If you want your kitchen counters to look as good in 1 year as they did at install, I advise against using marble. We used marble in our bathroom remodel, and it is lovely, but it is no match for a working kitchen, unless you have a high tolerance for imperfections. We baby our bathroom counters, but they still have etching from soap and toothpaste and light scratching from trays being pushed around. It just happens and I actually like the patina they are developing. That said, my kitchen counters would have red sauce stains and who knows what else from day to day use-that would bother me, so went with granite.

Give yourself some time and shop the stone yards if you can. You might be surprised what you find that you can afford.

My parents had antique marble they found in a sales ad in the paper when we remodeled the house I was growing up in. It had originally been installed at a soda fountain at the turn of the century. Yes we were careful about acids and not cutting on it but it handled two teenage kids while we were there. My parents have since had to sell the house, but I got a chance
To go visit it while we were planning our remodel and the counters still look great, another young family and another set of owners later. I'd go with what you love.

sparklebread- thanks for the marble feedback. i think i know in my gut that we are not a marble friendly house but i have never know anyone who actually had it so i am going by here say. yes tomato sauce would be an issue here too.
we went to a local stone fabricator and their selections were great but the prices were even higher than my kitchen cab place or HD. we are trying another place on saturday. we live in a pricey area ie the granite place we were just at is charging $69 sq ft plus $250 sink cutout plus you buy the sink for uba tuba, tan brown, etc. i know those are level 1 granites. of course hd or lowes are much cheaper but that route scares me on another level! another granite place has their standard slabs at $84 sq ft. i can't imagine what is "standard" but i seem to consistently love the pricey ones. of course i blame all the gorgeous kitchens on GW for that:)

katylou- wow, so it came from a soda shop? that is so cool and brings me back to thinking my house could handle it. we don't cut on counters and i can't imagine we could be any harder on it than a soda shop! thanks:)

I would advise taking a broader sampling before doing anything else. I priced big box against specialty counter and tile stores and the big box wasn't the least expensive. I ended up with quotes from eight places. You only save money at the big box stores if you pick one of the three or four popular colors that they sell in great quantities and can routinely put out at bargain prices. There was an $800 swing from my highest price to the lowest (and before anyone rails against picking the lowest priced place) - they have a good reputation and were recommended - so look broadly to start.

Also, run prices in an alternate material. We were a bit sticker shocked by quartz when we got the first quotes in, so I said that if need be I'd be able to use Corian. I picked the color that would work and ran the prices. Not the savings I expected and definitely not enough to compromise what I really wanted.

There is no reason not to do laminate if you like it better then available granite. You could put in granite and then some buyer in future years will not like it and rip it out.

zaphod42- not to be a nay sayer but for whatever reason here the box stores sell all their granites for much less than i have seen so far. i am hoping you are right and i will find someplace in my price range. the place i got cabs from is only reasonable on the level 1&2 granites; bianco antico priced out at $101 per sq ft which is even a little higher than cambria. it is very depressing!
i will keep looking and hope for the best!

I suggest you slow down and take a breath.

Wilsonart does some really gorgeous laminates.
Stone is lovely, but you're really going to pay for it.

I suggest looking at the look and deciding which speaks to you. Try to make the material secondary, perhaps?

Have you asked anyone to price match?

Yes it was used for many years as a soda fountain before we found it. Think about all the marble in government office buildings that has held up over the decades. It was so cool to know the history of the stone too.

As others say, shop around. The big box stores and Costco around here appear to be in the middle of the pack price-wise. But, there are many independent shops and independent slabyards that are more price competitive -- but buyer beware, as there may also be minimally qualified or low quality fabricators in the mix. My most expensive quote came from an all-in-one kitchen/design shop. The least expensive, but still recommended fabricator, was a referral from my KD. The difference was about 40%.

Beside laminate and Corian, also take a look at prefab, if your layout is amenable.

"If my 15 year old formica isn't scratched or stained, does that mean i could be a candidate for marble?"

No. Formica is much more durable than marble.

"Does anyone have feedback on the formica fx calacutta marble? does white formica stain?"

No. Well, probably not unless you try really, really hard.

trebruchet - thanks for clarifying. i was really hoping that my formicas good condition meant marble could be an option because it is so classic and beautiful. if formica is hard to stain then realistically i could do the mock marble. my dh is dead set against formica though so that may not be a battle i will win
cefreeman- you are right of course about taking a breath. i have a hard time remembering to do just that! i will keep looking and hope something really speaks to me

debrak2008- your granite is awesome if i am thinking of the right kitchen(shenendoah cherry cabs.) do you mind me asking again (serious memory loss) what it is, where you bought it and what level it was considered?

Thanks ardcp. We do have cherry Shenandoah cabinets from Lowes and are happy with them. Our granite is called white diamond but it is a twin for bianco antico. Granite here in WNY is priced by the SF, as you don't buy the slab. We have about 55 SF and the bill was $3995???? Something just under 4k. We got the granite at Buffalo Granite and Marble in Tonawanda NY.

I priced laminate and granite at HD/Lowes and found them to be pricy because of extra charges.

We considered lots of options for our kitchen counters. Granite tiles, granite slab, porcelain tile, laminate, corian, and quartz. After putting in a remnant granite slab in our bathroom, DH was hooked on a granite slab instead of tiles. I went to eight different granite places to get estimates. Big price range and Big difference in customer service for the same granites.

Get lots of big samples and test them. Get lots of prices noting extra charges.

Let me know if I can help any more!

I had laminate counters in my kitchen for 24 years, and it didn't show signs of wear at all. It was butt-ugly, but wore like iron! This was a spec house, so definitely not top-of-the-line anything. It did stain (blueberries!), but scrubbed right out with Comet, without damaging the counter.

We were planning to put laminate in our kitchen remodel, until we fell head over heels in love with a Cambria pattern. I tried and tried to find a laminate I liked even half as much, to no avail. The quartz was our big splurge, and after 6 months, I do not regret it for a second.

Keep looking - better to live without counters for a few months than settle for something that doesn't make you happy. And don't worry about what you "should" do, or what some potential buyer might like - if laminate makes you happy, so be it.

ardcp:

You're comfortable at $66.00 psf. Let's assume you've got a 60SF countertop. If you budget another $20.00 psf, you'd be in a much better selection range and only spending another $1,200.00.

There are two things you are going to look at when you get up in the morning, your countertops and your checkbook. Twelve hundred bucks is going to come and go out of the checkbook, but the countertops are going to stay exactly the same. I've heard of people wishing they had the countertop they wanted and not have the twelve hundred bucks, but I don't think I've ever heard the inverse.

trebruchet- you are close, it is 50 sq ft and my daughter is basically saying the smae thing you are. as you know, every little over run adds up to a number that makes you want to cry! i will keep what you have said in mind though and maybe i can find a granite i like that is a happy medium