Countertop Facelift

Instead of pouring new concrete countertops to match my new sink/counter I decided to give my old slabs a facelift.  They were perfectly good, albeit ugly, countertops that were begging for a makeover.
The longer I worked with them the more I learned.  Here's a before picture.  The stain and sealer had worn off and it had little pock marks here and there.  It felt rough and sticky.

Here's the after.  It's shiny and smooth and feels lovely to touch.

I've also tried engraving some wheat in one of the countertops but after many attempts, have yet to get it looking the way I want.  This is the engraving.  The grooves hadn't been filled yet and the countertop finish wasn't near what I wanted.  I may give up on the wheat and just make this one match the one above.

What I used as a skim coat was portland cement mixed with concrete bonder and fortifier to help it adhere to the roughed up surface.  I added different amounts of the charcoal cement color to each layer to bring out different colors/textures when I sanded it.  I didn't want it to look like plain grey concrete.

I sanded it with an orbital sander, finishing it with at least 320 grit paper and then hand sanding it with 600 or 800 grit.  Lastly I waxed it with Johnson's Paste Wax like you'd put on a wood floor.  It gives it a semi-gloss look.

I built this table years ago and even though I like its appearance, I think I'm going to give it a facelift too so it matches the countertops.  I made the table from and old plant stand and some leftover trim from the kitchen cabinets.

The only thing I'm considering doing differently with the table is perhaps adding some crushed glass to the skim coat and see if I can bring out some color and sparkle when I grind it down.  I'm going to think about that for a while.  It will be at least a week till I get to it because I work on these outdoors and it's going to be too cold to work with cement for that long.