Budget kitchen countertop question

[punkin]

On the design shows, they are always getting granite sections for cheaper than buying a slab. If your countertop isn't 1 long section, you might be able to go to the remnant section and find enough matching pieces to do your kitchen. They sell smaller pieces for less money per linear foot than slabs.

We have quartz, but only because I was able to stack 2 big discounts on top of each other when a new Home Depot opened locally.

Actually, I think I have four 3 ft sections. They are separated by the sink on one side and the stove on the other. Where can you find remnants, because that actually sounds doable. I do not have a strong color preference. I would prefer quality and longevity over style.

 

[Silent1CB]

Actually, I think I have four 3 ft sections. They are separated by the sink on one side and the stove on the other. Where can you find remnants, because that actually sounds doable. I do not have a strong color preference. I would prefer quality and longevity over style.

Go to the stone yards that sell granite & ask to see their remnants. Sometimes, its a slab that fell & broke, but if you can get all your pieces out of it, really, what do you care. Right? Ideally, if they dropped a whole pallet, you would be golden. LOL

 

[MrsPete]

I love granite countertops, but we looked at the comps in our price range and nobody had granite so it wouldn't have been a wise investment. HGTV makes it looks like every house out there has granite, but that is not the case! We're doing a modest kitchen makeover that will give the feel of a new kitchen. I think that's going to give us the biggest bang for our buck.

This is such an important detail! No one ever said that the homes on HGTV were representative of what most of us have, and you have to consider your price point and your market -- otherwise, you may make a costly mistake!

My house is thoroughly middle-class in a nice, established neighborhood. I will probably live here another 2-3 years, but our needs are changing, and I expect we'll move in the fairly near future. My kitchen isn't bad right now, but to help the house move faster, I will need to do some kitchen sprucing-up. If I put in expensive granite or quartz, I'll never get that money back out of the house. It would be over-the-top for this house.

On the other hand, when we retire we intend to build a small but nice house on some family land that we own. That'll be our "forever house", and I won't pay any attention to resale. I expect to live in that house -- which we're already planning -- 'til the day I die, and I will leave it to my children. In that house I probably will splurge on either granite or quartz because I do like the look, and I would love not to worry about hot pots.

 

[punkin]

This is such an important detail! No one ever said that the homes on HGTV were representative of what most of us have, and you have to consider your price point and your market -- otherwise, you may make a costly mistake!

My house is thoroughly middle-class in a nice, established neighborhood. I will probably live here another 2-3 years, but our needs are changing, and I expect we'll move in the fairly near future. My kitchen isn't bad right now, but to help the house move faster, I will need to do some kitchen sprucing-up. If I put in expensive granite or quartz, I'll never get that money back out of the house. It would be over-the-top for this house.

On the other hand, when we retire we intend to build a small but nice house on some family land that we own. That'll be our "forever house", and I won't pay any attention to resale. I expect to live in that house -- which we're already planning -- 'til the day I die, and I will leave it to my children. In that house I probably will splurge on either granite or quartz because I do like the look, and I would love not to worry about hot pots.

Like I wrote above, my house is very low end in an extremely high end neighborhood. There is literally almost nothing I could do to the house that would price it out of my neighborhood. Around here, granite is the norm. I just don't want to spend $7500 for it.

I also do not consider this a forever house (I don't see any house that way) but we will be here for another 6 years at least (until DD11 graduates HS-that's why we bought in this neighborhood). After 6 years we will probably sell and a granite countertop in good shape will help (assuming I can get it done cheaply).

 

[jrmasm]

If you live in a high end neighborhood, granite tile won't cut it for resale.

Are you looking to do something for now and then replace when you plan to sell or just now?

 

[punkin]

If you live in a high end neighborhood, granite tile won't cut it for resale.

Are you looking to do something for now and then replace when you plan to sell or just now?

I don't know. I absolutely need something now because my formica is in lousy shape, but I really don't want to have to redo it when I sell. I am afraid that if I do another laminate, I will have to do just that because it will not stand up...hard to plan what's going to happen in 6-7 years.

Do you really think granite tile wont work? It looks really nice in the pictures posted.

