So I'm in the process of remodeling my kitchen. It is a slow process at the moment. I've had half a kitchen for over a month now, and will probably not finish till this fall. Anyways.. I need some countertop suggestions. Me and the wife do not like typical, and we do not like boring design in our house. Every granite, quartz, or soapstone we have seen has been just that, typically boring. Has anybody done concrete countertops? I love the how customizable they are, and if you can do them yourself, the price. But I do not want my countertops to look like crap. I want them to look nice and shiny. How easy (or hard) are concrete tops to make? We the look of some of the recycled glass, but that gets a bit pricey for the more high end stuff. We even have found a few granites we liked, but they were all the high end stuff as well. Any other type of countertops out there that I'm missing?
I don't have any real suggestions but, when we were at the same stage as you, my wife and I didn't see anything that we liked, and would be happy with for years, until we looked at high end granite. I forget the ratings now but I thought everything we looked at until we got to the top rated granite looked plain or ugly. We spent the money on the counter tops and cut money on the cabinets. We were going to see the counter tops every day but the inside of the cabinets would rarely be seen. Spend the money on counter tops that you will like to look at every day, you will be glad you did.
I've seen a few concrete counter tops, they usually look pretty cool, especially if you embed glass in them. No idea on how well they keep or how hard/easy it is to set them up, but I've seen them do one on a building show once. I think you'd probably seal/coat them with something so it wasn't so coarse. I know they have concretes of different coarseness, but I'm not sure how smooth you can go.
Well, I did buy a pair of "dark berry" shorts from J Crew this weekend. Now why are you on the computer, and not in the kitchen making the men sandwiches? A real woman would know her place.
My man went to work already. I did make vension roast and sliced it for sandwiches. Now I will marinate some chicken for grilling later. (chicken teriyaki) Have some fresh peapods, beans, cukes and zucchini from the garden too. Going to make fresh cucumber salad (the vinegar and onion stuff). Other stuff will be stir-fried together. Ya'll are welcome to stop by for vittles. Gotta warn you tho', it's already 87 degrees in the house and rising. Should hit 90 by 3pm. ...and as I sit here and type this in the living room.. I'm not even sure of the color of my counter top. Greyish maybe?? I must wipe it down at least a half dozen times a day and I never pay attention to it. :D
You don't turn your A/C on? My delicate skin requires my house to remain at 73 at all times. And just FYI, I've designed the entire kitchen. My wife's only input towards the countertops has been "I want it to be shiny".
Amen. Mine is set on 72 right now. It's 94 outside. Did some stuff this morning, then some grocery shopping, then a ride on the 4 wheeler. Now I'm sipping a gin and tonic and staying cool. Counter tops? You're much to picky if you think all granite and soapstones and all that are boring. Concrete??? Nah, can't see it. Of course.... I've never seen one I don't think. How about making your own with imbedded stuff with some acrylic or something. LOL Of course a knife would cut it to shreads. Just buy a nice granite or soap and be done with it. You're way to picky. LOL Stay cool.
We went with granite in Persian Brown from Brazil. It is amazing. Has colors ranging from black to white in it and shows a lot of "movement" in the forms of veins of color swirling through it. We were afraid we might get tired of it, but we still like it just as well as we did the day we had it installed. Not something you want to replace. We looked at hundreds of slabs of granite at different times and when we saw the slabs we used, we both liked it immediately. Good luck.
If I were to redo my granite I would go with this http://cgi.ebay.com/Desert-Dream-Gr...855?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3363fadc37
