Top 5 Concrete Countertop Trends for Artisans and GFRC Specialists in 2025

“Concrete not only holds its ground but leads the charge in form, function, and feeling”

On this episode of The Concrete Podcast, Brandon and Jon are joined by Joe Bates of SC Fabrication in Napa, California - an artisan whose work speaks louder than words and whose values run just as deep as his craftsmanship.

Together, they unpack the five biggest countertop trends of 2025, where concrete not only holds its ground but leads the charge in form, function, and feeling. If you’re a concrete artisan, architect, or designer trying to understand where the industry is heading - and how to position yourself in it - this episode is your roadmap.

But this isn’t just about countertops. It’s about legacy. About why we started casting in the first place. Joe shares how time with family helps him stay grounded, how stepping away can actually sharpen your edge, and why the best makers never stop refining their mix - both in life and in work.

If you're building something with your hands and your heart, this one’s for you.

Tune in to learn:

• The top five countertop trends you’ll see everywhere in 2025
• Why concrete continues to outperform other surface materials
• How to align your craft with what architects and designers are asking for
• What stepping back can teach you about stepping up

And if you're ready to cast cleaner, stronger, silica-free pieces with less hassle and more health? This is your nudge to take a closer look at Kodiak Pro - the only concrete system built for makers, by makers.

#ConcreteDesign #MakersPodcast #KodiakPro #ConcreteCountertops #CreativeEntrepreneur #ArtisanMindset #CraftsmanshipMatters #DesignTrends2025 #BuildWhatLasts

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

Hello, Joe Bates.

Brandon, Jon, good to be here.

The Three Amigos.

The Three Amigos.

We gotta do a little dance.

The Kodiak trifecta.

I'm aging myself with The Three Amigos.

Most of the people listening have never even seen that movie, but it was awesome.

Watched it again recently.

It was a good one.

Yeah, it's funny as heck.

Yeah, it was a good one.

It's been a few weeks.

We've gotten in this bad cycle of like, we're gonna do a two week schedule and then stuff happens.

I was on vacation last week.

Jon was on vacation a week before.

Joe was in Japan for like two years doing stuff.

Yeah.

So, but-

He came back with those wooden sandals.

Yeah, yeah.

And a little geisha costume.

You know, his wife keeps making him put away.

Come on, Joe.

It's all right, though, bud.

Really all about the lipstick and white makeup for me.

Exactly.

Bringing me sake all the time.

Joe.

I drink whiskey, I told you this.

I'm making samurai swords now, that's what I meant to.

There you go.

Screw Concrete.

Hattori Hanzo over there.

But yeah, so it's good to be back, and it's good to have Joe on here.

Always good conversations with Joe.

This podcast, we're going to do the top five countertop trends and where Concrete fits into that.

So this isn't just Concrete, it's the countertop trends as a whole for 2025.

But before we get into that, Joe, you just did a training class for a customer.

You want to talk about that experience?

What happened?

Oh man, yeah, I went out to Utah.

They came to me and said, he's been buying material, and then we've been doing a lot of texting and calls back and forth, talking about how to do this, how to do that, how can I do that?

And you can talk about it till you're blue in the face.

It wasn't until finally he's like, would you be willing to come out or could I come out there and do a private session because we're getting frustrated here and we're trying to get this, launch this line of bath tubs.

And we need to get it to the next level.

I said, well, I'll come out to you.

And so next thing I knew, I was on a plane out to Utah and was in a bathtub factory in Utah, which tripped me out to no end.

I could have just wandered around that place for days checking everything out.

But they were essentially doing mostly acrylic bathtubs that they were vacuum.

They had a gigantic vacuum forming machine.

And Utah is growing pretty big time.

There's a lot of tech money there now and people are spending on houses.

And so the owner of the company was like, hey, we need to offer some more high-end options for our customers.

So they were started getting into solid surface and they had spent a couple of years developing some designs and molding them.

They had built these beautiful fiberglass molds in-house and had started pouring solid surface, so basically resin into them.

And we're having at the end of the day, they're resin.

They felt better, they were a little heavier, and they had a more quality feel to them rather than sort of a hollowed, foam-filled ABS shell bathtub.

But they just felt like something was still missing from that.

And Dave Leavitt out there in Utah had consulted with him.

He's been doing concrete countertops for a long time, and they hired him to come in and try and cast one.

And they were able to use the existing solid surface molds, which were perfect for concrete.

And we got in there and helped them figure out how to spray some GFRC properly.

First day I was there, it was 115 degrees.

And I was just like, I don't know if I can do this, but we need to mix them up this afternoon and just get a feel for it.

First one we mixed had about three quarters ice in it, and it still wasn't enough.

We hit that threshold of over 70 degrees, and I'm just going, you need to toss this.

And he looked at me like I was crazy.

You want to do what?

I'm not tossing that, it's a half a bag of concrete.

I'm like, it's no good.

Sure enough, by the time he got out to the dumpster, it had bricked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he came back and he went, wow, okay.

So next time we did it, it was 100 percent ice.

I mean, Brandon, you were used to this in Phoenix.

It's just everything you can do for temperature control.

Fortunately, they had made a line of cold plunge tubs that they were selling.

So we brought one of those over and we were able to put the buckets of concrete in the cold plunge tub and cold water to keep the temperature stable once we'd mixed it.

And we just tried every trick in the book.

But the next day, thankfully, it wasn't as hot, but we were able to get in there and mix it up correctly and get a really good spray up on the two halves and put them together.

And then they had this really trippy resin mixer.

I'm going to post some pictures on Instagram today.

I've been meaning to do it.

But they tried it out, putting concrete in there and it actually mixed the SCC up really beautifully.

So, we used that and we're able to pour really nice SCC in the cavity and the next morning, popped out a beautiful tub and they were just stoked.

So, we went through some finishing and every step of the way, Dave's just going, okay, I get it now.

You were talking about this, you're talking about that till I actually see it.

That's what made the difference and now I think we can do this.

Yeah, frame of reference.

Forever Jon was telling me when I was in Phoenix, Jon kept saying, use ice.

And I said, no, I will not use ice.

So, I would get a block of ice and put it in a cooler with water and I dip water out.

And the water was like, you know, 40 degrees or whatever.

And Jon's like, that's not enough.

You have to use ice.

I'm like, I'm not using ice.

It's not gonna melt.

I'm gonna have Swiss cheese concrete.

I'm not doing it.

And it wasn't till we went to Australia and taught that class and I saw it firsthand, just like your customer did, till I saw it firsthand, that it registered.

I'm like, oh man, I should have been doing this all along.

I don't, we all have this inherent fear that ice is gonna create voids in the concrete.

What creates voids in the concrete is pollen in the concrete.

Yeah, ice is gonna float somehow, yeah.

Yeah.

Right, yeah.

But I thought it was gonna create Swiss cheese.

I thought it wouldn't melt.

I thought I'd pour it.

And when I de-molded it, there'd be all these pockets where the ice had been unmelted and frozen.

But now I do, even in my shop, and right now, my shop's probably 75.

I will do 50% ice, 60% ice, somewhere around there.

Yeah, 100% ice is totally normal.

And we've talked about it a few times on the podcast, but having a deep freeze chest freezer to put your bagged mix in the day beforehand, so the bags themselves are really cold, the mix, can...

Yeah, that's what I still do.

Yeah, it can do a lot to help keep those temperatures down, even in a hot shop.

Yeah, I think that's what they really need to get the ice freezer, chest freezer, and do that, because it had gotten to the point that summer where, you know that point where you get a heat wave and the heat just permeates everything.

Yeah.

So you could just feel it in the shop, where everything in the shop was hot.

It just had saturated everything to that point.

So even the bag sitting in the shade, you're starting with an 85, 90 degree bag, and you're trying to bring that down to 45, 50 degrees initially, and somewhere around 55, you know.

Yeah, the ice is just being used to get that mix down a little bit, you know.

So it's not even effectively cooling the mix.

It's just cooling the powder.

