Friday, June 10, 2016

Countertop Fun*

* sarcasm

Let's get this out, i love a nice counter top.  I've mentioned that i'm partial to marble - i love the natural look and just the living feel of the stone.  But for a kitchen countertop, with staining and etching, it just ins't practical.  If i was the kind of person who never cooked, or never made a mess when i cooked, i would consider it.  But i am neither of those people so it's not an option.

Jon and i were pretty set on granite after i got over my marble desires.  There was one hot minute where i wanted Vermont Soapstone (because BEAUTIFUL!) but we have agreed that it will be too dark for our small and sort of dark space. We have granite in our condo kitchen and it has been great durability wise.  I can put hot pans on it, spill messy things on it and it will still wipe down to look fresh and clean. It also has a more natural look than say, ultra durable quartz which just looks too manufactured for my taste.

So we began a hunt for granite that looks like marble. I did some preliminary research online to see what kinds of granite may have that look.  I found these articles to be helpful.



We then went to the closest stone place recommended by our contractor, MGSI out in Niles. no bueno.  it was a really awkward experience where there were't prices for anything - everything was on a scale on 1-10 with 1 being cheap and 10 being expensive but i have no idea what that means. ALSO in order to go and look at slabs we had to be lead around the warehouse by a sales associate, a lady who thought we were stupid children and didn't actually want us to look at anything. Also, we didn't really see anything that fit our need of a light gray stone without other colors.

Feeling very discouraged and stressed by our deadline to pick something, we left super frustrated without any decent ideas.

Fortunately, i had to make a run out to Ikea last week - to pick up an additional kitchen cabinet (another story for another day) and was near another stone place in Elk Grove Village called MSI.  This place was a VAST improvement.  They had even less pricing information, no scale to even speak of, and just kept insisting that they only give priced to fabricators so we would have to get a quote form our countertop guy.  At any rate, i liked this place becuase they let me wonder around their warehouse, at my own pace, looking at every single option.  I ended up finding several that i thought could possibly work.









Having enjoyed my experience at this supplier, Jon and i returned the following Saturday to look together.  From there we narrowed our selection down to 4 options that we think will work.

We were waiting on pricing information from our fabricator - hoping that one of them is in budget because truly we have NO IDEA! We just got word that they are all magically the same price.  So, we'll be going back out to the burbs this weekend to pick our exact slabs! Looking forward to crossing this one off the list.

2 comments:

  1. GREAT post. I literally "Dear Google"-ed the question "countertops that look like marble but are low maintenance" today and should have just come here first!!

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    Replies
    1. it's an adventure! if i was any bit a responsible adult i would have picked real marble.

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