Kitchen Makeover: Choosing Countertops

Finally!  Some changes are underway in our kitchen!

With the exception of some new track lighting, our kitchen is one area of our home
that we haven't worked on since we moved in 5 years ago...
It still had the same laminate countertop & tumbled travertine tile backsplash:

It's not terrible, it's just not our cup of tea (check out Mel's Kitchen Board to see what's more our style).

While we certainly could paint the cabinets, it doesn't seem worth it to us since they are only 6 years old & are in good condition.  Oh, and it would be a lot of work.  But we digress...

For now, we are going to work with our medium wood tone maple cabinets (at least we think they are maple) and update the countertops & backsplash only.  The trick was going to be finding something that would coordinate with the color of our cabinets.

While searching online, we found one kitchen that had similar colored cabinetry to ours, with light quartz counters, & a white subway tile backsplash - check it out here.  Even though she eventually painted her cabinets, we thought the light counters & subway tile paired well with the original wood tone.
It was the visual inspiration that we needed to move forward...

We began our search by visiting a couple of granite & stone warehouses.
Our first stop was @ Granite Direct Warehouse:

After we looked through rows & rows of granite, we quickly realized that granite was going to be too dark & busy for the look we were trying to achieve.  The slabs we did like turned out to be marble - which was not the material we wanted to use in our kitchen.

So we turned our focus to quartz - so many choices!

So what exactly are quartz counters made of & how are they different from granite?  Honestly, we didn't really know much of anything at first.  We quickly learned that quartz countertops are an engineered stone product - they are comprised of a combination of natural quartz, resin, & pigments (about 93% quartz).  The result is a super durable, stain & scratch resistant surface - that never needs to be sealed.  There are several different manufactures (or brands) of quartz countertops.  Some of the major companies are Ceasarstone, Silestone, Cambria, Zodiac, HanStone, & Viatera.

Although we were initially leaning towards quartz for more aesthetic/color reasons, it was nice to know that it was more durable & required less maintenance than granite (btw, we still think granite is a durable & beautiful natural material - it just didn't fit our needs for this project).
Here's a comparison chart we referenced from one of our brochures:

With the help of our salesperson Melissa, we pulled out a few quartz samples that caught our eye:

It's difficult to get 100% accurate representations of the colors under the indoor lighting - 

but you can get a general idea.

After a process of elimination, we narrowed it down to a couple different colors (Cirrus, Frosty Carrina, & Organic White) and got some price quotes.  Melissa gave us some small samples to take home as well.  Although we had already found some quartz samples we liked at our very first stop, we thought we should at least check out a few more granite warehouses...explore all of our options, you know?

By the end of the day, we had physically visited 3 different warehouses & continued to run into the same issue with the granite - took dark & busy.  We kept revisiting quartz & gravitating towards the same samples.

Once we were done shopping around for the day, we tried out our favorite sample at home (the warehouses did have several cabinets doors on hand to reference, but none of them were the exact color of our cabinets - we should have just brought our own from the start):

At this point, we were 99% sure we were going to go with Frosty Carrina by Caesarstone.  We felt the Organic White was a bit too stark and we preferred the veining of the Frosty Carrina over the Cirrus (by LG) sample.  Frosty Carrina felt like the perfect shade of white with subtle grey veining - it definitely had a 'marble' look to it that we really liked.

Now that we were fairly certain of what we wanted, Nader called around to about 8 other companies to get some more quotes.  All of the quotes were within about $500 of each other - with the exception of the first location we visited, which was significantly lower than all of the other quotes.  We thought it was a bit odd, so Nader called Melissa to inquire about the price difference.

That's when we learned that, based on our counter top square footage, companies would need to order 2 slabs (which some of the other companies did mention in their quote explanation).  Apparently, many companies pass the cost of the extra slab onto the customer - even though they don't use it.  Melissa explained that they didn't need to charge us for the extra remnants due to their sales volume & storage warehouse.  Essentially, they had to room to store it & the ability to sell the remnant quickly.

Also, throughout the shopping process we learned that some companies charge an additional fee to cut the hole for the sink & install it - so just a heads up on that.  Luckily, Melissa's proposal did not include an additional charge to install the sink.  

It was pretty obvious for us that we were going to move forward with the first company we visited - Granite Direct Warehouse.  We have included the link for anyone in the Atlanta area who might be countertop shopping.  (Also, we think it's important to mention that our counters were not comped nor are we getting any sort of compensation for using Granite Direct.  We simply wanted to share our real life experience & any info that might be helpful to others.)

A few days later we stopped by Granite Direct & brought one of our cabinet doors
with us so we could see it with a larger sample of the quartz.  Even though we liked how the smaller sample looked at home, we wanted to be 100% sure:

So far, so good - it worked for us!  The next step was confirming some details.

First up - edge choices.  There were several different choices - some of which were standard & some which costed extra (see the full selection here).  We decided on the standard Eased Edge because it felt simple, modern, & classic all at the same time.

Second - we had to decide how much of an overhang we wanted on the peninsula:

We debated over these potential ideas:

1.  add a full 12" overhang to create a seating area for bar stools

2.  add 6"-8" of overhang to simply create more working countertop space

Option 1 was the ideal choice for us.  Unfortunately, our dining table & chairs would have been a bit too close to the countertop edge & stools.  It might have worked, but it would have been a tight squeeze.  In the end, we decided to add an extra 6" of overhang to simply increase our overall work surface.

Lastly, we signed the paperwork & scheduled a time for them come out & measure the template.  That concludes Part 1 of our countertop shopping experience.  With our countertop choice finalized, we are on to the next step - picking out a sink & faucet so they can cut out the openings once our slabs arrive!
Updates coming soon...

Mel & Nader

:)

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This was not a sponsored post.  We simply wanted to share our experience with other homeowners.