Category: Our First House

I think I was a little ambiguous in yesterday’s countertop discussion.  Allow me to clarify for you.  Here’s our list of requirements:

• Must look good
• Natural material
• Stain resistant
• Low maintenance
• Economical

Originally, we thought we’d end up with the same marble as our dining table.  You see, we know the horror stories of marble in an eating area.  Before we bought the slab for our table, we tested it out.  That’s right, we brought a small chunk home, poured red wine and grape juice on it, letting it sit overnight.  When we wiped the liquid off, the marble still looked perfect.  It passed our requirements with flying colors.  And it was pretty and a natural stone.  Because it was a mis-order, the granite company wouldn’t get any more in after selling out.

So, we moved on to granite.  Mostly because marble and granite are similar.  And granite has been very popular over the past 10 or 15 years.  Two problems, though.  The biggest one, we haven’t seen anything in stock that we would love enough to put in our kitchen.  Secondly, the pricing.  This really isn’t as much of a reason, but we don’t want to pay a few thousand dollars for something that we know off the bat we’re not in love with.  At least the look of.  And let’s face it.  If we don’t love the look of it, we’re still not going to consider it, despite all practicality.  Especially when we have other options.

Based strictly on looks, we quickly eliminated man-made countertops like Corian, Silestone, Cambria, etc.  This means concrete is off the countertop table, too.  Metal seems too industrial for our home.  Don’t get us wrong, each of these looks great in the right setting, just not our setting.  Which is why we’re going with wood.

When Ben tossed the wood counter idea out on Monday, I resisted.  Then he gave me more info, like the price and size of the slabs.  Now I’m listening.  He said it looks similar to the Brazilian Cherry in my office, which I love.

But, I was concerned how the grey cabinet paint color would look against the wood tone.  So, I went to the shop and they kindly cut me a sample to clean up and see what we think.  Happily, we love the colors together.

So, let’s talk specifically about the wood we’re interested in.  A local shop is getting two slabs, each three feet wide, eleven feet long, and two inches thick.  That’s one big tree; 66 square feet to be exact.  If you recall, we need about 34 square feet for the countertops, plus another 10 or so feet for the bar top.  (Our wall is 10 feet long and we’re thinking the bar will be one foot deep).  44 square feet total, so we should have 22 square feet extra.

They’re charging $18 per board foot, but this is twice as thick as a board foot, so it’s twice the price.  Or $36 per square foot.  Which happens to be 44 dollars per square foot cheaper than Absolute Black granite.  The 22 square feet of extra wood material also explains why the wood is only $244 cheaper than granite.  But, in the granite math, I didn’t include the ten square feet of material needed for the bar top.  Add another $800 and granite is nearly $1050 more than the wood.  And we’d have a seam, or several, somewhere.  We’ll also have enough wood left over to finish up some other projects, like adding new table tops to our living room end tables.

But back to the wood.  Ben can cut one foot off each slab to make cabinet depth counters.  And they’ll be in one solid piece, no seams.  That’s a plus.  And, Ben should be able to use the remaining pieces, i.e. the 1 foot wide by 11 foot long slab, as a single piece bar top.

All that to say, the wood should be in town on Thursday.  Barring any oddities, we’re going with wood counters.  And here is what the wood counters will look like when paired with the shiny marble tile back splash (that we have yet to purchase), the hardwood flooring, the cabinets, and stainless steel accents and appliances.

We’re super excited and can’t wait to see everything on Thursday.  Now that we’ve made a firm decision, what do you think?  (Be kind, please)

Oh, and last night, Ben mudded the sheet rock joints.

Two or so more coats to go, then sanding.  After that, we can rip out the cabinets and flooring to get started on installing the new stuff.  Yay!

From the very beginning, Ben and I had planned to use some sort of natural stone as kitchen counters.  When we bought the marble slab for our dining table, we thought we’d use the same marble for counters.  It’s beautiful and has held up really well.

The problem though, is the marble we fell in love with was a mis-order, not something routinely stocked.  So we can’t get it now.

With the beautiful marble eliminated, we turned to granite.  I have yet to see a light granite I love.  The only thing that comes close it Bianco Romano, so we figured we’d end up with something dark.  Ben liked Cosmic Black, I thought it was okay.

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The boys and I looked at granite on Tuesday, but didn’t see anything we fell in love with.  And they’re out of Cosmic Black.  I liked the look of soapstone, until I heard that you can easily scratch it with your fingernail.  I’m not big on a patina look, and the $105 per square foot price tag didn’t help.  Sadly, I learned our default granite, Absolute Black, costs 80 bucks a square foot.  Our kitchen, not especially huge, has 34 square feet of counter tops, excluding the bar top we plan to add.  Do the math.  80 times 34 equals $2720.  Ouch.  Soapstone would come to $3570.  No thanks.  Maybe granite isn’t in the cards.  But, this one is pretty.  And so is this one.

We didn’t even consider a different marble because Carrara isn’t practical for a kitchen.  Ben hates the look of concrete (he doesn’t like how modern and cold it looks) and doesn’t like Corian or Silestone.  We’re both opposed to a metal like stainless steel or copper.  We don’t want tile because we’re not going to clean tons of grout lines.  Formica is too cheap looking.  What does that leave us with?  Wood.  Specifically, Bubinga.  In huge slabs, not butcher block.  Here it has been used as a bathroom vanity top.

I haven’t seen the slabs yet, so that concerns me.  We haven’t completely committed, but we’re strongly considering.   And, just so you can see the thought process in my mind, here’s a pro and con list of each material:

Granite Pros:

• Durability
• Seen in many kitchens

Granite Cons:

• Price, running at least $50 per square foot, for anything we like at least.
• Availability, limited to the suppliers stock.
• Seen in many kitchens.  Is granite the Formica of the new century?

Marble Pros: 

• It’s preeeeeetttyy

Marble Cons: 

• Everything else, not durable or practical in a kitchen

Wood Pros:

• Used for hundreds of years.  Can look both modern and classic.
• If damaged, can be sanded to look new again.
• Price: For 2 inch thick slabs, the price for the raw cut wood is $2376.  It will cost another $100 to have a cabinet company sand it to 180 grit for a total of 2476 bucks for the entire kitchen.  Still $244  cheaper than Absolute granite, not including the bar top.

Wood Cons: 

• Can be damaged easily by knives
• We don’t have much wood in our house, other than our floors, so it could look out-of-place
• I haven’t seen the slabs yet.  This is a huge con for me right now.
• Ben has to DIY the counters.  If we had a fabricator do the work and they messed something up, we could hold them accountable to fix it.  Now Ben is liable.

Who has wood counters?  Love ’em or hate ’em?  Do you treat them as a large cutting board?  Anything we should know before taking the plunge?