And so you're starting off behind the curve.

Well, that's the other thing.

Sorry, I'm in the room.

That's another thing a lot of people forget is, or I shouldn't say forget, they don't think about it.

Like you're saying, Joe, I mean, when the whole shop environment is in the elevated temperatures, and I know we, I'm just gonna go back to, you know, we talked about steel tables, right?

Being heat sinks.

Well, everything that comes in contact with that material is a heat sink, meaning it's absorbed, you know, the bucket you're mixing in, the mixer, your mix paddle, I mean, everything is drawing on that coolness and essentially heating it up, which becomes very difficult to overcome.

Here we talk about the mix adding, you know, ice, and we're thinking, yeah, we're just getting the 50 pounds or the 500 pounds, or yeah, we just gotta get that under control.

Well, yeah, but the mixer too, you know, the mixer just is sucking everything out of it.

Any bucket you come in contact with, you know, as I always do my tempering, well, come on, if that mix blade on my Collomix is 110 degrees, I mean, what do you think's happening?

You know what I mean?

It's just everything.

The bucket of water that I clean my paddle out with is sitting at, you know, 85, 90 degrees because it's been sitting in the shop.

I mean, all that stuff takes into consideration.

So yeah, whatever, chest freezer, a walk-in refrigerator.

I mean, something.

A walk-in refrigerator.

Build a room because, and then under their conditions, sorry, I'm going to keep going, they go to the next step.

Under their conditions, I would advise just a little bit cooler.

And in this case, not tremendously, but just a little bit cooler because under an even cooler temperature, let's say 50-ish plus or minus, which under normal circumstances, I would say it was too cold, but in a really dry environment, it's your best way of allowing that mix to combat the moisture loss by cooling it down.

I mean, when you cool it down, it consolidates everything.

It doesn't want to release anything, comparatively speaking.

I remember...

Well, I was going to say, Jon, I remember we did the class in Eureka Springs three summers ago, two summers, three summers ago, I think, and your father-in-law and mother-in-law came.

And it was summertime and they were staying next door at the...

Were they at the KOA at a cabin?

At the KOA.

Like literally the lot right behind...

Yeah, the property next door.

And they were miserable.

They're like, we're never coming back.

This is horrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When it gets hot, it gets hot.

And it's, yeah, it's just, it's everywhere.

You can't get away from it.

What were you going to say, Joe?

Yeah, I was just going to say that, yeah, I'm curious to ask Jon too, you know, his thoughts on doing it in such a dry desert environment, like whether, you know, whether it's okay to get a little, I felt like it was okay to get a little extra water in there and go further with that.

And I had them wet everything out, you know, the GFRC thing.

I'm just like hose everything down, hose everything out, a little bit of water here and there just to keep that moisture in as best you possibly can.

Because yeah, you'd spray it and you're aerosolizing the concrete even for 12 inches between the gun and the surface of the piece.

It's losing an incredible amount of moisture in that time.

So you just kind of had to go a little tiny bit wetter with everything and we got much better.

Well, just a tiny bit wetter.

But the other thing I'm thinking, Jimmy Hazel, when we went up to Reno, Reno is very similar in this time of year and it's just very dry.

So Jimmy would literally, I mean, he just walks around with a hose and sprays the floor down.

Yeah, I mean, that's what he does.

He just keeps the environment as much moisture in it.

So at least within the confines of the shop, yes, it may be creating slight humidity, very, very slight.

Simon Tipple, I remember, was doing some of that as well.

It can make the difference, though.

Yeah.

Tremendous.

Total sense.

If you can get your humidities into those environments, I'm only guessing, but I do know Simon was telling me and Sam was telling me they were down at 15.

Now, again, I've never looked at Reno or Salt Lake City or any of that stuff.

But if they can figure out a way, even if it's adding a humidifier, I don't think you get a huge industrial one big enough to keep 5,000.

I don't know how big their shop was, but 3,000, 5,000 square feet.

But something like that, just running and then also when you get in there in the morning, man, spray the floor down.

Yeah, of course.

I mean, these are the things you have to do to try to combat it and try to get your humidities.

Boy, I mean, my bare minimum that I've seen that doesn't create problems is usually about 30 percent.

So if you can get into 30 percent or above, then you're going to be doing great.

And that's what I'm going to say for us.

And definitely Brandon, you know, because you do get the higher humidities even where you're at now.

But for us, Joe, I don't know about you, man, but I'm always running 45, 40 percent.

You know what I mean?

And it just makes everything so easy.

So even on a warm day.

We've been really fortunate.

It's been such a mild summer here.

And again, we're, I think, 45, 50 percent, a little higher because we're closer to the coast.

But today I'm 63 percent here.

63 percent and it's going to be 107 heat index today.

That's not too bad, but you start running sticky.

That's not horrible.

That's as bad as it gets.

But come Saturday, it's going to be 79 in July.

So it's going to be great.

Well, what else, Joe?

What else did you take away from that experience?

What else did I take away from that experience?

It was just fascinating to be around other businesses for me and see how they're run.

The owner came out and spent some time talking with me and just trying to learn about it, just seeing other people's point of view and how they're selling things, and what kind of pricing they're getting, and how they market stuff.

I mean, it was really cool.

It was really fascinating to see all that.

He really knew his market well, and the prices that they were going to ask for a concrete bathtub were well below what I would ever ask for one in California.

But he's like, this is all that can handle, but we can still make money at that rate, especially if we set up, it'll be cool.

I hope they have success with it because I want to go back and help them set up a shop, set up a production line for that.

That'd be fascinating to me, and if he's getting some sales, he's willing to put some money behind it and see where it goes.

So I'm really excited about that.

So based on what you saw moving forward, would there be any advantage in your experience of moving it to a direct cast rather than spraying faces and filling a shell?

Well, we talked a lot about that.

I'm going to have him, he's going to direct cast one of the molds.

I mean, the other thing was just teaching them what an SCC, just how flowable it should actually be.

They had an idea of what SCC should be.

Seashells in the sea?

Still having those temperature issues with it, so they were fighting that the whole time and they just, it would flow like that for 15 seconds and then just start to harden.

Yeah, start locking up, yeah.

And so when we poured out that big tub full of SCC, he just goes, holy moly, that's what it's supposed, wow.

Frame of reference is everything.

If you don't know, you know, tell Inuit about Hawaii.

You know, it's 85 degrees and there's orchids growing from waterfalls.

Like, what?

What are you saying?

Doesn't even make sense.

They've never seen it.

They don't know.

And so you try to tell somebody what SCC looks like.

And again, you don't have a frame of reference.

You have no idea what you don't know.

Jon, earlier, and I were talking about a customer in Australia, or not a customer, but a person in Australia, is looking for bagged mix and where to buy it.

And this is on our Kodiak Pro Concrete Confidential Facebook group.

And I posted, Sammy sells Kodiak Pro.

And another person commented, like, why are people using bagged mix?

I just mix my own.

And that's a great example for a frame of reference.

They don't know, and I get it, because I used to be like that.

I used to mix my own, it didn't make sense.

Until you see the difference, you don't know the difference.

And so that's a very valid question.

Why bagged mix?

But this goes to the person who went out there to do this private class for is the value of training is you get a frame of reference.

Then you have an understanding and there's really no other way to get that understanding without that in-person understanding, seeing it, feeling it, touching it, experience in how we control the temperature and all those things we can talk about in a podcast.

He listens to the podcast.

He heard all these things, but it didn't click until he saw you actually do it in person.

And then he's like, oh my God, this is what it is.

So yeah.

So they're gonna direct cast one and see what they get out of it.

I mean, just based on the mold designs, there's definitely some undercut on the backsides of them.

So they're gonna get some air pockets on there.

That's just unavoidable.

But I said, it's worth trying.

And the other thing we ended up doing kind of by accident, I wanted to do a two-tone tub forever.

So he couldn't find the warm tone pigment that I had sent him.

So we only had a little bit to work with.

So we had just enough to do the outside of the tub in a dark gray and then the inside in white.

