Chris Kennedy summed up his recent bathroom remodel project in four words: “From outdated to outstanding.”
Work like this didn’t come easily. Before Chris ever cast a vanity top for a client, he spent four years teaching himself concrete and then took concrete countertop training at The Concrete Countertop Institute. Here’s the bathroom first, followed by the story of how he got there.
From outdated to outstanding: a studs-out bathroom remodel
The bathroom started with a dated vanity, a tub and shower insert tucked behind a partition wall to the left, and textured drywall throughout.
Chris took the room down to the studs, reworked the plumbing and electrical, and rebuilt the whole space around a walk-in shower where the tub used to be.
The finished room is worth studying closely. The old tub alcove is now a walk-in shower framed by subway tile half walls, each trimmed with a crisp black edge and topped with fixed glass, so the shower stays open and bright while still containing the spray. Inside, large-format marble-look tile, a rain shower head, and a mosaic floor give the shower its own finish.
On the other side of the room, subway tile now runs along the vanity wall. The gray concrete vanity top Chris cast in his shop sits on a white shaker cabinet and carries a dark glass vessel sink, while the matte black faucet, hardware, light bar, and round mirror tie the palette together. Among all that crisp tile and glass, the concrete is the one surface that was made by hand for this room.
It started with his own kitchen
Chris didn’t set out to build a concrete business. About five years ago, he and his wife Stephanie were remodeling their own kitchen and couldn’t settle on countertops. Chris’s brother had built concrete countertops about a decade earlier, so Chris decided to try it himself, and that kitchen eventually got its concrete countertops.
Those four years of trial and error ended with a trip to CCI in December 2023, and today Chris and Stephanie run Kennedy’s Craft Concrete & Home Remodeling Services in Bastrop, Texas.
Four years of teaching himself
Like many people who get hooked on concrete, Chris started with whatever he could find. He watched videos, read everything available, and bought books on making concrete countertops before he started casting.
“After several failed attempts I finally had made some progress,” he recalled in a Voyage Austin feature on the business. Progress came slowly, though, and with no one to explain what was going wrong, he had no way to tell good results from bad ones. “Remember I have had no training or help, so what I thought was good with a big-box store-bought bag of concrete countertop mix was not so good after all.”
He describes those years as “four years of pulling my hair out and feeling defeated.” It’s a story we hear often from people who come to CCI. Videos can show the steps, but they rarely explain why a piece cracks, curls, or stains, so every failure becomes another expensive guess.
The concrete countertop training that changed his direction
Chris eventually found The Concrete Countertop Institute’s hands-on class. Stephanie booked it for him, and in December 2023 he flew to North Carolina to train with Jeff Girard, the licensed civil engineer who founded CCI in 2004.
CCI’s approach is built around a simple idea: learn not just how, but why. For someone who had spent years guessing, understanding why each step matters is what turns a run of lucky results into work you can repeat on every job.
Building a business around creative concrete
Kennedy’s Craft Concrete & Home Remodeling Services is now a full-service remodeling and design-build company serving Central Texas, with hand-cast concrete as its signature. Chris does the trade work himself, from framing and tile to cabinetry and every piece of concrete cast in their Bastrop shop. Stephanie runs scheduling, selections, and the steady stream of client questions that come with every remodel.
Their concrete work ranges from a bone white double trough vanity with twin integral basins to a kitchen island with an integral sink, a fireplace surround with a floating hearth, an outdoor kitchen bar, and a greenhouse sink and drainboard set on a cedar frame. Every piece is glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC), cast and finished in their own shop rather than outsourced.
The road hasn’t been smooth. “The challenges of starting a business are crazy, let alone a business that a lot of people know nothing about,” Chris said, and part of the job, as he sees it, is showing homeowners what concrete can be. “We have been trying to get the word out about how pretty concrete can be.”
The word is getting out. The company holds a 5.0 rating on Google, exhibited at the 2026 Austin Home & Garden Show, and earns reviews that keep coming back to on-time work, clean job sites, and clear bids. You can see more of their work at kennedyhomecreations.com.
A system he can rely on
Chris relies on PowerBlend and Omega for his concrete work, along with our UltraFibers. In his review of PowerBlend on our website, he put it this way: “I make everything with PowerBlend, your fibers and seal with Omega. These products make a great system that I know I can rely on for all of my projects large and small.”
It’s a long way from a bag of big-box countertop mix and four years of guessing. When the mix, the reinforcement, and the sealer are designed to work together, a fabricator can spend his attention on the design and the craftsmanship instead of wondering whether the next piece will hold up.
Learn it the right way the first time
Chris spent four years learning the hard way before he found CCI. If you’re ready to skip the guesswork, the Creative Concrete Mastery workshop puts you at the bench with Jeff in a small group of no more than six students, learning not just how to build concrete countertops but why each step works.