Alternatives to Granite Countertops, Part III

kandy smith Love the look of the Richlite and the flamed black granite.
I am still on the fence about soapstone vs. a honed black granite!
ALWAYS LOVE the ideabooks you do on counter tops.
I know you will be getting lots and lots of responses :)
Thanks for a great ideabook

kandy smith Paul
Just re-reading your last ideabook on alternatives to granite and saw where you had asked me for a link to the dry wax one company is using for soapstone as an alternative to mineral oil.
Sorry I didn't see your request until now.
Here it ishttp://www.doradosoapstone.com/index.cfm/id/47/lang/english/soapstonedrywax/soapstonemineraloil

kandy smith oops

http://www.doradosoapstone.com/index.cfm/id/47/lang/english/soapstonedrywax/soapstonemineraloil

J Willi Paul, how is the leading edge treated on the 1 cm porcelain? Most of what I've seen has the 1 cm lifted away from the top of the cab to give a shadow line. Can you figure out how they do that and is it also 1 cm in height?

pappel looking to build a home in a year or so. Am very interested in the porcelain due to your 'as close to perfect as it gets' comment. What is the substrate material that they attach it to. At one cm depth, what is the durability like, I wonder. I would like to learn more about it. Any sites or other references for me to check-out? Also have you heard of cleft slate. I saw it used on one blogger's kitchen and I had never heard of that.
And my favorite questions, what would you use as a kitchen countertop material?
Thank you.

Paul Anater There's usually a one to two cm build underneath and that build sits back from the edge and it gives the appearance of a floating counter. It's not always installed that way though, sometimes it just sits on top of the cabinet conventionally. Here's a close up of a floating counter I took a couple of weeks ago in Germany.

Jayne Slovick I'm interested in the porcelain. I want to go really different than granite.

bunny mendelbaum My husband and I just recently redid our kitchen. We used epoxy resin countertops. They are similar to the Richlite and the look of the flamed granite. A very matte look and a dream to clean. VERY reasonably priced. I could not be happier with them.
http://www.86nit.com/2010/08/1238-days-later.html

Becky Shankle Granite is heavily overdone & overrated, IMHO. I really like glass & 3form (though 3form isn't as green), not just for the material itself but also additional lighting options they open up - like from the side or below.

Yet another nice post, Paul! Can't wait to see what comes back form Spain. :)

Kirsty Some of these are really nice. I like the marble-looking laminate/Formica countertop. It looks really natural. I'm still a fan of granite, but I tend to see people choose the exact same granite in all their houses. My parents bought a few different ones for their new house and they look really cool...especially the kitchen. The granite in their kitchen is rare (and gorgeous) and I've yet to see someone else use it. I say, IF you do granite, choose something that's not cookie-cutter.

kandy smith Bunny,
Love the looks of your counter tops!
Thanks for posting
I will look into those too.
I do want a matte look too.

Burton Architecture Richlite is a terrific material and works great for Kitchen counters.

I love 3Form materials (for their colors, patterns, and lighting potential) but would be a little reluctant to use them for countertops. The resin products are fairly soft and would have a tendency to get scratched, and thus cloudy looking, over time. I would love to use it, though, as a backsplash material - perhaps combined with LED strip lights to make it glow.

Designing Home I'm curious about recycled glass countertops that I read about recently. Has anyone seen this material actually used on counters?

1shirley I have a bathroom with beige tile and a green vessel sink. The vanity is cherry. What would you suggest for a countertop? The high def laminate looks interesting. What about color?

pjandb What about copper? We did natural copper in our kitchen 5 years ago and we love it. It changes every day and the patina is great.

Gail I am so glad to see other choices, granite and stainless steel are so 'everywhere' and thus have become boring/common. We use alot of laminate in the counter tops we make for customers with our cabinets and the choices are amazing, another material that is amazing is concrete, with the stains for concrete the options are limited only by ones imagination. Soap stone is beautiful as well. I love the glass, for a modern kitchen. Copper would be amazing as pjandb has done, and don't forget butcher block.
It is good to see the granite box being broken down, as beautiful as granite is, it has been way over used.

callisondesigner Well, I'm a fan of terrazo, floor and counters. It gives an old world look with modern amenities. I'm not a fan of recycled glass in tops, but that is just me!

InterDesign Studio Don't forget about the very reasonably priced butcher block.

Irene Turner at Home Paul, who in Europe does the solid porcelain counter tops come from? I love this idea

Pangaea Interior Design, Portland, OR I've used the very large through-body porcelain tiles on counters. Since they come in 24" x 24" and some even larger, they have very few grout lines and look great. I'm so interested to see the new porcelain product you show. It looks great. Curious how it will compare in price to granite.

dawnwinds58 Please tell me you know the name or source of that gorgeous formica counter top in number 6? My husband has been determined to use formica and I was moaning having cabinets that looked like my grandmother's. THAT I can live with happily is I can find it!! Any info on it you can give me?

storklady I chose Wilsonart Soapstone laminate. It's BEAUTIFUL and reasonably priced. I am tired of granite.