And that's another reason to spray it up.

I'm not gonna lie.

I was really nervous pouring it in.

The tub molds that they have, I would be comfortable at about an inch and a quarter thickness at the top rim of the tub.

That's where my tub molds ended up.

Sure.

But theirs were down.

I mean, they were under an inch.

That's just going, by the time we build up the inner and outer face coats with a little bit of backer on them and then pour in that cavity, is this even gonna work?

But man, it flowed down into every bit of that.

We took and put a hammer on that edge and just gently tapped it thinking there might be some hollow cavities along there.

But that SCC flowed down into a 3 1⁄8 of an inch cavity at the very bottom by the time you built up the layers in the face coat.

Well, question for you.

You said they're currently pouring in a resin in here.

And the resin's gonna behave the same as an SCC concrete.

So how are they mitigating the air pockets when they do the resin?

A lot of filling.

I thought, oh man, solid surface.

This isn't, you know, but it's exactly like concrete.

I saw some of the pieces that came out, and they're just having to spend a lot of time there with, for all intents and purposes, a resin slurry.

It's kind of like Bondo filling it, and sanding it, and polishing it, and it's taking a huge amount of time.

It's the undercutter.

Do they have any air sprues to let air out that they can then shut off so the air stops, or so resin doesn't come out or concrete doesn't come out?

Do they have any of those built into their forms?

They don't have any built into the forms.

I mean, it's just the gentle curve of the tub.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

I don't, you know, on the underside, because it's a nice curved tub.

And I think no matter what, if they were to wet cast it, they would get a little there.

But I said also, you know, one of the things that the owner was really tuned into that was kind of interesting was he really loved the imperfections and the natural feel of the concrete.

He's like, that's what my customers need.

I need to be able to, this is what they're going to respond to.

It's the antithesis of what he's doing right now.

The stark white, dead smooth.

Oh yeah.

So, you know.

Well, plasticky.

Yeah, it is plastic.

I mean, it's just liquid plastic they're pouring.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, it may be that those air pockets aren't that big of a deal.

Just leave them.

Yeah.

Well, it's on the outside.

The inside is dead smooth.

Yeah, the inside is going to cast beautifully.

Exactly.

Between all the acid washes and stuff, if they can cast it with the half-inch AR glass in there and not see any fiber and get a good casting out of it, they're certainly, for single-color pieces, totally willing to do that.

Well, they wouldn't be willing to do it.

They would be smart to do it because it's just mixed pour.

Next day, de-mold acid etched seal.

You know, there's no time in it.

That's the way I would do it.

I'm not a big fan of spraying, but I understand why you would do it, especially for the two-color thing.

I've never seen a tub that way, but I've seen sinks, like a red inside and then like a charcoal outside, like that type of thing or whatever.

And it does look really cool.

The tub had this gorgeous gray outside with some variation that you get from spraying in there that was just beautiful and it looked gorgeous.

I mean, yeah.

So they really liked the look of the spray and they really wanted to try and get that down.

I mean, fair warning, I said it a million times.

It's an art, man.

You got to have to have a couple of guys that are really good at it.

Yeah.

And you're going to get some duds.

It's going to happen that you're going to have a bad day every now and again, especially during seasonal changes.

That's when we always get kicked in the ass.

It's like, oh, well, all of a sudden it's winter.

And even though the temperature hasn't necessarily changed, sort of the whole atmosphere has changed a little bit.

And sure enough, what you were doing last week doesn't work anymore for some reason.

And you got to switch it up a little.

Yeah.

Well, see, I can see the same thing.

It's spray the outside, run a backer, and then SCC the cavity, which includes the interior.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, either way, you're going to get a slightly different change in tone, even if you use the right pigment load, but you will get more, a little more modeling on the outside than the inside, which all of that together would help save them time and energy.

So what I was going to say though, is when you were going back to the acrylic tubs, it reminds me, well, we've talked a lot over the years about a Timex versus Rolex and et cetera, et cetera.

And the, I wouldn't even say, how about the emotional value in quality?

So there was a time I walked in, some friends of ours bought a very expensive house, and it was a beautiful home.

One of those at the upwards of 4,000, 5,000 square feet and da, da, da, da, da.

But I have to admit, when you went, and they even said the same thing, you went into the master bathroom.

And what do they call those?

Like the Cinderella tub or whatever it is.

And you walked up and when you're 15 feet away from it, you're like, oh man, that thing looks sweet.

What a nice tub.

And then you get up there and you touch it.

And that's what it was.

It was plastic.

And you're just like, I mean, I hate to say it, but your whole head and everything just instantly goes.

Now this is cheap.

What is this junk?

I mean, he took me through the showroom.

Yeah, it just looked beautiful.

Freestanding tub, perfectly stark white.

One of his most popular sellers or whatever.

But yeah, the second you grab it and you can just tap on it and you tap on it and it sounds hollow.

And you're just like, oh yeah, wow.

And then you go from that to the concrete one.

It was the first thing he did.

He went up to it and just knocked on it and he goes, wow.

Well, that's what I'm looking for.

That's what luxury is.

Real luxury isn't gold spray paint.

You think about Vanilla Ice, the Vanilla Ice project.

And he does these houses and he just takes cold spray paint, spray paints the stair railing.

He's like, look, I got a gold staircase.

No, you don't.

No, you don't.

So it's the same thing with that.

And the people that know the difference know the difference.

So the difference between materials, that is luxury.

Concrete's, the form is great.

Yeah, the form of the tub, those solid surface tubs are beautiful.

You know, the shape of them and everything.

But the material is the downside of it.

And concrete, if they do move into that, I think that would be really smart for them.

And I think they could get a higher price point versus what they're getting with solid surface because of the quality of the material.

And the customers that respond to that understand that there's a price for that.

So yeah, the topic for today's podcast is-

No, we're just getting started?

Why not?

Why not?

The top five countertop trends for 2025.

Okay, so the number one top countertop trend for 2025.

According to who?

According to ChatGBT.

Who else, bro?

Oh, duh.

Yeah, yeah.

Have we talked to anybody else?

No, no.

It's the fire we're going to warm ourselves with before it consumes the world.

Right now, we're like roasting s'mores over it, and we think it's great.

Give it five years, and we're going to be hiding from the robots.

But that's a story for a different day.

Top five countertop trends for 2025.

Number one, the rise of warm neutrals.

So, like I said, this list, and I had it scour all the blogs and different things that are going over these things, and aggregate a list of the top, what all the different publications are saying.

But this is for countertops.

This isn't just for concrete countertops.

This is all countertops.

Solid surface, granite, what have you, right?

So, the number one trend is the rise of warm neutrals.

And this, as far as it relates to concrete, in my mind, is perfect, because we have so much control over concrete with color, but concrete, on its own, warm neutrals work beautifully with it.

We have stone, which is a warm gray color, and I do a quarter percent or half percent stone, and it is by far my most popular color, and it has been for 10, 12 years, you know, that color, quarter percent to half percent stone.

And it's just a really warm neutral color, and it goes good with everything.

It doesn't, it's not trendy, meaning like, you know, it's not like a bright turquoise that looks good this year because turquoise is in this year, but the next year is going to be out of trend.

So I do think warm neutrals are a very good thing that is trending, although it's not a trendy thing, but it is trending, meaning designers are specifying it for countertops.

What are your thoughts?

I couldn't agree more.

You know, stones are our most popular color.

We do, you know, anywhere from, you know, about half a percent all the way up to about two percent, and it just gives an incredible range of grays.

If anybody can't make up their mind, that's what I bring out, and they almost always end up going there because it just works, and it looks beautiful with anything.

I mean, it really, there's nothing it doesn't work with.

Yeah.

Three percent, it's almost a brown, you know?

Yeah, it goes in a beautiful, it's a deep brown.

When they need a little bit more oomph in there, a little higher percentage seems to be where they want to be, and it works really well.

Yeah.

