If you love soapstone, you might want to consider Nordic Black Antique granite. Check out Jen4268's kitchen and susanandmarkw in the FKB. Both of them used it.

On this forum I keep reading about Jet Mist granite as a substitute for soapstone. Sorry, I don't remember who was using it, but there was a really recent thread that had a couple pictures of Jet Mist slabs.

I wasn't able to view teh Nordic Black Antique... I'll keep looking.

The jet mist is beautiful.

I do read a lot that dark is hard to keep clean, it shows everything, etc. Thoughts on this?

Here's the link for Jen4268's Nordic Black antique countertops with offwhite cabs:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg031952505736.html

Here's the link for susan's:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingReg.jsp?Uc=15fw93di.bkbbh7dq&Uy=-nmgvrc&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0amp;UV=716765392866_702442064406

I've ordered white cabinets and got Sapphire Blue granite. It's black/grey brown/beige and blue/grey color. It's not expensive like some of the more exotic stones. I have another kitchen with OW cabinets and I got Crema Bordeaux there. that was an expensive stone though very pretty with veins of red/rust green/grey and beige crystals. There are so many pretty stones that aren't expensive that this time I went with a less expensive one.

the link below has tons of photos of stones.

Here is a link that might be useful: Marva Marble/Granite

Hi Buddyrose,
Your DH sounds like mine. Mine refused Soapstone it was
not the price so much as the upkeep. I fell in love
with many stones but finally chose Jet Mist for the
Soap Stone look. I have a handful of pics of my slabs and inspiration pictures too. Many of these are from other
GWs. I pasted them below.

Enjoy,
~Boxerpups

This is soapstone but looks similar to Jetmist

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my jet mist, I can not wait until they are
installed. I hope it looks nice too.

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CE (looking more green but truly pretty)

{{!gwi}}

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Back to soapstone. This stuff is so neat you
can have a sink cut to match the counters.

We have honed absolute black and a butcherblock island. You could do nordic black, jet mist, virginia mist. Maybe marble?

These pictures are great!

Everyone here has such great taste. I think the kitchens shown on this website put the magazines to shame.

November, are your cabinets woodmode/brookhaven by any chance? they look similar to what we just ordered.

So many nice choices--that is part of the problem!