So Many Decisions: Countertops

Countertops. Something I never once thought about, they are suddenly all I think about. Should I choose Caesarstone? Silestone? Quartz? These man-made materials look like stone, and come in a wide variety of colors & sizes...

But they're not, ultimately, stone. And anyway - I don't even like stone! I have never once thought, gee, I love granite countertops. Never once.

Nik likes Paperstone... which is very eco-friendly (it's made from recycled paper!). Our friends at Projectgreenhome.org have it in their eco-friendly kitchen. But it only comes in some icky colors, like cold gray and bright blue.

I found some pictures of stainless steel counters, which I really liked -- but they remind Nik of work. (He's a scientist. And he says he doesn't want his home to feel like the lab.)

So, I asked our architect friend Wade -- a man with impeccable taste -- what would he recommend? Wade suggested something called Quartzite -- an actual stone, but harder than marble, and, he reported, 'just gorgeous. But you have to pick out the slab you want.' Where would I do that? A search for 'quartzite stone' pulled up All Natural Stone and Tile -- a showroom located, improbably, within a bike ride of our house. So I pedaled over to find an enormous warehouse stocked with more stone... and tile... than I've ever seen anywhere. Who knew.

All Natural Stone... an unbelievable assortment of countertop options!

At first, I fell in love with marble. (I've since learned that this is an entirely predictable newbie thing to do.) I then learned, as it seems every newbie eventually learns, that marble is NOT good in kitchens. It stains, it scratches, and it just doesn't hold up to daily wear & tear. But man, is it ever pretty.

All Natural Stone & Tile also carries tile... lots and lots and lots of tile. This is just one part of their showroom:

It's pretty overwhelming. But I worked with the most gracious and patient saleswoman ever, a young woman named Autumn. Here she is, in the secret back samples room, pulling out marble samples for me to play with at home. (Autumn even told me she thought it would be ok to put in a marble countertop. That's how nice she was.)

We came up with four (4!) different combinations...

Trying out various combinations of countertop, floor, and tile backsplash.

This was my favorite, which Autumn dubbed the 'French cafe' option:

Marble countertop with wood butcher block, black and white tile floor, and yellow tile backsplash.

But the French Cafe was pretty pricey. In the end, after many trips to All Natural, we decided to go with soapstone countertops, and a wood floor.

Soapstone is at the opposite end of the hardness scale from Quartzite -- you can literally scratch it with a fingernail! -- but it's so dense, it doesn't matter. It's kind of magic that way. Plus, it's ubiquitous: they mine it in Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and southern Oregon (as well as many other far-flung places, like Afghanistan), so it's a fairly eco-friendly option. Plus it's just really pretty:

I brought in some dishes from home, to make sure they would look ok together.

So now, the next decision is... what kind of wood floor? And what kind of butcher block? Which means finding yet another vendor, and making even more decisions...