I like three percent because it's a very, it's a taupey dark brown, and I love it, but yeah, but it is by far, I'd say not 90 percent, but 80 percent of any project that isn't white is going to be what I call limestone, which is quarter to half percent.

That's my most popular color.

Jon, what about you?

Well, maybe for countertops.

That's what we're talking about, bro.

Let's not go off track.

I know, but I haven't been focused on them.

And I know we're talking about countertops and the trends of countertops.

That's what we're talking about.

But concrete, as I'm seeing, trends in other things related to concrete.

We're not talking about sinks, we're talking about countertops.

All right, we got to focus on countertops.

All right, then I guess maybe.

Again, who's going to, which they might, you're right, it's not going to be a big trend to do a purple kitchen.

Exactly.

So sure, the, I'm still going to say though, what I was still going to say with the other smaller items that I think trends are going in very different direction is.

Ah, Jon.

Right.

Hang on.

And Joe, Joe be able to put in on this.

This, this, what we're talking about right now is going to change the game in our color tones by bringing in boost.

You know, boost every trend we're talking about, whether that's in the, you know, the warm hues and et cetera, et cetera.

You know, again, not to put a big feather in Kodiak Pro, but we're going to see some real changes happening in elevations and total color hues and quality of those colors as more people bring boost on board along with these enhancement techniques in neutral tones.

So that's, that's, I think it's going to be super cool.

So we're going to say what you're talking about, like the quarter percent that you say is like a limestone.

You know, it's going to take your limestone about 200 percent into a more natural and let's say visual and textural limestone-ish thing for clients.

And that's going to be pretty cool.

Joe, you're using Boost right now.

What's your-

We've been using it for quite a while.

Yeah.

And now I won't pour anything without it.

I will say it has forced us to go back and now further reduce pigment loadings in some colors to get a match for a color that people already like.

But that said, the benefits far outweigh the downsides of having to rethink some color formulations.

But what have been the benefits for you?

Well, you know, the other kind of crazy thing is that we've just, we just came off doing a four, five month production job where we were building, cladding for a house.

So they're going to clad an entire house in these panels that we made, flat, five-eighths thick, 84-inch by 27-inch panels.

And we couldn't have done it the way we did it without Boost.

Early on, when Boost was first, Jon was first talking about Boost, we got some and we had been running tests to get our production online and get our whole system down.

And my whole concept behind utilization of shop space and how to optimize it for this huge 280 panel run that we had to do depended on actually stacking all the molds on themselves and letting the heat generated from all those pieces kicking off, be the warming blanket.

So we just put in a piece of insulated box over the top of it, and that saved a huge amount of space.

We didn't have to lay out 10 panels in our shop, which would have taken up our entire floor and cover them with heat blankets to cure them.

But what we found is that without Boost on board, we, you know, some of those pieces would actually crack themselves in half that were in the middle of the pile.

And we got so hot.

Yeah, we think it was a combination of hot and the urethane molds expanding.

The molds would move a lot.

They just weren't kicking off early enough and gaining enough early strength to withstand what was going to happen with the movement and that much heat.

And Boost, another side effect of Boost that's pretty interesting, that we noticed and Jon told us about was that it actually, it lowers the kick temperature of the pieces.

The spike doesn't get as hot.

Yeah, the spike is high.

And I think that combination of early strength and lowered spike allowed us to actually do that.

And we couldn't have done it without it.

We'd have to have laid them out flat and heat cured them with blankets otherwise.

Nice.

That was a huge, huge benefit.

And not only that, I mean, the strength that we had the next day when we de-molded them was just through the roof.

Yeah.

They've now been installing for about a month and haven't had any issues with breakage or any other problems with it.

I'm just blown away.

And so, yeah, I think we owe that production job.

We were able to do it far more efficiently because of Boost.

Nice.

Well, that's good to hear.

All right.

Well, let's move on to our number two.

Back to trends.

Back to trends.

Thanks, Jon.

I need to be like David Letterman with my cards, you know, the top 10.

Number two coming up, textured surfaces from honed to hammered.

So matte finishes, leathered stone, tactile surfaces that add dimension.

The countertop trend your guest will want to touch.

Again, this is perfect for the concrete artisan because of the formability of concrete.

All these other materials are a sheet good that comes dead flat, and they have to do all this machining to give it any type of texture.

We get texture from, if you do the dusty crepe method with Dusty's casting powder, to there's a thousand ways to do it in your form if you just want to do it in your form using different materials.

You know, I've done sand.

I've actually just cast sand in a piece before and poured over it and flipped it over and you end up with that sand in the surface, but you also end up with a textured surface.

Baking soda, which a lot of people say, Dusty's powders baking soda.

No, it's not.

And what I'm talking about isn't trying to recreate what Dusty is doing.

But I'm just saying if you just take baking soda, make a paste and take a brush and just sling it in your form, and it just creates like a stippling in the surface and you pour over it and you flip it over and you end up with a very natural textural surface that has more of a coral or travertine type effect.

Doesn't necessarily look like that, but it just has that kind of texture to it.

But there's a lot of ways to achieve texture in the form without having to machine it after the fact, which is a great benefit for concrete.

Joe?

Upright casting.

Yeah, I can't agree with this trend more and it's perfect for concrete.

And our most popular finishes recently have all been upright casting, which is a huge benefit because there's so much easier to mold.

You're not making a hat, you know, and you can just set it up, pour it in, do your troweling on top.

And there's a few other effects we can get.

I mean, Jon turned us on to his hand rubbed finishes with the all PVA fiber and the clay mix.

It's unbelievable what you can get with that.

And people's response to it is just...

I came up with those when I was in the shower.

He wants a hot dog real bad.

Right, Jon?

Terrible.

Bad jokes.

Bad jokes.

Oh, Jon.

I agree with the upright, though.

I mean, you guys all know that's still 99% of what I do.

And the fact that you can take and create a variety of finishes and finishing off with sanders or that diamond pads or oxide pads or whatever the case may be in the Festools become invaluable, in my opinion, under those circumstances.

And so yeah, textured finishes and the ability for a client to touch and feel.

And then I'm going to throw something else in there.

Matt Max, dude, what that stuff does to a finish is ridiculous.

Agreed?

Don't agree.

I thought you were going to add more to that sentence.

Was that just like a statement?

No, that's it, because again, I just talked about boost and then I just didn't want to keep going on on additives.

But Matt Max takes that, it takes that final finish when added to the sealers and takes it to this incredibly soft, velvety feel.

So when you got the the tactility of the finish itself, whether the heavy acid wash or the trowel finish, finish sanding, whatever it is, and then add that in as part of, as I say, part and parcel as your final finish.

It's a pretty amazing final finish.

Yeah.

I agree.

It's been a huge tool in our toolbox for controlling all kinds of things.

One thing I noticed it's really good for too is when you have to go in and we had a couple pieces come back with some big chips in them, these tables that they had on these wheeled bases and they kept whacking them against each other, which said repeatedly in multiple emails, don't do that, would you like me to put something between them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, no, no, we'll be careful.

Anyway, got them back and had to do some repair work on them.

So we slurried in the chips and patched it up as best we could.

But at the end, you always have to do a little bit of blending with a little bit of tint in the sealer.

But I've noticed that in the past, you really could get in a lot of trouble with that, because it would add too much sheen to whatever you were trying to tint and touch up.

And by the time you rolled the rest of the sealer over the whole piece, you'd end up with a much shinier area where you had done that work.

And the Matte Max just eliminates that.

And you can really beautifully blend fixes in with the pieces by adding the Matte Max early on.

Nice.

Been a huge, been a huge benefit.

Yeah.

What?

4% is my number.

What's your number?

Me?

I like the 4% Mad Max.

Yeah.

I'm running 4%.

I'm two to three.

You just like that little sack better with your hands in the shower.

Yeah.

That's right.

I want a hot dog real bad.

All right.

But you're right about the upright casting.

That's really the only reason to do upright casting is for the texture.

I mean, that's why you're doing it because...

And ease of molding.

Well, ease of molding, but then you have all the time in troweling.

So you gave up.

