Countertop Progression

The countertops have been a complete disaster headache on this kitchen project.  We first went from replacing them with granite (mentioned here) to just replacing the new addition with matching laminate to our already not awful laminate (mentioned here), to changing the corner radius from rounded to square (found here) and now we are back at the beginning, replacing the tops with granite.

We’ve known for several weeks that granite was the once again the winner, but because we’ve had an issue with just about everything regarding countertops, we decided not to post about it until we knew for sure that we were on target.

I hate being that person who has to back track, let alone do it 3 times, but yes, I am that girl.  Home renovation is never a set in stone kind of thing and has changed significantly for us over the course of two months.

Let’s take a step forward.  Here is our kitchen as it stands at this moment:

Tile finished, check.  Grout in, check. Trim cut and nailed, check.  Fridge handles put back on, not yet.  (We will have to move the appliances back out of the kitchen (again) for the granite so there was no point on screwing them back in for the time being…call us lazy).

The original “Ebony Star” laminate is a textured finished (found here).  It was measured and templated 3 weeks ago by a local countertop company but came back as “discontinued’.  Having a discontinued countertop spurred us to go back to the granite option.  We decided it was ridiculous to replace the entire kitchen with a new laminate when we could do granite for a few hundred bucks more.  (seriously, it really was only about $500-600 more for granite).  Because we went back to granite that meant we would have to take the extra steps to address our support issue, which we’ve done.  That’s now small potatoes in the whole scheme of things.

Originally we decided on Azul Platino granite (mentioned here) but we both had reservations once the new porcelain tile was laid and grouted.  It took us about 3 weeks, but we finally decided on Blanco Taupe  granite.  It’s a lighter stone.  The background is white with light grey, dark grey, and black speckles.  There may even be a silver speck here and there that will tie nicely into to the stainless appliances, door/drawer pulls, and new stainless undermount sink.

Friday we went for the slab view, just to make absolutely certain that this was the top we wanted, and it was perfect!  We actually set a date for the install during the slab view.  If I told you the exact date something will go terribly wrong, so I have opted to keep that a secret.  Here is a picture of the Blanco Taupe granite against the original Azul Platino.

You can sort of tell how much darker the Azul Platino (the one on the left) is compared to the Blanco Taupe (the one we chose on the right).  Because our black floor tile has undertones of grey through it we decided this was a much better, lighter match to compliment our white cabinets.

We both really like it against the light grey walls.  It doesn’t feel so ‘heavy’ like the Azul Platino.

So to sum it all up, yes, we are getting granite countertops.  Yes, they match the tile floor we’ve already laid.  Yes, it’s fresh and nuetral.  Yes, we LOVE it!  We can’t wait for the install and hope we still love it when the beautiful slabs are pressed against our glossy white cabinets.

In case you can’t envision it, I found a picture here, of a completed kitchen with the same granite.  Granted (no pun intended, haha) they have dark cabinets, but this should help you get a better feel of what it might look like.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but I really think it’s starting to come together!

Once the granite is in we will finally be able to

• install the upper cabinet on the counter addition
• lay tile backsplash
• nail in the last few pieces of floor trim

The list keeps getting shorter….that’s music to my ears.