Thanks, Lynn. Although if I knew where you lived, your BEAUTIFUL soapstone counters and fir cabinets would be in great danger! As well as your subway tile, your open shelves, your light rail.... ;0

Your counters look great with your beautiful cabs! I love the matte finish. Is it the cashmere finish? Your kitchen is looking great; I bet you can't wait to start using it!

Yes, it is the cashmere finish. You must be familiar with Aborite.

I am very excited to use our new kitchen (and the house that it is in, too!) I think we should have our occupancy permit in the next week or so. Fingers crossed!

Looks great!

Wow, the counter tops looks great! I thought they were granite!

Your counters look great -- and perfect aesthetically with the rest of your kitchen. I happily cooked in kitchens with formica from 1960s to 1998. I've always thought they were such a sensible choice. And they still look 'just right' to me. I'm sure your kitchen is going to inspire many. Beautiful job!

Thanks, everyone. Here are some pictures of them being built. We use 2 plywood boards (3/4" thick) to build them up to 1 1/2". Then they applied the contact cement, laid the Arborite Black Grit, rolled it and used a router to cut the edges. The edges were the tricky part, but it got easier as they went I think. There are a couple of areas that could be a little better, but to most people, they will go unnoticed, especially since I will have dirty dishes on them most of the time :)

Yes, they look terrific. What brand are they? I would like to store the info for future reference. Thanks!

WOW.... BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Your husband did an amazing job. I never would have guessed they were diy!

BTW...what size height are your cabinets? My uppers are going to be the same style as yours...if my cabinet makers ever finishes up the job that is! :)

Boylanite-

Thanks! My husband is very particular about the work he does, which is why I "let" him build the counters ;)

They are 42", I believe the includes the moulding at the top. As you can see, our cellings are sloped, so at the 8' part, 42" was just right.

your counter top is beautiful! I love the matte look. I'm also partial to laminate.

From the pictures, I would have never guessed they weren't slabs of soapstone or honed black granite. They look soft and smooth, not at all like my old laminate. Thought it was time to get my glasses checked! Oh and I love the QS oak cabs too, beautiful combination.

Love it! Great job with ALL of your material choices.... you've got a great feel and flow going!
I'm planning on using Marmoleum also.... what color did you choose? Any seams?

We used the sheet in Caribbean. We have one seam in the kitchen which is not at all noticible. Even to me,and I saw them put it in!

At the bottom (left) you can see where the plywood is showing. That is where the seam is. In the next picture it is covered with the marmoleum, but the seam is undetectable. We did not have our seams welded.

All the materials look great. Laminate is still a very practical choice. Other than not being able to set very hot things on it, it is a pretty durable and low maintenance material.

Looks great!

I like how you handled the sink/laminate transition.

Your kitchen looks terrific. Love the warm wood with the dark pulls and countertops.

Glad to see another laminate fan! I too thought they were honed granite. We have white laminate righ now and considered dark like your for a while but DH is afraid they will make the kitchen too dark. Our cabinets are darker than yours however.

I will have to check out Arborite again. They are considerably less expensive then Formica and WilsonArt.

Great job!

I wish I could see the edge treatment a little better. This is where I'm not a big fan of laminate. I don't like the seam. Otherwise it's great (it's all we've ever had)! However, my kitchen is so small, I think we can do a diy soapstone fairly reasonably. Can you tell me how you did the edge treatment and around the sink?

Lake_Girl,

I will take some close-ups tommorrow when I am at the house and get back to you on the edges and sink-okay!

Good job! I love seeing that stone isn't absolutely necessary!

Thanks for the Marmo pictures! Caribbean is one of my top contenders for color so it's great to see some real life photos.

Lake_Girl,

Here are some pictures of how we handled the sink and the edges.

The sink cabinet was built so that the sink rests on it. Obiously, the cabinet maker knew this when he built it so it could support the 135 lb cast iron sink. Also, the Kohler Dickinson sink that we bought is a tile-in, so it could be flush mounted. We had him build it so that the sink would be 1/8" higher than the counters. My husband then ran a thin bead of clear silicone around the sink. He also made the counters out of plywood instead of MDF so there would be less issues if water got in the seams somehow.

As for the edges, it helps that we have a dark counter. All I did was the "sharpie" treatment on them. Although I think if I have to do touch-up, I may try the Martha Stewart charcoal. The black is a little too dark, but it really is not noticible unless you have your eyeballs up to it to see it. The seams have always bothered me too, which is why we used postform in our current kitchen. However, because the exposed ends, postform wasn't going to work as well in this kitchen.

I took the pictures at approximately 2 ft, 1 + ft and 8" away.

Again, it might not be perfect, but it is definitely good enough for me!

I am so appreciative of your sharing a laminate success story. You have made a beautiful space and I love your choice of Marmoleum color. I congratulate your husband on a job well done.

Sue_b,

That is very sweet! Thank you so much. I am greatful for everyone that has shared their advice/feedback on this forum, and am happy to do the same. We are about a week out from moving in, so I am really excited to make it a beautiful, lived-in, space!

That looks really great! It's nice to be able to use the farmhouse sink AND laminate. We would be putting a new sink on existing cabinets, so I don't think a farmhouse sink will work for us :( But yours looks really nice! Thanks for the details!

I always love to see people using more affordable and attainable choices and I think laminate pairs well with Marmoleum.