You lost your time savings with that.

But the reason you do it is the texture.

I'm done by noon, man.

Whatever.

I can form up and pour SCC before you're done trolling.

I assure you.

I assure you.

If it takes a morning, I'm good.

But my point, Joe, is you do it for the texture.

That's why you're doing it.

You're doing it because it creates this beautiful...

Yeah, you do it for the movement.

Hand-hewn surface that you're not gonna get pouring upside down.

You're not gonna get it.

Correct.

So that's the reason.

And every piece is different.

You're not gonna ever have two pieces exactly the same.

You made 10 sinks.

Everyone's gonna be slightly different, which is a beautiful thing.

So number three for the trends of 2025, top five countertop trends, sustainable materials is making a comeback.

And you know, funny enough, we all live through the green boom of the early 2000s.

We remember that.

A lot of people don't remember that.

Anybody remember lead points?

Lead, recycled glass and fly ash.

And every client, every architect, you know, are you using fly ash in your mix?

And you know, everybody was such an expert on...

The green spam is what it seemed like, it felt like anyway.

Yeah, I think it started off with good intent, but then it became more, everything was green at that point.

Didn't matter what it was.

I was telling Jon at the Home Depot next to my shop, they used to have a little green leaf they put on green products.

They would have wood handled paint brushes with a green leaf, and it would be like a little note, sustainable because we use all natural wood handles.

Then it would be the plastic handled paint brushes with a green leaf, and they'd say sustainable because we don't cut down the forest.

It's like, well, which is it?

What's sustainable?

Because according to you, everything is sustainable, it's just how you spin it.

But that being said, I personally have been hearing from customers more and more, or at least questions, about sustainability, about how does this fit in?

And it seems to be, everything old is new again.

It's been about 20 years, and that's coming back around again, where customers are becoming more focused on it.

When I say customers, architects and designers are becoming more focused on it once again.

It's becoming a talking point.

And I love talking about it because I'm very passionate, and I do believe that concrete of all the materials out there is by far the most sustainable, the most eco-friendly, the most healthy material when done well.

And so, you know, I think we fit at the very top of that, you know, sustainable hierarchy of what's the most sustainable countertop material.

And then if we want to talk about the silica-free high-performance concrete that we manufacture, Kodiak Pro, we're the only company making a silica-free high-performance concrete.

No other company in the world is making what we're making right now.

And I posted a post on Facebook about it.

And I got one negative comment.

Some guys like, even though you're talking about silica is totally safe, it's like asbestos, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, asbestos is inert.

All true, all true that asbestos is inert in a cavity.

But once it gets exposed in the air and it gets in your lungs, that's the problem.

The same thing with silica.

And what I know about concrete countertops is you put a concrete countertop in a kitchen directly on the cabinets and you open up the drawers, there's going to be a little bit of dust in there.

And that will go on forever unless you dust proof the underside, which I have ways of doing that.

But the point is the concrete is slowly degrading off the underside.

And, you know, same thing as asbestos in your house, just because it's inside the wall and it's not accessible into the space.

You buy a house with asbestos, that asbestos is coming out.

Nobody wants to live in a house with asbestos.

It doesn't matter if you say, well, but it's behind the drywall.

You're totally fine.

You know, but I have a I have a newborn.

I don't want that in my house.

It's going to be the same thing with silica.

Australia has outlawed silica.

They will not allow it.

They're the canary in the coal mine.

That's going to go.

That's going to start hitting other countries.

And eventually it's going to make its way to the United States to where they're going to say no more silica in interior concrete.

We're not going to allow it.

And at that point, everybody that's been using these other products, those products can be seen as toxic by the customers that purchased them.

And then architects and designers will not want to specify it.

So we're getting out ahead of that.

And I'm letting our customers know, the clients and architects I work with, or architects and designers I work with, that we have a silica-free high-performance concrete.

It's healthy for you, the customer, it's healthy for us, the craftsmen that are using it to make the piece.

And I think that from a sustainable viewpoint is a very good message to a customer.

And it's a very truthful message.

What are your thoughts?

Well, longevity on countertops too.

I mean, just, you know, really, I recently actually was able to hire a new guy in the shop as we're gearing up for the fall here.

And one of his specialties at the former shop that he worked at, I mean, how often do you find somebody with experience in concrete, in our little niche concrete industry?

Anyway, I'm super happy to have him on board.

But he did a lot of refinishes for his former employer.

And he's just getting tuned in to ICT, and he's just getting tuned in to using Maker's Mix.

The former employer made all their own mix, and he's like, it was the biggest nightmare in my life.

I had woke up in the middle of the night freaking out that I didn't have one of the ingredients that went into our mix.

And he's just gone, this is so much easier, and it saves so much time.

I could go on and on about it.

But it's been really eye-opening to have him on here.

And we're getting ready to go back and do a lot of refinishes for my customers.

A lot of them have been asking for it for a while.

Some of them are 10, 15-year-old pieces.

So going and revisiting these jobs after all those years.

And we've been a staunch user of ICT since the inception of the shop.

I think I did two or three jobs that were acrylic and wax, based on Chang and Buddy Rhodes at the time, and was always dissatisfied with it and then happened to meet Jon online and we've used it ever since.

And every iteration of the sealer has been held up beautifully, and our refinishes are fast, they're painless.

These are coming from customers, some of them have houses with a ton of marble in them.

And they have people in there every year trying to keep that marble look good.

And they're shutting their kitchen down and tenting it off for two weeks almost, if they've got a ton of marble.

They're grinding and surfacing it and then putting this insanely expensive UV cured, super hard sealer that'll last forever, blah, blah, blah.

And it doesn't.

And then you're not even dealing with the marble.

Then you're dealing with the plastic coating that they put over the marble.

That's what you're interfacing with.

And we're in there and we'll, of course, protect everything and put everything down, but we're in and out of there for a big kitchen with a lot of work, two, three days tops.

Those stink, very little dust, and the counters are looking brand new again and the client is just like over the moon.

And that's what's so cool about it.

And that's why we love it.

Well, you touched briefly on granite, but anybody, not that we're comparing stone to what we're doing and having a competition, but go to any stone shop.

I mean, they ship over from China, usually from China, these stone slabs already coated in epoxy, and they cut out a sliver of it and they throw the rest away.

So I used to have a granite shop close to my shop in Tempe, and they would have two dumpsters behind them.

I think they got picked up every two days, maybe every three days, and they'd just be overflowing with granite remnants.

But the remnants were massive.

I mean, probably at least 30, 40% of every slab was thrown away, or more.

So it's an incredibly inefficient material.

And the same thing with solid surface.

Most of those are made in sheet goods and then cut down.

But the great thing about concrete is it's so little waste.

The materials that are mined out of the ground are mixed and poured, and I might have five pounds left over, which I pour into rubber molds to give to customers of cactus or whatever.

There's no waste.

There's no waste, and the material does last forever.

I mean, the Romans have shown that.

We can have these concrete countertops, furniture, sinks, whatever, thousands of years from now, if the people that purchase them care for them and the next people care for them, thousands of years from now, they can still be in use.

So, yeah, extreme...

It doesn't succumb to some style trend at some point, where if anything, people get sick of them and remodel their kitchen before the life of the actual countertops up.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that's why, you know, Jon started talking earlier about trends with concrete sinks right now, and it's like these really bold, bright colors, which is awesome.

I think that's great.

But that's going to be one of the things that in five years, you're going to go into the bathroom, you're going to see a canary yellow sink, and you say, I think I'm going to change that, right?

And that's not really fitting our vibe anymore.

So it's not that it's bad, but it's just that that's a very trendy thing.

And trends like that are great for the moment, but not great for the long haul.

So at some point, whether it's you or the next owner of that house, you're going to say, let's remodel this bathroom and change that out.

And that trend thing has just been hyper accelerated by the internet and social media.

You just see people just changing stuff so often, and feeling like they have to basically repaint their house seasonally based on the colors of people.

Yeah, the new Pantone.

Oh my God.

