Kitchen sink and countertops

[kookycats]

The other side of the counter is the family room, where we have a couch, 2 lounge chairs, our 51" TV. To the left of that we have small table where we eat almost all of our meals. The other side of the stove (over the wall) is the dining room with a beautiful table that we hardly ever use. I'll take a pic and post it.

 

[kookycats]

Stainless steel sink is now installed and looks great. He did a neat and clean job, and is a perfectionist. This guy also does granite, quartz, etc., but Paul and I were talking and we feel that for a job like that we would be better off having a professional company do the work. Since it's not a cheap job, I would prefer to have a company that specializes in that work do the job, considering guarantees, choice of product.etc. Do you agree?

 

[denice]

I don't know who would be doing the cutting but that is a very precise job.  I would want to make sure that the person doing the cutting stands by their work so you don't end up buying a second slab to get your counters done.

 

[mingking]

I've glanced briefly at the above posts so I apologize if I'm repeating myself.

My father is in the business of granite countertops installation and fabrication. I worked for a while as a sales so my knowledge is entirely just based off of him.

Most of the time, the counters are cut using a machine that reads the AUTOCAD plan. If it's hand cut, then that's a different story, depending on how skilled the person may be, you can probably get the same results. It's just the price of labour may be higher. 

You really have to choose a granite that isn't too powdery so the stone won't crack when they're cutting it. Most dark colours are guaranteed to be fine (except, one time we got this beautiful slab full of gold dust and it was VERY fine and soft - in comparison to other granites). The engineered stuff, like caesar stone, is very sturdy and definitely won't break (the problem with engineered stone is the resin might change colour with excessively heat - so you have to be careful with hot pots). 

My dad's company charges a little more, but the average per square foot was around $80-90 CAD. Special edges and back splashes costs extra. Islands costs more because you have to polish all four sides. Same with some breakfast bars. 

You could always try to find remnant pieces which is considerably cheaper since your kitchen looks quite small. The problem might be the L shaped counter - you might want to keep it one piece or make it two pieces. If you go with 2 pieces, depending on what material you choose, might showcase a seam line where they join them together.

 

[Winchester]

Stainless steel sink is now installed and looks great. He did a neat and clean job, and is a perfectionist. This guy also does granite, quartz, etc., but Paul and I were talking and we feel that for a job like that we would be better off having a professional company do the work. Since it's not a cheap job, I would prefer to have a company that specializes in that work do the job, considering guarantees, choice of product.etc. Do you agree?

Yes. We checked out Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Then we went to a local granite dealership; they have sample slabs outside and we walked around and looked at everything they had. I also took a door sample of the new kitchen cabinets we had chosen as well as paint chips, put the door up against the slabs that we looked at, and took pictures. Lana, I know I showed them to Lia and Anita when we were trying to figure out what we wanted and I may have posted the pictures here on TCS, but I'm not sure. I remember that Lia had just finished her kitchen right around the time we started ours.

You can chose the actual slabs that you want for your kitchen. Since your kitchen is small, you might get away with one slab, but Mingking is correct about those L-shaped pieces; they will get a little funky for you. I know we had to go with two slabs because there was a large "ribbon" of color in the slabs and I wanted to use that ribbon in each piece of counter top we used....we had three pieces, so it got a little weird. Mingking is also right about the edges and don't get a weird edge....edge work is expensive and if you get something weird, it costs more.....and those weird edges are more fragile and will chip easily. We ended up with a bullnose edge and I was more than satisfied. I know there's a certain way that granite "flows" and the piece at our sink flows differently than the others. The reason for that it because of that "ribbon" that I was talking about. I wanted the ribbon to flow left to right, not up and down. The granite guy asked me if I was sure and I was. He said nobody would even know that the flow was wrong....and nobody has ever said a word about it. (And if you choose somebody really reputable and they have to seam two pieces together, a good granite guy will do it so you'll hardly ever notice. Two of our pieces are seamed at our sink, and Lana, you'd never know, unless you looked really closely.)

Once you chose your slabs, they'll come in and measure your space. They'll draw up a template, take that template back to the shop and cut your granite to match. Bring the granite back, drop it on and fasten it. You can choose if you want your sink to be under-mounted or top mounted; I wanted it under-mounted, so that there were no sink edges for dirt to get trapped in. (Not only that, but the sink feels deeper that way, too. I love a deep sink.)

If you do chip your granite, a good company can come in and repair it. They don't do it for free and I don't know how much it costs, but they can do it.

It may be the same process for any kind of counter top you look it, whether it's Corian, quartz, marble, concrete, etc. I'm sure it is.

Above all, you need to look. No matter what you go with, you need to look, you need to do your research, and you need to ask questions. Counter tops are expensive, no matter what you go with. I think it's important because it's your kitchen and you're the one who's going to spend your time in there. It needs to be what you want. And it doesn't matter what we think; it matters what you think. Granite works for me because of what I do in the kitchen. It may not work for you at all. And you may look at slab after slab after slab and think, "Good lord, this is not what I want!" But look. At all of it. It's confusing. But you'll be fine.

There are times when I'm sitting at our kitchen table having my morning coffee and I look around and think, "God, I love this kitchen!" It's not a huge spacious kitchen, but when I think back to that dark, dingy kitchen that I used to have, this feels like heaven to me. 

(BTW, one of my co-workers was Googling Patagonia granite countertop images and he came across one of my pictures that I had posted here on TCS way back when! It was when we were talking about under-cab lighting, I think. Our pictures that we post here must go all over the place.)

This is where we got our counter tops. http://smggranite.com/ They're in central PA. They do beautiful work. We will go back to them IF and when I ever figure out what backsplash I want. And Rick wants them to do our bathroom.

 

[denice]

I have watched them cutting the slabs on those house flipping shows, both at the company where a machine is directing things and quick cuts done by hand at the job site.  Both ways they are running water over the blade and the slab.  Some of them are really slow going because of the nature of the material.  I have also seen slabs dropped and they have to start all over again.