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Choosing counter top to go with cherry cabinets

14 years ago

I have chosen shenandoah brekenridge cherry spice cabinets and I am having so much trouble choosing a counter top. I am considering making one with carrara marble tile. Any thoughts? I just do not think I can spend thousands on a solid surface. I have stainless appliances and would love a stainless counter top but that seems to be too pricy too. Any ideas?

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pinch_me
14 years ago
I'm in the same predicament. I've chosen Huxley in Oak with the Auburn finish. I spent far too much time yesterday looking at counter tops that I can't afford. The counters I saw made from tiles had noticeable seams. I suppose that depends on the installer but I didn't like them.

After looking at Corinthian Solid Surface Pyrenees series Tundra, I think I could be happy with that but for the amount I need, I probably will have to make a different choice. There are several I would take and if money were no object I'd have exactly what I want but since that isn't going to happen.........I'll have to pick something. The samples are so little it's impossible to see what it will really look like. My other thought was to get Formica with the beveled edge and upgrade in a couple of years. I will have a farm sink so that also creates its own problems but I've seen them installed above the counter height and I saw a display yesterday with Formica inside the sink hole. I can't wait for the new sink and cabinets many more years so I have decided to get as much of my dream kitchen as I can now and upgrade if I am still alive. It's so much fun choosing everything until I start adding it all up. Everything starts at $500!
parsuzi
14 years ago
We had formica (or other brand) laminate with a beveled edge in another house. We chose one that loosely resembled a granite and people actually were fooled until they got close and really looked. That wasn't my intent - I just liked the look of it. This is very similar to the laminate in the last kitchen. We used it w/ maple cabs stained w/ a cherry stain (med cherry). http://samples.wilsonart.com/p-225-blackstar-granite-4551-1.aspx

We're in the same predicament right now- we have medium cherry cabs which will be (I hope) installed next week and I still haven't settled on a counter.

We love the zodiaq (anyone who's read my previous posts knows that)but the bids are coming in a little high. So DH is pushing for laminate again. I would consider granite, but GC likes quartz better - more predictable, I think he said. I'm guessing he had a bad experience w/ granite at some point.

I want a lighter counter this time - cloud white zodiaq - but not sure what to do.
HTH
Suzanne
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If you have trouble visualizing what you'd like but "know it when you see it", then at this stage you should probably just look at as many stainless / dark cherry kitchens as you can and see which countertops and flooring "grab" you. In my case I knew I wanted simple, natural cherry cabinets and stainless appliances and probably a wood floor, but that was it. Looking at lots of pictures helped me narrow things down, so now I can at least have intelligent conversations with kitchen designers. I'd suggest going over to houzz.com and entering "stainless steel dark cherry kitchen" into their search box and looking through some of the hundreds of results you get. It's a great source of ideas. After you see some you like, you can probably come up with more words to add to the search box to narrow things down. You can also go to google and enter "site:gardenweb.com dark cherry stainless" and you'll find lots of threads on this site too. I don't know of a way to limit it to threads with photos, unfortunately. Laura
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rmancuso - I just finally got samples of a bunch of quartz and brought it home with the ikea door to see in my apartment. Glad I did - I took the london grey, along with some of the recommendations above and some other randoms. I ended up liking the london grey the best! It doesn't look the same in an ikea showroom as in your home. Also I find the quartz was more grey/beige tone then bright white as it appeared at ikea. On a side note - I like the picture of Jillian Harris's kitchen on the ikea website - there is no where that lists what her counters are. I emailed ikea and they let me know all of the details and they were london grey. http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/SEKTION-kitchen/sektion_inspiration.html?page=2 My biggest recommendation to you is to buy a door at ikes (you can return it) and take out samples of quartz home in your kitchen. Helped a ton!
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Every choice has pluses and minuses, in the end you have to choose which plus and which minus matters the most to you and/or which have an easy fix (like using a cutting board under the crockpot; at work we have an extra piece under the big coffeemaker). budget mattered a lot to me (and I hated formica) so, I ended up with a lesser expensive granite and am very happy, no sealing or extra work for the stone I chose. I had formica previously which looked like h#*! from the day I moved in and didn't get better (except that I could use bleach to remove stains) so those of you whose formica looks like new after 30 years must be taking appropriate care -- using cutting boards (mine had little cuts all over) and so forth -- where my previous owners did not. But, I read that formica now is much better quality than what was installed 30 or 40 years ago. I looked at Burled Beach and liked it. It looked a warm sand-ish color on my samples in my house, but I saw a demo kitchen of it at a big box store and it was a warm greenish tone (I still liked it) under their fluorescent lights. You always have to ability to STOP and make changes unless the cabinets are all already made. If he is just now starting it might not be too late -- call him now! PS do you have an IKEA near to you? Most counter materials are less expensive there.
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Egan-I would reduce island length by around 12”. I would eliminate pony walls on ends and use decorative cabinet end panels and reduce 18” cabinet on far end to 12” cabinet. Make sure your cabinets are designed with proper metal support plates for slab. 12-13” overlay for stools is tight. I would expand to 16”. Most slabs can accommodate that total width. 36” deep plus 4” more would mean slab has to be 40-44” wide and 108-112” long. That is doable for most slabs without seams.
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