Super Fitness Health BlogThings to know before choosing a countertop
Going through the many types of replacement counter tops shouldn’t make your tear your hair out, but you’re going to want to make sure you know about all of your choices. There’s lots of things to ask before buying a new countertop.
Laminate has to be the market leader out there. A tiny layer of sandwiched plastic/paper that’s been compacted under tremendous pressure, and then bonded to a structure of particleboard. Most people have had at least one. They come in any color, they’re affordable, relatively durable, and they work!
Corian type has been around for 30 years, and is still a very popular choice. There’s now so many different brands out there, it boggles the mind. It’s a large step up from laminate, and the built in sink is a large draw to many people.
Engineered stone/quartz: There’s a large number of firms that will manufacture a granite-like product for you. The machinery to manufacture the engineered stone is usually licensed to one company per country. You can get slabs from Italy, Spain, China, Korean, Israel, USA, and Canada quite readily. It usually prices out like a level 3 or level 4 natural stone, but you can have plenty of color choices within the same price range. Most stone professionals will be happy to cut the color of your choice.
Natural stone: Usually referred to as “Granite Countertops”. The polished granite are currently imported in mass from Italy, India, China, Brazil, Canada, & and a few varieties from the USA. There are thousands of varieties available, and each block or batch can be different than the one that came from 20 yards away in the same mine. With careful planning, one can make appointments to visit 3 import slab yards in a day to find the perfect mix of colors, depth, swirling, graining, texture, and randomness that can has yet to be matched by solid surface, laminate, or engineered stone.
Some consumers can select the variety of stone in one day, others may take a long time. It’s common to discover that you’ve have several likely contenders, and making the final selection can get difficult. Picking the stone cutter is actually more critical than picking the stone. You’d have to go out of your way to pick a “bad” granite, but thousands of homeowners have picked a “bad” fabricator. Ask the fabricator how long they’ve been in business. Have them describe why their tooling provides the something you would want to buy. What are the names and experiences of the templater, sawyer, polisher, installers? Do they have samples of their work in a showroom to look at. Many of the top fabricators belong to industry trade groups like the Marble Institute of America (MIA), or to the Stone Fabricators Alliance (SFA). Many shops like Granite Oceanside, Granite South Jersey, and Granite NC turn out consistently high quality work because of the experiences and knowledge that are shared within these organized fabricator communities.
Buying a new kitchen doesn’t have to be a chore, and if current kitchen is ready to go, we hope to see you in out on the road!
Comments are currently closed.