Senator13 - Your new kitchen makes a refreshing statement! Love everything you have done. Congratulations! You and your DH are very clever to DIY!...(Not all of us have that kind of hometeam talent).

Lake_Girl,

You may still have some options if you really want a farm sink. I originally looked at getting this Kohler sink. The advantage is that it is wall mounted and self-rimming. So no issues with water/laminate or the weight since it gets mounted to the wall. Plus they come in several standard sizes for cabs and fun colors!

Here is a link that might be useful: Kohler Gilford

Your kitchen is beautiful!!! I am so loving wood these days. all your elements work together in such a classic way yet it still seems very unique and individual!

Your kitchen looks great senator13!!

It's really making us think about getting "slabs" like yours for our kitchen renovation.

Can you please tell us about your three pendants over the peninsula and where you got them? We have a cathedral (sloped) ceiling also and are looking for pendants over a similar peninsula. Are these pendants specifically for a sloped ceiling? Was it difficult to get the three pendants to hang down to the same level above the peninsula? Do you know any websites with info about pendant lighting in sloped ceilings?

Thanks for any advice you can provide and congrats on your new kitchen!!

ralph-

The pendants are from an Etsy seller-Lamp Goods. They were the first ones I found that a) were totally reasonablly priced (99.00 each) b) decent quality-she even lets you choose the finish color and the canopy style and c) I needed to find ones on a cord. I think they were a great deal and I highly recommend them! They are up to 75W each, which was fine since we were doing three. The electrician measured them to make sure that they were all the same from the floor. Since they are on cords, nothing else was needed for a sloped celing. She does 3ft cord, but if you need more, she has no problem doing that (we did 4 ft). She also has lots of other corded lights if you wanted to take a look at a different style.

Sloped celings and lights were a bit of a challenge! I didn't want to spend a lot of money (like at Schoolhouse Elec. or Rejuvenations) to get the special fitter for the pole. So I would do a search for "corded pendant lights" in Google.

I hope that helps! Good luck with your kitchen reno.

You could have fooled me too! I thought is was honed stone. I love how it's all coming together. I remember when you had your floor installed. It looks great! Do you know when you will be moving in?

Wow - this kichen looks very nice. It looks so much like granite that I'll bet guests would have to touch it to know the difference. Very cool!

celtinNe-
We are having our final permit walk though on Monday! So fingers crossed, we are going to start sleeping there one week from today! I am very excited, but there is a lot to do-like pack! That is not nearly as fun as picking out things for the new house, but oh well :)

Good luck Monday! I hope it all goes smoothly for you. Happy packing and well unpacking. What fun for you!

Beautiful! Great choices, on every front.

Senator - Your "slabs" look great. when I was looking at the photos I thought it reminded me of soapstone but just assumed it was engineered stone (because of the stone centric on GW.) So I think you accomplished your goal and boy I am sure it feels good to have all the dough in your bank (or have spent it on something else you wanted more.)

I hope others are inspired by a beautiful use of laminate.

Senator13, can you tell me how your cabinets were finished? They are beautiful, and I'm trying to make decisions on how my own QS white oak cabinets will be finished.

Singingmicki,

They are finished with Gemini Gem Glo Wiping Stain in Natural. It is a one-coat application that provides a matte oil finish. I love that they feel like wood, not plastic like at all.

senator13, you have me feeling very inspired about laminate again! Thanks so much for posting the close-ups of the edges and the in-progress pics.

The whole room is fabulous, your cabinets are beautiful. I was going to ask about the finish, too, but I see you've already answered that one. Beautiful job all around!

Thanks for posting your kitchen transformation. It's really great to see other alternatives come together so beautifully!

How did Monday go? Hope all was well.

celtinNE-Thanks for asking. We had one thing we had to take care of (handrails on the front steps). It is being re-inspected tomorrow and then hopefully we will be ready. Of course we now have a lot of black widow spiders to kill that apparently we stirred up during the build :(

Good luck tomorrow and sending the luck of the Irish with your spiders. Yuk! Although I did have to take a chipmunk out of the pool this am that apparently committed suicide last night. Double yuk :(

I wish I paid more attention to this thread sooner - you called them a slab, they looked slab-y to me, so I looked at pictures and went on my way without reading the whole post. I'm glad I checked back in, now I can admire the the hands-on craftsmanship a bit more. Kudos! Thanks for sharing!

I'd love to see the "ginger cherry" but it says the album is private

I know this thread is old but I was wondering if you have an update on how your laminate counters have held up with the farmhouse sink?? We are re-doing our kitchen and this is the route I want to take!

I love your kitchen. Using it as an inspiration for ours. I wish we could do some of the work to cut down expenses, but DH doesn't want to mess it up and hear my complaints. Got a love 'em.

We've talked and looked at several different materials for a countertop but keep coming back to laminate. It just fits our budget and our lifestyle. We know we are looking for a black laminate, we just haven't narrowed down the actual one. DH doesn't want a flat finish nor a high glossy one. Decision, decisions.

My question is, can you notice the seams more with the black laminate? I couldn't see any seams in your pictures. The laminate I have now has a seam right down the middle of my countertop, my eyes go to it time and time again.

You also mentioned that you used 2 plywood boards (3/4" thick) to build them up to 1 1/2. Is this something a big box company will do as well, I can request the thickness ?

Thanks