Which countertop material?

13 years ago

For months I was planning on soapstone counters for this kitchen. It could work well with the sage green of the hutch in the adjacent family/breakfast room as well as the cherry in the kitchen. When I read how unhappy some Webbers are with their SS, I decided to schlepp around some granite showrooms. I don't want shiny granite and soon discovered that honed surfaces are not common around here in W PA. But when I read how smudged honed Jet Mist can look, I took that off the list. My husband is in love with Rain Forest Green but we gave it the scratch test and now understand how marble is not the answer. I just read a thread here about some quartzite nightmares. I never knew this would be the hardest part of a two year whole house renovation. Help! I want something with satin-y warmth, some veining, low maintenance and that works well with sage green and cherry. Any ideas?

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Comments (7)

opphop
Original Author
13 years ago
Here is the sage green hutch in adjacent room.
cookncarpenter
13 years ago
Soapstone would be so beautiful with those cabinets and paint color! Not sure how anyone could be unhappy with soapstone? unless they have expectations other than what it is to me ...the perfect countertop material, I only wish I had known about it 30 years ago!
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bridgetmalone
13 years ago
I have soapstone and love it! Finding it was a nightmare though. I drove around to a number of different stone yards and scratched their slabs to determine how well they would hold up. Mine is from Brazil and has a lot of movement/pattern to it. We saw other slabs that looked more the like the traditional soapstone a grey color with limited veining. Those tended to be very soft in my opinion. So far I have not oiled it, and all scratches are so small and light that they blend in. Love it! It has a softness to it that granite, honed or not, does not have. I was too considering jet mist and any other black honed granite, and I thought I read something on here about the method granite cleaner helping with smudges/finger prints.
Vertise
13 years ago
There was a thread recently that said the type of soapstone you get makes a huge difference, and that theirs was no problem at all.
remodelfla
13 years ago
What snookums said. We have a harder variety of SS and absolutely adore it. For the record...I'm super hard on a kitchen.
julieste
13 years ago
Soapstone is what you want, or maybe a marble.

I've got both and have had them for about 6 months. I have a harder variety of SS, and it does have some minor scratching and a few teeny divots in the area of our kitchen that gets all of the heavy duty use. This is no big deal to me.

I purposely left mine unoiled, and that had been a source of my frustration. It is still unoiled, but I have finally figured out a cleaning method to remove oil /grease that isn't very difficult and works for me. I also really like my Carrera marble counter top. Just noticed my first etch today, and it is only visible when looking at it in a certain light and at a certain angle.
magsnj
13 years ago
Have you thought of slate?

Or Pietra del Cardosa? I decided on a honed white marble b/c I'm in LOVE with it, but the one thing that ALMOST made me change my mind was Pietra del Cardosa. It's really lovely.

PS. There's no surface around that you can't find horrible threads on.