Counter Samples

Its finally happening after living with our current counter tops for more days than I care to think of ( well over a thousands days) we are finally giving them the heave-ho and having new counter tops installed!! Yep, that sentence required two exclamation points :) I'm beyond thrilled, picture me with a sledgehammer dancing around my kitchen ready to start demo, lol 


We want to get our counter-tops replaced in June, which is right around the corner! Right now were not to far into the process regarding who's going to install them. Here's what I do know: DIY the counter demo, install new counters, DIY white subway tile, installing a stainless steal kitchen sink, replacing our facet and getting a new garbage disposal. Replacing our counter tops has been on my mind for quite sometime, in fact a six months after moving into our home went to a few local tile shops and got some samples. The timing wasn't right ( we were planning our wedding and doing lots of DIY projects around the house and then we got pregnant and demo and my pregnancy didn't mix) Now I feel the timing is finally right and want to get started on this project asap. 


I want our kitchen to feel clean and fresh, right now the area is very very dark. Our current cabinets are dark brown, and the current counters are white with dark brown thick grout (yuck!) and our floors are dark brown (faux wood floors) even with our good sized kitchen window, the area is dark. Our plan is to lighten everything up, and say bye bye to its current gloomy state. We have decided not to spend the extra money on Granite or Quartz both our nice but, way more than we care to spend on our small kitchen. My personal goal is to spend less than 1k on new counters. With that budget in mind, solid surface is our best option. Here's a look at the counter top selections, the lighter natural counter samples with decided to to nix, we picked those ones long ago when we were first thinking of replacing our counters.  


Samples left to right skipping the ones mentioned above: Corian Night Sky, Corian Rain Cloud, Corain Glacier White 

Option # 1

I really like the look of Corian Rain Cloud with the white subway tile, the tile really picks up the softer white tones in the Rain Cloud sample. The tones are more noticeable in person. Corian Rain Cloud is so pretty I love the subtle grey veining. 

Option # 2

This is how the white subway tile looks with with the Glacier white Corian. The glacier white is pretty and so much whiter than the softer white subway tile. 

Option # 3

Another option that I've always liked is going with dark almost black counters and white subway tile. The look is classic and clean. The black Corian reminds me of satin finish granite. 

Not An Option

Lastly, this is my dream 'A girl can dream category', gorgeous marble slab of pretty with subway tile!! I love the look, but it would blow my budget away lol, but I still had to share!! :)

After going back with and forth with the options. I really think I prefer the white on white look of Option # 1 & 2. I really love the look of pretty much white counters with white cabinets and eventually stainless steal appliances. 

On Sunday evening we stooped on Lowes to get the pricing on the samples we liked, because in the end it all boils down to square footage we have roughly 25sq + feet of counters that need to be replaced. I'm also not sure how they take into account sinks and free standing stoves into the overall counter measurements. I'll know more when we have them professionally measured soon. Here's the price per feet breakdown at our local Lowes in Sacramento: Option # 1 falls into the E category at $72 a square foot total $ 1800.00 for kitchen budget blown!  Option # 2 falls into the A category at $ 39 a square foot total $ 975.00. Both of my totals don't include pricing on sink cutouts and holes for facets. I'll know more about the extras when I speak to a CSR at Lowes. While we where at Lowes, I noticed LG HI-MACS also has a solid white counter option. I need to see how the counters compare against Corian, but I'm liking the pricing, two dollars less per square foot can add up.  

I also snapped at picture of Allen + Roth pricing - the white counters I like are $ 33.00 a square foot. I need  to do some research on the warranty, but the total would be $ 825.00. 

Now back to the backslash, I've love the look of white subway tile for eons. I LOVE it, the look is timeless, pretty and clean. So if we go with Option # 2 white counters and white subway tile, white cabinets, I think we can pull the look out with out our kitchen feeling sterile. Here's some white kitchens I love.


I love the white counters (OK they are marble, but from a distance they look pure white) look pretty with the white cabinets and white backsplash. I'm also a fan of glass doors on cabinets, we got the middle sections of our cabinets cut a while back, next we'll be adding glass once the doors are painted.

{via Pinterest}

This kitchen is almost perfect example of the look I want (but on a much much larger scale!)

{ via Pinterest}

If we stay on budget with the other items we need to make our counter makeover complete (new sink, new facet and new garbage disposal) I would love to have marble subway tile for the backsplash. That would be PRETTY! 

{ via Decorpad }

I plan to make a lot of headway on our counter project this weekend, I will be stopping into a local kitchen showroom and getting prices vs. going with Lowes. Right now I'm leaning towards Lowes because we can use our Lowes card and save 5% on our counters, of course we'll make a payment right away and pay the credit card off.   


What do you think our countertop selections? If you had your counters replaced did you go with the Big box store or keep it local? Do you know if the included free standing stoves in the square footage when measuring for solid surface counters??