I have Silestone in my current kitchen in a color that's a light blueish/white/gray with silvery reflective pieces in it. It's been absolutely bulletproof. I've done everything wrong... cut on it, put hot things on it, clean with whatever, DH's coffe maker had a leak underneath that I didnt' see and it had coffee underneath the coffee maker for who knows how long on it. It's been in for about 8 years and look exactly like it did when I had it installed. Now, with that being said, when I remodel our kitchen in our other house; I plan on all natural products (granite and marble). Not because of any deficiencies with the quartz; just because I've developed a love for the look and notion of natural stone. I also think I want a product with a lower sheen. The stones I prefer have wavy movement in them as opposed to "chunks". There are no quartz products that have that kind of movement. If it weren't for that; I'd get quartz again in a heartbeat. I really feel that if you go quartz; get one that you love for the beauty of the product itself; not for it's ability to mimic stone. It's like we're leaning toward the wood look porcelain tile for our entire living area. Not because I want to fool people into thinking we have wood in So Fla.; but just because we think the tile itself looks beautiful.

Same situation, considering a budget renovation, for a U shape kitchen without much large expanses of counter if you take into account range, fridge and sink. I have trouble spending 3 grand on quartz that i dont love. Marble would be great but everyone rips on how it ages. I am considering modern plywood edged thin counter with white formica or 24*48 marble tile (testing now to see how they fare in our kitchen for a few months). Marble tile counters would cost $300 and have 5 total seams: 2 at corners, 2 at the edge of sink (so small) and 1 in a recessed area likely to be hidden. With 24" instead of 25.5", i would likely need a sliver at the back, which is also likely going to be hidden in most cases by; small appliance like toasters, storage containers, etc.. I know it is seen as a huge no-no but getting nice looking counters for $300 vs $3000 makes me consider it. I also thought about integrating them in a wood or brass "inlay" style to make the edges more "on purpose" but i hear wood edges dont age well by water areas.

@TerryShields, if your countertop slab is more tannish, in my opinion you lucked out because that is thw color I personally was wanting. Mine is more gray. It is beautiful regardless. Our Lowe's store sample as well as the sample from another place was the tannish I was wanting but when the slab came in, it was the gray. I will also let you know there are white spots of different sizes that were not visible in any of the samples. I would prefer they not be there but what's done is done.

That would certainly explain the difference between your experience carding cotton and plllog's. Seeding cotton has to be one of the worst jobs there is. Also, I was a small child. I was at my great-great-great aunt's house ... and she moved in with us when I was in 1st grade (no kindergarten, so I assume I was 6-7 years old). I have this image of them stuck in the house and taking the seed corn out of the walls where it was stored (if that part is even right). What I remember about the books was that, how excited the little girls were to get one tin cup to share between the two of them, Yes, I remember that too -- but I'm not clear on whether I remember it from the books or the TV series. I remember that they had a narrow "compartment" in the back wall of their house -- a false wall -- and the corn was stored in that. Thinking about it now, I don't know why anyone would have gone to so much trouble for seed corn. I mean, farmers didn't have the technology to build anything except small houses, so why would you use any of your precious living space for seed corn? My family has been on the same property since the 1700s, and we have more sheds "than you can shake a stick at" ... some of them open, some of them quite secure. Seems to me that seed corn would've been kept in one of the secure sheds. that she rode around with her fiance for years Now that part I remember clearly: Laura had been hired to teach school in a neighboring town, and she "boarded" with a family who didn't like her much /she didn't like them much. The mother of the family didn't like living in the West and threatened suicide, saying she'd go home one way or another. I remember being genuinely afraid for Laura staying in that house. At the end of her first week with them, Laura was dreading the weekend /no escape to school ... and suddenly Almonzo appeared (unannounced) at the door with his light sleigh, saying he'd arranged with her father that he'd provide her with transportation home for the weekends. She literally ran to get her things. It was clear from the first ride that Almonzo was interested in Laura, but she didn't catch on for a while. Re scullery maids, that's why I said at the same economic level. Most of us here at middle class. Granted there was hardly any middle class in the 18th Yeah, the hardly-any-middle-class-existed and few people were rich ... that is why I said most of us would've been the scullery girls. Has anyone here watched those videos that were popular a decade or so ago in which a modern family posed as an 1800 (?) family ... and another in which a small group of people posed as American pioneers and lived for a time using those skills? I just read on Wikipedia that Eli Whitney was commissioned to make the gin, and was inspired to the method by watching a cat trying to pull a chicken through a fence. I've no idea if it's true, but it's a great story. Some people say he didn't invent it at all; rather, it was a slave on the plantation who invented it, and since neither the slave nor his female owner (was the husband dead?) had any way to market the creation, they claimed that Whitney -- the children's live-in tutor -- had invented it. I'm not purporting this as truth. Obviously, I have no personal knowledge, though it does seem that a slave would've been closer to the cotton-work and would've had time /motivation to think on how to do it better. It's just something I read or heard somewhere. Well, it was the boy--he didn't want people eating up his seed wheat so he made a hidden bin in a wall. In the book Pa Ingalls notices the inside of the room is too small for the outside and finds the wheat that way. Yes, that's what I remember too ... but he not a boy; Almonzo and his adult brother were sharing a cabin and were essentially "hoarding" the seed corn, and when Pa Ingalls confronted them, they said, "We didn't realize people were starving," and they gladly shared it. I'm thinking I remember this from the TV movie. They really did "play up" Pa as hero-of-all-things, and he did solve all sorts of problems about town. In real life, Pa didn't make such good choices for his family; I remember studying these books as a part of a Children's Literature class in college, and I really "saw" Pa for the first time through adult eyes -- he was a bit of a disappointment. I think Almonzo was a better husband; he and Laura floundered a bit /were beset by serious troubles in their younger years, but then they found "their place" and stuck to it through thick and thin. Pa Ingalls always had his eyes set somewhere else. It's not that I'm obsessed with these books I was obsessed with them as a child. Now I'm a literature teacher, and I have a very good memory for books -- even things I haven't read in years.