2025.

It's gross.

Yeah, it's just gross.

Well, I want to add something to the whole sustainability factor that a lot of people don't think about.

I mean, you guys touched on some of them.

There's a couple other really big ones that people don't really think about.

And much must do it, if I can talk.

What I'm going to talk about, one of them goes with mixed designs.

And that is, as we're seeing more, the concretes that are, in a way, self-healing.

And that has to do with the mixed materials.

So cracking, you know, as long as moisture, it's more sustainable because these things can have a self-healing characteristic over time, rather than having to toss it out and start over.

And then the other one, to go with the whole global warming or whatever anybody wants to look at it is, concrete in and of itself can be a CO2 sink.

So when you have that in your home, or around your house and all these things, there's an environmental friendliness to this material that you will not see with other materials.

And those are two things that are, in my opinion, sets it apart from other materials.

It's just not gonna happen.

I mean, granite, you crack a piece of granite, it's cracked, right?

Until you put epoxy in it, et cetera, et cetera.

But some of the mild hairline cracks, which we've talked about over the years, is you bring a little more silica and, you know, there's some kind of internal nucleation going on and it turns around and heals itself.

And now you have something that's far more sustainable over time than some of these other materials.

Sure.

All right, moving on to number four in the 2025 countertop trends.

Number four, ultra thin profiles making a statement.

Sleek, Euro-inspired countertops that are visually light and modern, changing the way cabinets and edge treatments are designed.

Thickness is out, edge finesse is in.

Again, again.

Bro, these are like, this list isn't for concrete.

This list is for countertops, but for the concrete artisan, this is great news because we can cast with the mixes we have today, we can cast half inch if you want to, three quarter inch thick countertops all day long and they're totally fine.

One inch is extremely thin.

You know, the standard for most kitchens is inch and a half.

They design the cabinets to have an inch and a half countertop on top.

But I've done, when I was in Phoenix, and we would do these, again, these very European high end kitchens, one inch or three quarter inch wasn't uncommon back then even, because it is a very European look.

And we were able to do that with high performance concrete, with the glass fiber reinforced concrete.

But this is a great direction that kitchen designers are going.

That benefits the concrete artisan.

Joe, thoughts?

Yeah, I'm not too on board with this one.

Come on now, Joe.

Yes, we can accommodate it, but it drives me a little banana.

What does it drive you bananas to do that?

Why?

Well, it's just like seams with concrete countertops.

I don't know.

I feel like you just get end up with a much, especially if you go with a more natural tone and a more hand trailed feel, it looks really odd to have those countertops not have some meat to them.

I feel like you need to embrace a little bit of the thickness of concrete.

Especially for hand trailed.

I haven't found anybody really going that direction.

If we do do it, oddly enough, the designers that I've worked with on it actually want the thickness to be there, but we're doing tapered edges to achieve it.

Sure.

And they'll oftentimes bevel the drawers of the countertops and stuff to come up to that and give that impression.

But you also, what they say is missing there, and they still want the heft and the feel.

The resonance.

They want the resonance of the concrete and the sort of, yeah, the mass to still be there, but they want to see it, the edge profile be thinner.

Yeah, when you tap on it.

So I can get behind that.

They don't want hollow.

They don't want the ting, ting, ting.

They want it to be heavy when you tap on it.

Yeah, so the way they have achieved it, you know, that I've seen is a little bit different than just putting a flat slab on top there and getting that thin edge profile.

And I personally, you know, enjoy seeing a little bit more meat on the edges.

Absolutely.

Jon, what are your thoughts?

No, that's the same.

I mean, there are situations where, I'm going to say my personal threshold, I shouldn't say my personal.

What I have personally seen about an inch and a quarter is about the thinnest that I've seen clients be happy with.

When it comes under that, you know, a three quarter inch type of thing, it's fine if it's in the field, but then per what Joe said, then everything gets a little bit of a dropped edge to it.

And most people that I've seen respond to somewhere around, you know, inch and a half to two inch, there's this perception and I've done, I think we've all done them.

And again, sorry, I'm going back to saying, you're not going to do this to countertops, but they want that, you know, sometimes eight inches or 10 inches to give it, in other words, what is the brutalist look, right?

They want it to look like, at least in their mind's eye, concrete.

Yes, you know, the countertop's a surface, but what adds to the overall appeal is the ability that they want it to look bulky.

They want it to look mass.

At least that's what I've seen.

Yeah, I think it's, I think the trend is, you know, they're talking about thin on this, but it's one or the other, thin or thick.

What people don't want is more of the same, which is inch and a half.

That's what people don't want.

So they want either to go thicker, so it stands out that it's not inch and a half or go thinner, so it stands out that it's not inch and a half.

And I've done both over the years for customers.

The thin ones were for European Kitchen, Scalvini and other brands.

And those were always funny because the clients would, you know, give me a really hard time about the price of countertops.

Back then, it was like 100 bucks a square foot.

And so maybe a 60 square foot kitchen is 6,000 bucks.

And we would go to install back when I did installation, we'd go to install and I'd be talking to his name.

What was the guy's name?

He was the only Eurodream Kitchen was the name of the company in Scottsdale, but he was on every job site.

He was European, he was German.

And I say, what do these cabinets cost?

He's like, oh, you know, 250,000, 300,000, something like that.

I'm like, what?

300,000 for these cabinets?

And they were complaining about 6,000 for the countertops?

You know?

And it was just priorities.

They didn't think that, you know, this concrete countertop should be more than 6,000, but they were happy to pay 300,000 for foil-coated MDF.

Because it's European.

Because it's Italian, you know?

And I asked him, like, what's the difference between this and IKEA?

And he said, a millimeter.

He's like, honestly, it's a millimeter difference.

It's a millimeter thicker.

It's the same material, same MDF, same coatings, same hardware.

They're using all Bloom hardware.

Same hardware, same, you know, French cleat rail system to attach it to the wall.

Same leveling feet.

Exactly the same.

It's a millimeter thicker, so they can say it's higher quality.

He's like, that's the only...

And he told me this, you know, in confidence, essentially.

But Felix, I think it was his name.

But anyways, but that was the difference.

But my point is, the European look, they've always gone for the super thin.

That's when I used to do it.

And yeah.

Okay.

So that was ultra thin.

We're up to the last one.

Number five.

All right.

Coming in!

Number five.

Integrated countertop and sink units.

A seamless sculptural look that merges design and function.

One surface to rule the sink and prep zone.

So again, dudes, this list benefits concrete 100%.

I've seen solid surface integral sinks.

I've seen granite integral sinks.

I've seen those things, but they're always flat surfaces that are cut and glued.

And they just, they don't have the sculptural aspect of concrete.

And it, you know, especially when it comes...

God, they don't hold up for shit either.

Yeah, they don't hold up.

But I think about the granite ones I've seen, or the marble ones I've seen.

And they, you can tell that they're just sheet goods that have been cut and glued together.

They don't have...

The great thing about concrete is, you know, we pour it one piece, and it's one cohesive material.

And you can sense that.

You can sense that this is one piece, and it's not just cut and glued sections.

All the sinks I've ever seen that are out of a solid surface material look like they're made out of a solid surface material.

So there is a difference in quality there.

But integral sinks, kitchens, I'm not a huge fan personally, me, a lot of people do them.

A lot of people are happy with them.

I always steer clients away from them.

I always try to say, let's do an undermount.

We can do an integral drain board.

We can do integral cutting boards.

It'll slide over everything.

We can do all those things.

But I don't recommend sinks because people are very abusive to sinks.

But there are some people that do the stainless bottom of a concrete sink, which is where most of the abuse is going to occur.

So they'll do a stainless bottom and then the sides are all concrete.

And I think that's a good compromise.

But this is a good trend that benefits the concrete artisan.

Joe.

I agree.

The 3D capability of concrete, the lesser waste, I mean, no one can touch us in that department unless they're poor in resin.

And you really don't want that as a countertop.

So yeah, all good news.

