The Marble Slab: The one we chose

Okay, so I told you a little bit about how we decided to go with marble for our countertops, right? Well who knew it would be so hard to pick out stone!?? Not this girl.

Apparently, it's not just as easy as walking up to a place, looking through the slabs, and pointing to what you like. First, you must find a fabricator (the people who cut and size and fit your stone), then you can go pick out your slab.

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We visited a whole lot of fabricators before settling on the one nearest our home, Stone World. This is at Werthan, another great fabricator in Nashville. 

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And then of course, comes the shopping. Looking through stone isn't like shuffling through clothes on a rack. These puppies are several thousand pounds each! So moving through and choosing your stone can be a long process.

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This was our first option, a beautiful polished white carrara at Modern Granite and Marble. But because it was polished, we knew we'd have to pay to have it honed. (Polished marble is shiny and beautiful, but it stains and scratches more easily, and can't be repolished. Honed marble is soft and stains/scratches can still happen, but are less visible!)

Plus, as beautiful as this one is, I wasn't sure I'd be crazy about the patterns and lines in our small space.

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So, on what we hoped would be our final stop shopping for marble—we finally found our slab at Nashville Granite and Marble. This is a beautiful carrara bianco, and it was already honed!! Yahoo!

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The next day when I called back, I asked if they remembered me, and the guy said, "Oh yeah, you're the one who made us take a picture of you with the slab?"

Yes, Cory. That's me.

Picking Countertops for a Kitchen Renovation

I'm not a very picky person. I'll eat just about any food. I've lived in lots of places. I'm not that picky when it comes to decisions. I don't him and haw and wonder what to do and weigh my options.... I just pick something and move on. Okay, okay. So some people call it being impulsive. I guess it comes from this desire to have everything done right this second ago. 

You know what I mean?

But when it comes to renovating our kitchen, things aren't going to happen that fast. They shouldn't. So, with the help of my much-more-methodical (and thoughtful) husband... we've made our very first decision about the Kitchen renovation: countertops.

As a reminder, here's what they look like now:

Laminate! Gross!

The Givens:

• We're keeping our cabinets (and repainting them), so our counters will stay in the same place
• Our kitchen is tiny, so we're not doing any crazy islands... just a basic L shaped kitchen. But SMALL is in our favor on this decision - because we'll only need 23 sq. feet (even the most expensive materials, that will be pretty cheap!)

The Options:

1. BUTCHER BLOCK

Warm and luxurious, butcher block seemed like an obvious first choice. It's relatively inexpensive, and would look great with our white countertops. But in homes we'd seen, butcher block seems to easily crack, and the maintenance seemed pretty high. Oil the countertops every month? I can barely vaccuum every month, or give Cooper his heart medicine every month. I already saw that "chore" being ignored. Also, Patrick was quick to point out that you can't put hot pots on butcher block counters - or else you can leave a bad stain. But still, I couldn't help but look forward to the soft feel of wood in the kitchen, and think about the great savings we could get with butcher block.

2. MARBLE

Almost every picture I pinned of a kitchen was using Carrara marble. Though one of the most expensive materials, it has a high-end look that you just can't find in any other material. But as great as the white/white/white look is in so many of these pictures—I couldn't help but worry if we'd get it "wrong." What if the Carrara we find is too grey and cold? But while we were at our favorite restaurant recently, I realized that their bar is marble... and then I started noticing it everywhere. After a few conversations, we learned that white marble can be pretty tough to find, too. That made me a little nervous.

3. GRANITE

There's just no denying that granite is a great decision for kitchen counters. Easy maintenance? Check. Incredibly durable? Check, check. Less expensive than other durable, easy-to-maintain materials? Check, check, check! And though I like the look of dark granite in large kitchens... ours is incredibly small. I wondered if black granite would suck up the small amount of light we get in our kitchen, and be too great of a contrast on the white cabinets. Plus—some granites look absolutely nuts with tons of dots and streaks and so many colors going on. The smoother and darker the look, the higher "grade" we'd be talking about.

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Pretty quickly, we ruled out granite simply because we liked the look of marble or butcher block better. After doing some more research and a quick Facebook poll... we made our decision.

MARBLE!

We decided to start our search for Carrara marble after deciding that the upkeep for butcher block was going to be a little more than we wanted. Also, we know the space is pretty small—so the cost difference between the two isn't prohibitive.

Check back in soon to see the slab we found, and where we go from here!