Rated 4.9 out of 5from 121 customer reviews
The countertop is the surface you actually use, and it is the one part of a refacing that is a separate trade with a separate price. Four materials, and the choice between them is less about looks than about what the surface has to survive on a Tuesday evening. We bring the samples to your kitchen so you see them against your own doors and your own light.
Every one of these comes in a range of colors and finishes, and which are available depends on the material and on what is in the slab yard that month. That is a conversation for the estimate rather than a list to memorise.
Engineered rather than quarried: ground natural quartz bound with resin and pigment, which is why the pattern stays consistent from one slab to the next and why it never needs sealing. Nonporous, so wine, oil and lemon juice sit on the surface instead of soaking into it. It is the material the free-countertop offer covers, in any color we carry. What it will not take is a pan straight off the burner — the resin scorches — so it wants a trivet, and that is the whole of its upkeep.
Quarried stone, cut from a block, and no two slabs are the same. That cuts both ways: you choose the actual slab rather than a sample, and the veining you choose is the veining you live with. It takes heat that quartz will not — a pan off the burner leaves no mark — and asks for more in return, because stone is porous. A sealer goes on at installation and wants renewing about once a year. If nobody in the house is going to do that, quartz is the better answer.
Acrylic and mineral cast into sheets — DuPont’s Corian is the name most people know it by — and the only material here that joins invisibly. Seams are glued and sanded flat, and the sink can be molded straight into the top, so there is no rim to catch crumbs and no seal to fail. It is softer than stone and will scratch, and it is the only one where that is fixable: the color runs all the way through, so a scratch or a scorch sands out.
A printed decorative layer fused to a board core, and by a wide margin the least expensive surface in the kitchen. Modern laminate is not the laminate anyone remembers: the print is photographic, the patterns are scanned from real slabs, and the edge can be squared off rather than rolled. What it will not do is take heat or a knife, and a chip cannot be sanded out, because the pattern is a face rather than the body of the material. It earns its place when the budget decides the kitchen.
Picking the material is the decision people arrive having thought about. These are the three that come next, and they change the finished kitchen more than most people expect.
The profile cut into the front lip, and the detail that decides whether a counter reads modern or traditional far more than the color does. A square or lightly eased edge is the contemporary one; a rounded bullnose is softer and kinder to a hip; a stepped, carved profile belongs with a raised-panel kitchen. Which profiles a given slab can take is a question for the estimate rather than a list worth memorising.
Stone and quartz arrive as slabs in a couple of standard thicknesses, and the thinner one is not a lesser countertop — it is usually given a built-up edge, where a strip is laminated underneath the front so the counter reads as thick as you want from across the room. That is how a slim modern profile and a heavy traditional one come out of the same slab.
The cutout is made in the shop, so the sink is chosen before the counter is cut rather than after. Undermount gives you an unbroken surface to sweep crumbs into; a top-mount sits on the counter and costs less to install. If a run is becoming a breakfast bar, the overhang is the other thing to settle early: past a certain reach a cantilevered slab wants steel or a bracket underneath it, and that is easier to design in than to add.
Granite is quarried stone, cut from a block, so every slab is different and you choose the one you get. Quartz is manufactured — ground quartz bound with resin — so the pattern is consistent and predictable. In use the split is simple: granite takes heat better and needs sealing about once a year, quartz never needs sealing but will scorch under a pan straight off the burner.
You deserve a kitchen you love to cook, dine and entertain in. Tell us a little about the space and we’ll bring the showroom to you — no deposit, no obligation.
Free Quartz Countertop — Worth up to $3,000
*An estimate must be scheduled with an installation within 6 months. Countertop max cost up to $3,000.
Keep Your Countertop — Take $3,000 off instead
*An estimate must be scheduled with an installation within 6 months.
Beat Your Best Quote — We go $1,500 lower
*Quote must be from another kitchen cabinet refacing company.