Now we just got to get over the hump because you keep Googling concrete countertops or whatever, AI in it, and you still get these remnants of the past.

They stain, they chip, they're hard to maintain.

You still see articles about it.

Damn, I mean, Fine Home Building revisited it not long ago.

And we're still fighting these demons from the past.

We got to move past it.

We got to get these people.

But we're not.

We're not fighting the demons of the past.

The reason is those articles aren't wrong.

They're right.

They're true.

I mean, they're true because a lot of, yeah, I'm still putting out stuff.

Yeah, you're looking at it through the lens of the materials you're using, and you're like, this is wrong.

And it is wrong from that perspective.

But as a larger overview of the industry, there's a lot of people out there using crappy mixes, using crappy sealers, and doing works for high-end designers and architects that unfortunately hire those people.

And they don't know that there's a difference.

They think, oh, concrete's concrete, sealer's sealer.

You know, they just, it's all the same thing.

You know, the architect and designer isn't aware that there's a better option.

So their experience is it cracks, it stains, it scratches, it peels, it yellows, it does all the things that Fine Home Buildings edited.

Because it does, if you don't use the right materials.

Well, that's true, but it seems like that narrative could change, you know, with some work, with some PR work on behalf of the industry to try and get out of that phase.

Yes, sorry to interrupt you.

The industry would have to want it to change.

And a couple examples just of late with me, you know, people call, send me pictures of a countertop with these white rings.

And they talk about this sealer that they learned from somebody.

And it's been on here for two years.

And all of a sudden, you know, all these rings are showing up.

Oh, you know, I guess it's not the last sealer you'll ever use or ever need, you know?

And then, so they strip it all down and, you know, they apply ICT to it and hey, all these problems went away.

And then as Joe, I'm going to use another one.

Yeah, as you just talked to somebody, right?

All excited or seem to be excited.

He wants to do some projects and he signed up with a workshop and it turns out this workshop is going to be, let's say taught or instructed by someone who's never done it.

Yeah.

That will continue to be a problem because again, this person's going to go, he certainly doesn't know the difference.

He's very excited to do some projects and he's going to go get some instructions that at least yeah, at least face value.

He's thinking is coming from a very educated and experienced platform.

And it's not until he comes back as with using a guy, I'm probably shouldn't use his name, but you know, right?

Port all those sinks and this and that spends, you know, six weeks with somebody he thinks is Yoda only to be led down a path of financial loss, material problems, et cetera, et cetera.

This will continue to be a problem.

It'll continue to be a problem because these other people and these other materials, they're not going to go away.

And I truly believe at the end of the day, you know, a few of these other individuals, you know what?

But I have a hard time believing that they don't believe in what they're doing.

You know what I mean?

They probably really do believe in what information they're presenting, even though, in fact, they probably get defensive.

You'd be like, bro, you only had a business for like six months.

I mean, what have you done since then?

Well, I've done samples.

Oh, OK.

Well, remember when this was 2008, maybe?

2008?

There was this little push to create a guild.

I think that's what we were going to call it, a guild.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and we were going to come together.

We were going to really push and promote the right material, the right sealer to architects and designers.

So they would know this is possible and that concrete is a good material and that it is a durable material and that it's life-friendly and it's easy to maintain.

And all the issues that you've heard about, those are issues of the past.

This is the material of today and of the future, and you don't need to worry about those things.

The problem was a difference in personalities, a difference in we couldn't agree upon what the spec should be, you know?

There was just too much.

And then who's going to pay for it?

You know, who's going to actually do the work?

Who's going to go meet with architects and designers?

Who's going to do these lunch and learns?

Who's going to go to the trade shows?

Who's going to front the bill for that?

And it just, it was kind of, it came clear that it's just too big of an issue for too many competing personalities and viewpoints to come to terms on.

But the fact that, you know, but the fact is these trade associations on behalf of certain, you know, whatever industries have existed and benefited them immensely over the years.

I mean, once you get past that and are able to fund it and come together and have a common message, it could be a huge, I still say it's a great idea and then it needs to be done in some way or shape or form, and then it would benefit everybody.

But yeah, people got to put up a little bit of money.

You got to pay a membership.

And then you also have to agree on a unified message that benefits everybody that's a member of it.

And materials, the problem is...

I was there, all those meetings, all those emails.

Yeah, you were.

We were at Bob Harris' place.

It was a lot of work.

Yeah, we met down in Georgia, at Bob Harris'.

The other issue is going to just be materials.

I mean, obviously, you use Kodiak, I use Kodiak, Jon uses Kodiak.

A lot of people, hundreds of artisans use Kodiak, but there's hundreds of artisans that don't use Kodiak.

And they won't agree with the message that you need to use this mix, you need to use this sealer to achieve the results that we're talking about.

They're going to say, well, I can get that with this Kodiak I roll on.

I don't want to say, no, you can't, bro.

And you can't tell customers that that's the same thing as this, because it's not.

And I think that's where the other industries have, for some way or another, have been able to come to terms on what they agree upon is the right material, the right sealer or sealing technology or whatever it is.

And we can all move forward with that.

I think with this, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if it's possible or not.

I hope it is.

Yeah, because that's where the egos in the various companies and so forth really get on board in my conversation with you this morning.

And I was just taking it between, again, a person recently that I spoke to who was, I'm going to say, very happy to be on the lowest end.

He wants to be inexpensive.

And so he's going to use these.

And very well, he's doing it completely on purpose, lower end materials and alluring, knowing full well that he's going to cater to a clientele with that expectation.

In fact, he was looking to use a solvent-based acrylic, which he knows isn't going to last.

He knows the scratches, he knows.

And I mean, all of that, he knows, he knows, he knows.

So the question would be, if we ever went back to a guild idea, do you have, I hate to say, like the gold guild, you know what I mean?

The platinum guild, the lead guild.

I mean, yeah, where do you set these specifications?

You know what I mean?

I don't know.

And then since most of us look at it like, although other industries don't, I mean, we've talked about it before, Festool, assuming Festool is considered like the premier, well, Ryobi doesn't get pissed about Festool.

You know what I mean?

That's actually be my point is I was actually going to say woodworking and woodworking, there's levels of woodworking.

There's woodworkers that use sealer, they get it lows and they get wood at lows and they make a table out of it and they say, hey, this is a great coffee table or dining table or whatever.

And it's made with poplar that got it lows and Minwax polyurethane that they rolled onto it.

Great, there's a buyer for that.

There's a person that says, yeah, I like that.

And then there's the next level, next level, next level, all the way up to the guy that is kiln drying slabs of walnut and machining it down and using, you know, Poly-X Osmol or whatever it is they're using.

And they're using the best joinery techniques and these different types of things, but there's levels to it.

And there's levels with this.

There's going to be the people that are getting quick creed lows and they're getting stone lock.

Or what was the sealer, miracle sealer that we used to use way 20 some years ago, that was this tile sealer.

They're going to be doing that thing.

And great, I mean, there's definitely a buyer for that.

But then there's going to be the people that are at the very high end of what's possible to concrete as far as materials and sealer and durability and those kind of things.

So I think there's always going to be that range.

The problem is the messaging to the architecture and design industry is that there's a difference.

And how do we do that?

I don't know.

Right.

Yeah.

Agreed.

And that was the difficulty there.

And that's what sent people even back then, down their own personal ego rabbit holes.

Well, that's what sent people in all different directions.

It's like, we met, this sounds like a good idea.

And everybody just left and went their separate ways.

So it seemed like a good idea.

And then we all went home.

Those were the days.

Nothing came out.

That was fun.

I enjoyed that process.

That was fun.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, well, maybe something comes up again.

Jon and I talk about it every now and then.

But it's the finances, it's the time, it's getting people involved.

People say they want to be involved, but then when it comes time to get involved, do they really want to be involved?

Do you really want to go to trade shows?

Do you really want to take a week off from your work and your family to go to some trade show in Baltimore for landscape designers where you're going to be manning the booth that is promoting concrete?

You might not at that point.

You might say, I'm too busy.

