Alternatives to Marble Countertops & Our Final Decision!

I think I’ve officially grown up! I’ve had my “big-girl” job for over 2 years, I’ve been married to my wonderful husband for a year, we just bought our first home, and we’re getting a puppy in summer!  But surprisingly, those aren’t the reasons that make me feel that I have grown up. Let me share something else with you…    

I am completely excited about remodeling our new kitchen, especially getting new countertops! And that, my friends, is why I feel grown up. When I was younger, I hated going shopping at Home Depot or Menards with my parents and couldn’t wait to leave.  Now, I can’t wait to visit home improvement stores to.  Maturity at it’s finest. lol

With that being said, our new home is about 5 minutes away from our current apartment.  We LOVE the area! The home is so charming and was custom built in 1970.  And the exciting thing is that since the home is so outdated (think: green shag carpet & wood paneling), we get to upgrade everything to our liking! The first things to be changed are the floors, paint colors, and the kitchen.

We picked out our cabinets already – a very lovely white shaker look with soft-close drawers (yay!). We also added in a few extras: an island with seating, a pull-out garbage cabinet, a thin baking sheet cabinet, and lots of drawers for easy access to our kitchenware! The 3D mock-up looks so amazing!! =)

Next up is our countertops.  Now, when I was younger, I really didn’t think twice about countertops.  But now, it is truly a BIG deal.  We looked all over for countertops we liked. Thought of marble, granite, quartz, solid-surface, and laminate.

Marble ($$$) has always been a favorite of mine, so we opted to use it as our countertops in our powder room & master bathroom.  But doing a little extra research showed that it just wasn’t for the kitchen.  I love a shiny/polished look but marble can easily get stained and etched, leaving a non-polished surface behind. Not my cup of tea. But it sure is gorgeous!! Below I’ll give you some alternatives to marble countertops.
Our next thought was granite, but thinking it was well out of our price range, we dismissed the thought.  We kept looking for some stone that looked similar to marble and found that quartz ($$$$) (partially manmade) has some styles that mimic marble.  But besides being costly, they just don’t look enough like the real thing and tend to look pixelated when you look closer at the material. (Edit: We picked quartz in our kitchen!! – we found a non-pixelated style that resembles marble!! Read the post here)

Solid-Surface (aka Corian brand) ($$$) was just completely off our list right after we saw it.  It feels like a plastic slab (in fact, it might just be). For the most part, they weren’t even shiny! They were just matte countertops that felt like plastic, no thanks.  However, they do look pretty from far away. haha

Feeling like we were stooping to our last resort, we took a look at laminate ($).  This is by far the least expensive option, but we just didn’t like any of it! There were many colors/styles to choose from, but only a few were shiny and they were not what we were looking for.  We saw an HD laminate which was our failsafe if we couldn’t find anything better.  I must admit, this is a pretty cool option – the company took a picture of real stones & created their laminate with the photos.  From far away, the countertops look like they are real.  But again, a bit pixelated and the finish was not close to real stone at all.

Thankfully, my aunt and uncle are in the process of renovating and know an awesome granite ($$$) supplier. My husband called him and he quoted us a great price!! Only about $700-$1000 more than the HD laminate (depending on the edge cut you chose for the laminate). This is an amazing deal! 

We drove to the showroom a little less than 2 hours away from where we live and took a look.  Of course, I didn’t like the stock granite (cheapest), but Kevin and I fell in love with three different light styles: River White, Delicatus, and White Galaxy.

Right away my favorite was River White, from a distance it really looks like marble.  And up close it looks even more AMAZING!! Grey, white, and purple sparkly flecks of gorgeous granite! We are so excited to pick out our slab of River White granite & have it installed (after we get the cabinets put in place, of course!).

I can’t wait until we have our brand new classic white kitchen!! =)

Main image credit: Wooden Utensils