ArdexFeather Finish, Self-Drying, Cement Based Finishing Underlayment Bag 10 Lbs, Grey

WOW! This was a learning experience / adventure for me!! We live in a 30 year old mobile home. We previously had a "rock" fireplace with a hearth that was raised about 6" off the floor with large stones on top. The mantle was rough cedar, and above the hearth, it was that tacky paper-laminated excuse for panelling. We replaced the panelling with sheetrock; we taped & embedded & textured the walls.We removed the "rock" as well as the entire hearth. I cut and secured the thin hardy board to the wall for the fireplace surround, using screws. I sealed the seams with fiberglass (sheetrock) tape, and I painted them with red sealant. I used this Feather Finish with some cement colorant from Home Depot, and I applied about 7 coats to the front of our fireplace surround. I need to figure out how to add pictures, because it turned out great in our opinion. NO, I had no previous experience with cement, but I have done quite a bit of sheetrock repair and floating of mud in this lovely money pit! (lol) The only reason for so many coats is that colorant makes the cement or feather finish product CHANGE COLORS as it dries, and it dries almost as fast as plaster of paris. You have to work soooo fast, but when you start at one point and go all the way around the fireplace, you end back up at your starting point, right? Since the feather finish mixture is almost dry at this point, and since the colorant changes colors as it dries, you end up with two totally different colors touching each other. It took me a while to figure out how to make this work. I had to start at the top center of the surround and work down from there down both directions! That part was NOT easy. You have to work fast, but this way I would end up at the center bottom of the surround. Again, this is all because of using the colorant. I've been told I need to write my own blog! Probably so!!Since I ran out of this bag mid-project, I learned that you can actually use another product called Henry Feather Finish - product number on the box is 549. ALSO, we had to use a paddle stirring contraption - normally used for stirring paint - or you could use the one for actually stirring together joint compound. The Henry Feather Finish is the same stuff as is in this Ardex bag. They are made by the exact same company -just different packaging. I found the Henry at Home Depot. You just have to search because different territories in the US carry different products and brands. DO KNOW THIS - I found the Henry product - the powder before mixing - to be of a much darker gray that the Ardex. I called the company back and they explained that all cement is that way, that it will vary from batch to batch. Makes perfect sense. I had to then adjust my colorant a bit in order to allow for the Henry feather finish being so much darker.I had originally hoped to have a glass tile fireplace surround, but our tile contractors couldn't come out for weeks! My husband was nervous about us trying to learn to do tile (chicken - haha!). I thought he was gonna stroke over the cement! This feather finish allowed me to rescue our project of making a slimmer profile of our fireplace and giving it a sleek, modern appearance.We now have no hearth, though maybe one day we will create one, but now the surround goes straight down to the floor. We painted the gold colored accents on the screen facing with black paint. That cedar mantle - we took it to a cabinet shop and had them plane it down. I sanded it smooth (didn't take much after going through a commercial planer) and stained it, then put a couple of coats of satin polycrylic on it I think. Totally different room, now. Looks awesome!!!

Long story short, we used Ardex Feather Finish to encapsulate cutback residue (mastic, glue, etc...) on concrete that was left from asbestos tile in our basement storage room. Which it worked perfectly!A little insight: Our first "major" winter project in our new home was to clean/renovate our basement storage room. The floor was partially covered in asbestos floor tile. We had the tile professionally removed, but the job did not include the removal of the cutback residue leftover from the tile. We thought about just covering the concrete with vinyl plank and call it a day, but the cutback residue had a really musty smell, which kind of stunk. (no pun intended).After doing a little research and getting a recommendation from a friend (who's a contractor), we decided on the Ardex Feather Finish. It's main purpose is to prep your subfloor for a covering, whether it's carpet, tile, or some sort of plank flooring (wood, laminate, etc...). It can be applied to ALMOST any surface to including old floor adhesive. Which is what we were looking for. We ended up using DriCore for the floor covering.READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! Probably the most important thing!Since our surface was already clean from having the tile removed (they washed the whole room down, floor to ceiling), there wasn't much prep. I did wet mop the area one more time to be safe, and let it dry overnight. It was winter when we did this, so we had space heater in the room to bring up with ambient temp. We live in Minnesota, and the room is unconditioned, so it was pretty chilly in there. You need to make sure the surface you are applying it to is the minimum temp recommend in the instructions or you could run into issues with it properly adhering.I started with a small test area, about 12"x12". I wanted to make sure it would stay adhered to the cutback residue. I checked the test area after 24hrs, and it was rock hard. I then proceeded to do the rest. I used a 12" flat trowel with a sweeping motion and feathered the area until it was pretty smooth. It levels itself, so you don't have to be super picky about getting it perfect. If I remember correctly, the consistency is like heavy whipping cream, maybe a little thicker...(It's not like mortar you use to lay floor tile). It does dry fast, so only mix as much as you can work with!I let it sit for a week to be safe (cold basement), before installing the DriCore,. I did apply this a year prior to writing this review, and it's still sound and holding well. We did contemplate just leaving the feather finish uncovered, but Ardex states you should use something over it. Although this was a storage room, we didn't want to risk damaging it, or have it wear through. That's when we decided on the DriCore, which has worked well. Hopefully this helps!Cheers!