Seattle Lighting Design Services Hi Paul,
Thank you for your ideabooks! I love the options that are out there! I've been planning our kitchen for the last couple years and granite was definitely something I didn't like. I'm not a fan of the speckle look. I wanted concrete for the longest time till I started looking. I ended up finding onyx and fell in love with the beauty of the slabs and how organic it is. It is translucid so I could light it up from underneath. What is your opinion for onyx? I cook a lot and I am concerned on stains. Thank you.

A & D Glass Inc. You can get really creative with the glass countertops. Unfortunately, we haven't seen recycled yet.

dianek What about concrete countertops?

Paul Anater Thanks for all of your comments and questions. I'm in Spain now, at another trade show, and I'll respond to all of this when I'm back in the US next week. I am so happy to hear that people find these alternative to granite Idea Books to be useful.

Rich Holschuh Paul - The man who knows his materials. He has covered concrete in an earlier installment; he's covered our work in that regard as well! Nice article Paul.

gdelariva Paul, we are in a big dilema, we refurbishing our house, doing over the whole kitchen, we will use granite top, wooden cabinets, we do not know if color in floor and granite top should match, cabinets finish and color should match the kitchen door? Your advice would be apreciated.

roxie9 PA - The Richlite reminds me of my high school chemistry/bio lab, with a matte black finish. Any idea what those old lab surfaces were made of? I'd love to reproduce it for my kitchen. thx.

Paul Anater Most of them were made from a material similar to Richlite and some were soapstone.

rnjanke I really like honed granite... but know that it can stain easier than the traditional polished type. I am also considering marble...can anyone tell me which will stain easier...honed marble or honed granite? Additionally, is a flamed or antiqued finish any better when it comes to staining?

Bruno Rodriguez Hi Paul,
You have pretty much covered all alternatives to granite (great work). If I may, I would like to add one more option: glazed lava stone by Pyrolave (10mm-80mm thickness).

With its remarkable features, this material provides undeniable qualities whether using it indoors or outdoors in residential or commercial projects. Glazed lava stone offers the inherent strength of a stone combined to all the surface qualities associated with enamels. This material is 100% non-porous, making it very hygienic, easy to clean and a great working surface. It is frost resistant & impervious to rain and snow. All the vivid glazes are UV stable, will not rot nor delaminate and are regarded as self-cleaning during the climatic cycle.

As a result, you benefit from the perfect balance between aesthetics, resistance, durability and functionality.

Thank you,

Stone Trend Toronto New Product coming soon for our Toronto customers ...Porcelain Countertops !

kurloon We installed "leathered" absolute brown granite and love it. No maintenance (sometimes can't even tell that we've spilled something on it) and everyone, everyone, everyone wants to know what it is because it is so unusual (at least until it becomes trendy). It was the perfect soapstone alternative for our kitchen - looks like it has been around forever, but is more interesting than soapstone or honed darker granites. We chose our slabs pretty carefully so there were lots of smaller inclusions rather than larger flatter spots - and different suppliers seem to have a different results with the leathering process. We found one we love and our countertops are by far one of our favorite finishes in our renovation!

gus2gizmo I've seen some reno TV shows where ceramic tile was used for the kitchen counter tops. I must say that once done it looked truly impressive, but they did mention that the spacing should be very minimal. I live in a remote area where quartz or some other top of the line (one entire piece) counter would be almost impossible to get shipped so I'm leaning towards a tiled counter top. Does anyone know of any places online, etc where I can look/research this option?

Suzanne Thomas Glass on a counter in any kitchen area just wouldn't work well. I have a glass countertop on my bathroom vanity and we can not place anything on the surface (such as my husbands electric shaver) lest it scratch it. Even as careful as I am there are small scratches on the surface.

jacksonbeth Over the past 10 years, granite countertops has really entered the market as an affordable solution for countertops. The beauty of natural stone is amazing, however, over the past year new countertop types like Recycled Glass Countertops and Quartz Countertops have been outselling and outperforming granite. I am a new home builder and the homes we are building throughout Tennessee and North Carolina are now coming with Recycled Glass Countertops (the GEO's line from Web Don) not just because of its beauty, but of the quality and enviromental friendliness. If you want to get ahead of the game, stop thinking granite and start pushing into the recycled glass countertops or quartz. This is the direction the new markets are going. Web Don is an excellent place to start when looking for materials for your home.

J Willi jacksonbeth, while I might agree with your assessment of the benefit of re-cycled materials, I will have to disagree with your statement regarding " outperforming granite". ..it does not. Glass is fine, it just doesn't outperform granite, mainly from a scratch resistance and thermal (cracking) properties. Granite just suffers from an overexposure problem, mainly because it's such a good product.
We use granite in more creative ways, and try to get away from the heavy, thick bullnose installations that are so common. Mix it with stainless steel, tile, soapstone, so that it is used sparingly and where is has the greatest benefit. Voila, love it!