 

[EMom]

I was beyond picky about my granite selection. I stalked granite yards for months and even then, had to look at every single slab so that I could have the "flow" I wanted because with the granite I selected, no two slabs look the same.

However.......If you are not picky about getting the most perfect granite in the world ever , then you really ought to visit a granite yard and tell them that you are trying to put in granite for eventual resale and you want to do it on a budget. They can often (as others have said) find smaller sections of granite/remnants as opposed to the big slabs, and that saves you a TON of money. They are thrilled to get rid of the remnants. This works especially well if you pick a granite without a lot of flow......pick one that tends to be more uniform and consistent and you'll never notice where the two pieces are connected.

We had to use two slabs to do my kitchen (four actually....they messed up the first installation and had to redo the kitchen ) and there was a lot of granite left over. If I hadn't been so ready to be rid of that fabricator, I'd have had them make the remnants into bathroom countertops for me.

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

It must depend on the part of the country you are in, in our town upscale counter tops are a must ie granite, quartz, marble, stone or concrete.

We do most of the work ourselves (husband and I) and have found that sometimes the high end stuff works out cheaper than the low end stuff.

Example when we bought our home 12 years ago the lino in the kitchen was done for, we priced new and install (that is something we would not tackle) and went with tile we got a great deal found close out tiles we liked and it cost about 1/4 of what lino would have been.

Shop around especially Salvage, discount places and like others have said the stone shops for offcuts, remnants

 

[daughtersrus]

My husband just became a granicrete installer. It's a cement overlay option made to look like granite for less cost. Basically you can pick any color you'd like. I don't have any costs, as he hasn't done one for anyone else yet. He's working on our bathroom right now.

You could check out www.granicrete.com to see if you can find info near you.

I went to the website and it looks very interesting. Can you give us an ideas as to the cost of this? I have one long counter by my sink that is about 10ft, 2 small one by the stove that are each about 1 1/2 ft and one that is about 4ft. I also have an island but I'm thinking of doing something different with it.

Thanks!

 

[puffkin]

Quick question....if you go to a granite supplier and get remnants or slabs cheaply there....do they usually offer installation too? We are considering doing our counters in a year or so and this seems to be the way to go!

 

[wmharley]

We also have Wilsonart that gets mistaken for granite. One day we will put in granite, but for now the laminate will do. When we started looking we found that Corian was actually about $10/sq ft more than granite.

My boss got granite since he priced out Corian and Granite and got Granite at a better deal than Corian too..

I went to the website and it looks very interesting. Can you give us an ideas as to the cost of this? I have one long counter by my sink that is about 10ft, 2 small one by the stove that are each about 1 1/2 ft and one that is about 4ft. I also have an island but I'm thinking of doing something different with it.

Thanks!

look at post #9.
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=34380308&postcount=9

there are other companies.. Our weekkly mail coupon paks usually have ads and coupons for local installs of this.

 

[Stitch And Friends]

A few people posted that they love Corian, but I hate ours, so much that we are replacing it in a couple of weeks with granite. Corian scratches very easily and the scratches show more on darker colors (ours is black with speckles of beige shades). If granite is out of your price range I would say go with the Wilsonart before Corian. I liked a lot of their designs and thought they looked very nice. We only went with granite for future resale...it's considered a "must" in our area, so I was afraid it would hurt us later if we didn't go with that (we plan to be in our house for 5 more years).

 

[SpecialK]

We chose Corian, which we bought through Costco, saved 20% over other retailers, and got 2% cash back. I wanted light colored countertops (we replaced black formica) but I'm not a fan of light colored granite. I love the Corian because you cannot see the seams. The only drawback for me is you can't put a hot pan on it like you can on granite. Can you put a hot pan on the tiles or will it hurt the grout?

Another option is Silestone, which our neighbor used. She said she can cut right on it and can put hot pans on it, but it costs less than granite and does not have to be re-sealed.

The Silestone cost depends on your market. I had Silestone installed last year and it cost more than granite. My BIL, who is a kitchen designer, said the marketplace has been so overwhelmed with granite suppliers that the cost has come down.