I don't have time.

So it's one of those things that is a good idea.

Especially if in during that promotion, someone else ends up with a bunch of work and you didn't get any.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's one of those things that I think it's a good idea.

Maybe we revisit it.

People listen to this podcast.

You know, you have some ideas, hit us up.

It's worth a conversation.

I still think it's a good idea.

And as Joe pointed out, there's other industries that have successfully done these things.

There's other industries that lobbyists isn't the right term, but they have trade associations that do in essence lobby for that material with, you know, AIA and design professionals and to say this is a great material and here are the things they can do and here's why.

And here are the professionals we recommend.

And here are the standards that you should specify.

Those are all good things, you know?

And the concrete industry has not done that.

I agree.

I agree.

I figured out one of these days.

Yeah.

So...

Probably long after we're gone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So before we wrap this, workshops.

We had three or four registrations last week, four workshops coming up, but we have a basics fundamentals concrete workshop September 20th and 21st in Goddard, Kansas.

Go to concretedesignschool.com.

This is our basics class.

It's the stepping stone.

It's the first step in your concrete journey.

You're interested.

You're like, man, I'd like to make my own concrete countertops from my own concrete sink, whatever, but I don't know where to start.

This is where to start.

So Concrete Design School to read about that.

And then we have a Rammcrete workshop October 18th and 19th again here in Goddard, Kansas.

This is one and a half day Rammcrete.

Rammcrete is the rammed earth aesthetic.

We did the first one at Joe's shop in Napa, I don't know, two, three years ago now.

It was the first one we did.

I'm looking at those pieces right now.

Yeah.

But it's a very popular look with architects and designers.

So if you want to learn that technique, you can go to concretedesignschool.com to read more and register.

And I think Jon's going to come out for that class October 18th and 19th.

Jon's going to come join us, hopefully, if he can get his schedule lined up.

But it's going to be a fun class.

So busy.

Yeah, anything else you guys want to talk about?

Maybe I'll come out too.

I want to see your shop.

Dude, I'd love to have you out here.

October is a great time of year.

Yeah.

I got nothing else.

Nothing else?

I have a small confession to make.

You do?

Yeah.

Well, you want a hot dog roll back?

Don't do this on air, don't do it on air.

Do it live.

My new guy brought some reseal jobs over from the old shop, and we went out and did one the other day.

And after spending three or four hours with epoxy remover, scraping an eighth of an inch of crap off these poor people's outdoor countertops, the only look that the client would approve was actually a much more enhanced look.

And he had already lined it up to put a topical sealer on it.

And I had to just turn my back and look away.

Well, he did it, but we did it.

I got some ICT on their fire pit.

Well, say 20 Hail Marys, and I will absolve you of your sins.

So this is the last podcast that you've been invited to.

I mean, customers sometimes they get it in their mind that that's the route they want to go, and hey, it's their countertop, let them do it.

I will say that if a certain chemist that we knew had gotten his shit together and gotten that first round of enhancer out of there, maybe we could have changed the course of that day.

What a loser.

Well, you'll get another chance to do it again in three, four years.

So, yeah, you'll be back out there.

Exactly, we'll be back.

And you can tell them that, like, guys, this is going to look great for three or four years, and then we'll be back and then we can do it the way I want to do it.

Okay, so, yeah.

Jon, you got anything, buddy?

No, man, all good, all good.

Cool.

Well, the last thing, I mean, I hit it early on in this podcast was I went on vacation last week to a place here, it was in Oklahoma, it's called Hokatown.

And I was telling Jon, like, I've always loved the movie The Great Outdoors with Jon Candy.

And I've always, like, there's just a part of me that always is looking for that type of nostalgic Americana summer place, you know?

Yeah.

And I always thought that was like Lake Minnetonka or something, like some place up in Minnesota.

And Jon's like, no, it's Bass Lake in California.

What?

He's like, yeah, that's where they filmed it.

So that was news to me.

But Hocotown is like that.

Like, we went there by accident years ago, two years ago, three years ago, when the solar eclipse came through, it was in the path to totality.

So we rented a cabin there and we went there and we're like, oh crap, like, we didn't know this even existed.

Like, this is incredible.

And so we've gone back since and it's kind of become our spot we like to go to.

But my whole point with this is the importance of spending time away from work with your family.

It is so critical.

We get so consumed with work and deadlines and we're just go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

But that we were only gone for five days.

I wanted to go longer, but none of the cabins were available.

Everything's booked up.

But even just five days away, it's just a great way to refresh, reset, get a better perspective, get a better perspective on why we even do this.

Why are we even doing this?

Why are we in our shops?

Why are we doing all this?

We're doing it so we can have time with our families, time that is meaningful, time that is memorable.

That's what it's all about, is the memories we're creating.

So if you're like me, and sometimes you go years without taking a vacation, which I've done many times, go ahead and book the trip.

Do it this summer.

Book the trip, take five, six, seven days, get away, remember why you're doing it, make those memories with your family.

Super important.

But I just want to say that.

Right on, man.

That's it, it is important.

And summer traditions are the best.

I mean, my memories of coming down and getting to spend a week with my cousin in the summer are some of the best ever, you know?

And so yeah, going back to the same place is also a great thing too.

Every year you get a little better at it and it's easier.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's the simple things, you know?

You went to Japan, which I would love to take the kids to Japan when they get old enough.

And you waited till now because now your kids are old enough where they can appreciate it.

Had they been three or four years old, they wouldn't have appreciated Japan.

It would have been a nightmare, which is where my kids are right now.

But you know, we've done the beach thing, which is miserable, dragging kids to the beach, dragging everything out in the sand.

It's blazing hot.

They get sand in their swimsuit.

You know, it's a whole thing.

You think it's going to be great and it's not great.

It might be great when they get older, but right now, it's not great.

But cabin in the woods with kids, especially small kids, is the best because it's frisbee, it's s'mores, it's hot dogs.

Yeah, it's s'mores.

We're running out of hot tub.

They love the hot tub.

So, you know, it's getting in a hot tub and everybody's laughing.

Everybody's having a good time.

That's the best vacation.

You know, if we took them to Disneyland, I don't think they'd have a better time than swimming in the lake and, you know, doing those things that we were doing out there.

We figured out we could get four of us to Japan for two weeks for about the same price as a Disneyland vacation.

Dude, so it was like, what, 600,000, 700,000?

Like, how much was it?

Because Disney's done lost its mind.

I've been seeing videos of the Disney prices, and they are insane.

Insane.

Yeah.

I never went there as a kid, so I don't have that strong emotional attachment that some people seem to have, and so it was an easy decision for us.

Dude, my parents went without us.

I swear to God, dude.

My parents left us at our grandparents' and went to Disney— whichever one's in Florida, Disney World.

Whichever one's in Florida.

My dad had a conference.

He's a civil engineer.

He had a conference in Florida.

And so they made a vacation out of it.

They went to the conference, then he went to Disney World without the kids.

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's.

I was like, what?

Did they take some pictures?

Yeah, dude.

They had a great time.

They had a great time.

And we were stuck at Grandma's.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

No, I still give blood about every six weeks to help pay for the Disney train.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just being around all those people that doesn't have enough to turn up to not even want to go.

Dude, even, we're literally like this, we went down to Oklahoma, and it's like these really bougie cabins, like bougie, bougie cabins.

These cabins are million dollar cabins, which in Oklahoma, in California, that'd be like a $5 million cabin, you know?

Because it's Oklahoma.

So they're like, they're million dollar cabins.

We looked them up, a lot of them were for sale.

We found them online.

Super nice cabins.

But you know, you've got 500 feet between you and the next one.

And even that was people were too close to us.

We're like, next time let's book one.

You know, we're like looking at the ones we own a book that are like further off from everybody else.

Because 500 feet, somebody sitting under porch out there, I don't want to see them.

I don't want to see anybody.

I want to be out there by myself.

So that's just me.

Agreed.

Yeah.

All right.

On that note, until next time, adios amigos.

Adios.