of using the fly ash. I get orders for a lot of glass finishes where we grind out the finish to expose the glass underneath. Or we use the glass in a terrazzo finish and that qualifies for LEED points.
Q: Is concrete gaining in popularity?
A: Absolutely. The concrete countertops are starting to be seen everywhere and the wear actually looks better as it ages. Firepits are still in the upswing, one of our more frequent requests. Metal and woodwork meshes really well with concrete so we make a lot of stylish tables that are very durable and great for the outdoors.
