The outrageous sink

In one of the longest running projects to date, we have finalized our work on a very intricate bathroom, with an extremely complicated sink. The key features include:

• 9 inch thickness
• Cast in place sink with a drain that is actually housed within the wall
• Integrated towel bar
• Over 11 feet in length as a single casting
• Concealed attachment to the wall
• 50% recycled content
• Bright white color

I am now looking forward to some professional photography so that I can get this on my website!!

The Form

Once removed from the form, its time to polish and shape the edges.

Finished product in place.

No visible plumbing...the drain is contained within the concrete and the P-trap is inside the wall. Gives that magical 'floating' look.

Overcomming Adversity - The big sink

Sometimes that which should be easy.....isn't.


This was the case when our client made a last-minute decision to use this extra-big italian ceramic sink. Oops!




However, the cabinet vendor, Kitchen Craft, Responded to the situation quickly and working hand-in-hand with them, the cabinet was trimmed just enough to avoid what would have been a very costly rebuild. Its very common for us to collaborate with other trades to promote quick and positive results.

Just barely fit!!

Better Than IceStone!!

Although we have done many projects that featured recycled glass filled concrete, this is by far the most extensive application performed by Newbold Stone.

This product competes with a product made in New York, called IceStone, which is touted for its eco-freindly benefits. Our product is superior in 3 ways:

1. The product is made locally, of local components. Portland cement, from San Antonio, Crushed Glass from Dallas (or from the Austin Recycling center for multi-colored glass), local water and various additives. This eliminates the transport energy that is expended from shipping the sheet product from New York. It also reduces turnaround time and keeps the money in the local economy.

2. The product is formed in the shape that it will be installed. All sheet materials like IceStone (or granite or Silestone) is shipped in sheets and then cut to size locally. What happens to the extra material on the cuttingroom floor....landfill.....Texas landfill in our case.

3. The thickness that looks best for you. Sheet materials are available in a single thickness (or sometimes 2 or 3 if you pick the right one). Local artisans can customize a 4" curved surface, if that is what you want......now that is keeping ahead of the Jones's.

1/2" Thick Concrete

My favorite thing about the GFRC techonology is that it opens up the range of what i can do with concrete. Although it has become commonplace to pour concrete countertops as thin as 1-1/2" thick with traditional methods, Use of the homogeneous glass reinforcement has enabled me to break out of this range. I knew I could make it 3/4" thick, and I had become fairly confident with 1/2" thick backsplashes, but I wasnt sure if it would work as a countertop. Wow, what a surprise. It is strong, stable, and fantastic. In this particular case, we added an integral sink as well.

Cantilevered Glass Sink

This small guest bath was a surprisingly challenging space. The client was looking for a WOW factor in a rather small and standard powder bath layout. After countless exchanges and redesigns, they happened to find this Kohler Antilia Wading Pool Sink and fell in love with it.

The challenge then became finding a way to fit the huge 17" x 28" glass sink into the small space without having everything feel cramped.

It turned out that less was more and by cantelevering the sink in a frame of concrete, the semi-transparency of the sink was usefull in de-emphasizing its overall size and resulting in a very clean, very cool installation that you could see right through!!