Kitchen Countertop Research

As part of our low-budget kitchen renovation, we are planning to replace our countertops.

Over the course of the last week to 10 days we've been researching all our options, keeping in mind our budget, which if you check out here, you'll see is TINY!

We'll I've learned that the $200 I had thought we could get away with, we can't. (You can stop laughing at me now.)

Here are the options we've found:
- Precut Laminate at either Lowes or Home Depot, for the amount of space we're trying to cover will cost about $300. The problem, all the options are not what we hand in mind which was clean, crisp, black.

- Custom cut laminate at Lowes would cost about $900 for the black that we want.

- Custom cut laminate at Home Depot would cost even more... $2100 if we want it installed.

- We also looked into solid surface solutions, VERY basic solid surface solutions and including installation, those options start at around $2600

What is a family on a tight budget with a VERY ugly kitchen to do?

They head to Ikea, that is what they do.

: )

Here are the options we're entertaining now, first the Pragel in Stone Effect Black, this prices out at about $9 a linear foot. Drawbacks are, it isn't flat black, note the peppering effect. Up close it looks really busy... from far away though, it looks really good. And yes, we're painting our cabinets white so this would be almost the exact effect we're looking at.

Next up we have the Numerar with a black laminate top and a metal edge. It prices out at about $12.50 a linear foot. We really like the clean black finish, the profile of the counter top which is a little taller than most traditional laminate countertops. BUT, we HATE the metal edge. As in HATE HATE HATE. It really doesn't fit with the look that we are going for in the kitchen. We've talked about taping off the black part and then just spray painting the metal edge black but are worried about how that will look.

 Another thing we are considering is using a butcher block surface on our breakfast bar and the desk we are building. It would go really well with our floors and I think be a great feature for the kitchen. We would go a bit darker with it than is pictured below.

Soooo... that is where we are. We're living with the idea of both the two options from Ikea right now and hope to have a decision on them in the next 2 weeks. So while $200 isn't go to be possible, it does look like $300-$500 will be. The budget is going to have to be revisited.