Let's talk about counter tops and sinks.

[DisneyPhD]

We had Swanstone in our previous house... a Corian look alike, but you can pour boiling water into the sink and it won't crack like Corian; plus it was less expsensive. I loved it!
Now we have dark granite in our new home... it shows every little crumb and piece of dust. It's beautiful, but high maintence. And it drives an OCD person like myself nuts constantly wiping off crumbs!
Wish I had the Swanstone again... it hid crumbs and was super easy to clean.
www.swanstone.com

That sounds a lot like the siltstone that we ended up going with. I can not wait to see it in person. Now if we can just get these cabinets in!

 

[PlutoLuvr]

I've been wondering how your kitchen's been going!

So the cabinets have arrived! Whooo-hooo!

We've had all the fridge/freezer combos, and our favorite has been the freezer drawer on the bottom (with more drawers inside that roll plus the big bins) and the fridge on the top with one big door. The side by sides just weren't good for our needs. It felt like a lot of wasted space. Plus, I could never get my cookie sheets in the fridge or the freezer!

Also, we go into our fridge A LOT more than we go into the freezer, even without the ice cubes available on the door. That was a big deciding factor for me. Do I want to bend and squat for the fridge or the freezer? I go into my freezer two to six times per day; I go into my fridge dozens.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

And I'm eagerly awaiting the hardware discussion

 

[shelly3girls]

I did not realize that they have bottom freezers with in the door water. Does yours have 2 doors on the top? Does it only have water? Not ice?

I don't think I want a counter size one, but the one we have now is 30 inches deep with the doors on it. It has a 31 inch width. That is what is really giving us problems. It is only about 6 years old and is fine shape. Nothing fancy, but does the job.

We will have to do some shopping around and see what we can find.

Ours has two doors on top. There is a water / ice dispenser on the left door. We have the Maytag which is pretty expensive. There are significantly less expensive models that only dispense water on the door. Personally we do not use the ice much. The water is ice cold coming out of the dispenser and we are big water drinkers. The only time we use the ice is for a warm soda which is quite rare. We now realize we could have gone with a cheaper model that just dispensed water and been just as happy.

We chose quartz for our butler's pantry and love it! I love the beauty of granite but I stress over oil stains.