I can talk at length now about kitchen countertops. Watch me!
We are just finishing up a $7,500 face lift of our kitchen, swapping in a new stove, new quartz countertops, tile backsplash, repainting all cabinets. Dh is installing the tile so that is not very expensive. The lions share was $5,300 for quartz countertop. I chose plain jane grey, it looks like a shiney cement. It is very utilitarian looking.
While we can easily afford anything, I went round and round about material. I really love granite, that is, many of them. I dont like the type I call “polka dot” which doesnt have a sweeping rhythmic movement althpugh I DO like the tiny grain granite, the kind that usually is black and sparkles like glitter. Ultimately I love the look and idea of solid stone and the quartz I ended up with kind of skeeves me out if I think about it because it is manmade and it is too much like cultured marble, remember that chit? So, I do not allow myself to,think of it that way. I pretend my countop is slate, or sometimes cement.
Surprisingly, our savvy sales guy showed me a granite in my grey/cream color range that was very pretty,cheaper than the quartz by a decent amount, and it also had fair sweeps of veining. It was not polka dot, it was more circley.
But in the end I did not want that distracting swirly granite, I wanted peaceful, quiet plainness. Having had grey formica for 25 years, grey quartz seemed comfortable. Somewhere in there I considered the quartz that everyone is getting, the one that mimcs marble and decided against it as too busy and trendy.
Then I saw a slab of “quartzite” which is solid stone, and loved that. loved it! Gorgeous! But could not bring myself to spend that much, around $11,000 especially since that meant fussing for another several hours over pattern layoit.
I think that is what ultimately made my decision about this plain jane quartz—there was no pattern to match up or track. I have limited patience for shopping for certain things and by the time I had spent half a day on countertops, I was done!
I did look at recycled glass online but that was a very modern look, and our kitchen is Victorian.
Tl;dr I love granite the material! I got quartz because it was simpler. Oth in look and process. What I really wanted was cherry wood countertops but DH would not hear of that.