Not a fan of concrete countertops. This has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a natural stone gal, just don't like the look. Having said that, there are some interesting things that can be done with the newer colored concretes. Check out this website http://www.buddyrhodes.com/pages/con...ure_colors.cfm
Tell me about your cabinet and floor selections for the kitchen (or shoot me photos in an e-mail or post here). Are you going for a somewhat rustic feel? My first instinct when I think schoolhouse reproduction is to use soapstone. If you really want to get into DIY you can fabricate soapstone with standard router bits. I also think soapstone would be a perfect fit as that's what was used for most school chemistry lab countertops. Another option would be slate. Large farm sinks are sort of out of vogue right now, but in the right setting in my opinion they are timeless, particularly with a reproduction wall mount faucet set up.