 

[kaysmommie]

We bought a brand new house (was the model in our neighborhood) that was already complete. So the builder installed cheaper countertops which they do look okay. But we decided to upgrade to something more durable and prettier. We priced out from several places on Granite, Quartz, (Cambria) and Corian. All three were very close in price so we just choose the one we liked best. We went with Quartz since I think it looks nicer than Granite and doesn't have to be resealed. Also the radon gas and bacteria thing scares me with granite. Our neighbors have Corian and it's all scratched up already. Our new counters are being installed this week.

 

[tlbwriter]

I don't know. I absolutely need something now because my formica is in lousy shape, but I really don't want to have to redo it when I sell. I am afraid that if I do another laminate, I will have to do just that because it will not stand up...hard to plan what's going to happen in 6-7 years.

Do you really think granite tile wont work? It looks really nice in the pictures posted.

Since you're a non-upscale house in an upscale neighborhood, I think you probably don't have to worry about resale value. If the kitchen was the only issue, it would be a problem, but if the rest of your house matches the kitchen, you're simply one of the least expensive houses in a nice neighborhood, and that can be a great selling point!

 

[kirstenb1]

How well does the Wilsonart wear? How soon will I have to change it? I want it to look good for at least 10 years, hopefully 20.

We've been our home 13 yrs. Our Wilsonart laminate has zero scratches, nicks anything. It still looks great!

 

[Bearvet]

We are having granite countertops installed tomorrow!!! We have CHEAP laminate that is peeling and bubbling, so I've wanted to have it replaced for years. I have a part-time job so have set all my earnings aside to pay for this.

We went to Home Depot and were surprised that granite was less expensive than quartz! The guy was helpful and suggested we come back Sept. 30 for their special, which we did. They offered a free color upgrade, free decorative edge and free kitchen sink. We have a large kitchen with lots of counter space and were pleasantly surprised with the final price.

We viewed the slabs on Sat, which I highly recommend doing. Our color is "gold" (for lack of a better description) and there's a LOT of variation in the slabs. Some had huge black areas which apparently some people like, but it didn't appeal to us. I'm so excited that we're finally getting this done!

 

[windycitymom]

Have you considered painting your countertops? Check out http://gianigranite.com The kit is only $50. If you don't like it, you can always replace it and you are out only a little bit of money for trying. However, I found a friend who used this paint and her countertops look freaking amazing! I plan to try it within the next six months or so. My 20 yr. old home is a custom-built home with lots of wood, but my money needs to be going to college at this point, not expensive kitchen upgrades so I'm looking at some DYI projects. I'm also looking into installing some wood flooring from either Sam's Club or Costco (I didn't get wood flooring when we built our home because I had little kids at the time and was afraid of scratches, etc.)

 

[Green Tea]

I have never seen tile countertops around here. Does the grout get dirty quickly and does it trap bacteria? I need to check this out as a possibility. My kitchen is a small galley, so we are talking maybe 10-12 linear feet.

I have tiled directly over Fomica a number of times. NEVER had a problem. It is cheap. Get the grout with the silicone in it already, no sealing required. Grape juice, hot pans, grease....nothing fazes it. I wish I had granite.....but I don't.

 

[Shleedogg]

I think that makes the most sense, of course. I'm just trying to get an idea of what's out there. For example, I've never actually seen granite tiles in a kitchen so that's a new one.

We're planning on doing granite tiles in our kitchen when we finally re-do it. A friend of DH's runs The Tile Shop about 45 min away from us. We went in to shop for marble tile for our bathroom. They had a ton of kitchen displays set up w/ granite tile. Some of those kitchen displays were beautiful and it was really hard to see that there were any grout lines at all. Their prices are more economical than Home Depot or Lowe's, and they have edge pieces. I would recommend finding the largest size tile you can, 18x18 I think is the biggest I've seen. The bigger the tile, the less grout lines you'll have. It's actually not that hard to lay tile, you just need to make sure you check for square and level frequently. Wish my BIL had known that when he helped DH install our bathroom floor.

We were looking at HD for counter options and found that even quartz and Corian were in the same price range as the cheap granite slab options that they offer. Really, other than laminate, I think tile is the only other option that is economical. We have one of the laminates from HD installed by previous owners in our kitchen and it's terrible quality.