 |
[source]
The $70 white laminate countertop in our kitchen is about shot and we're going to need a new one. I found this photo on one of those foreign "we'll remodel your kitchen for $380,000" websites and---given that you could buy four or five houses like ours for that much right now---I don't see much wisdom in investing in much more than a new laminate. But I dream about something like this beautiful kitchen. I would love to have a wooden/butcher block counter, but the wife is afraid it would stain or ding too easily. I don't really like granite or corian and I don't want to spend that much. Anyone have any good "alternative" countertop recommendations? I like the idea of fireslate but those bastards won't return my e-mails.
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
I'm weird, because I worked in a variety of restaurants in my dissolute youth and the experience warped me when it comes to cooking and what I want in a kitchen, and I have always dreamed of stainless steel counter tops. Easy to clean, impervious to heat, hard to damage. Add a massive gas range, a large griddle of the kind greasy spoon eateries have, a HUGE industrial dishwasher with racks that roll in and out on rollers and an overhead sprayer hanging above the stainless steel sink with a 1+ HP garbage disposal capable of chewing up a spoon without slowing down and I would be happy. :o)
ReplyDeleteWe have soapstone countertops that we got from the local University surplus store. They used to be lab tables. Soapstone can be worked with woodworking tools. We love it, but it probably always looks "dirty" to other people, because of the old stains and variation in the stone. I think our countertops were about $150 total.
ReplyDeleteQuartz is cheaper and apparently safer than granite (I've read that granite actually gives off radiation), but just as durable. It looks similar; you can get it in several different color schemes at places like Ikea. I think the main manufacturer is DuPont.
ReplyDeleteMy parents redid their kitchen this spring and decided on quartz, and it's great. (They also got a regular-looking faucet with an extending sprayer thing.)
That said: it seems that you really, really want stainless steel. I read an entry on ApartmentTherapy once from a guy who ordered his s.s. counters from a restaurant supply place for way less than a kitchen store would've charged. (Can't find the link now, of course.)
p.s.
ReplyDeleteSorry Jim G., I thought you were the commenting Jim there for a moment.
Here is a little info on paper countertops from Inhabitat (if you haven't seen it already):
http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/10/01/paperboard/
I've seen and felt Paperstone, but not Richlite's EcoTop. Here is Richlite's website:
http://www.richlite.com/countertop/
and Kliptech's:
http://www.kliptech.com/ecotop-surfaces/index.shtml
Concrete.. cured in any color and variation you might dig. you can even add, almost as if unearthing; fossils, seashells, seaglass or any other silly material object you might fancy.
ReplyDelete