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Installing granite or marble countertops in your kitchen or bath is a serious investment in your home and one you should not take lightly. Clearly it can add beauty that no other surface can match. However, because it tends to be a little expensive, not all that many people do it so there isn't an abundance of reliable information out there to advise people considering it.

When we expressed an interest in something other than laminate or Corian, our building supplier (Spahn & Rose) hadn't much experience with helping people navigate these waters so we had to learn a lot of things for ourselves. Typically, the following steps are part of a normal process of moving ahead with such a choice:

1. Select a fabricator
   • This is the company that will actually cut, shape, drill, and install your countertops. If you have a few to select from, ask to see some of their installations. Pay particular attention to the look of their seams - but also important is their service and attention to detail. Are they friendly and willing to do what you want? You can't just go to a supplier directly and buy the material and most fabricators won't sell directly to customers - you'll need to go through a building supplier, contractor, etc.
2. Determine what kind of material (Granite, Marble, Quartz.)
   • There are many pluses and minuses to each. It all boils down to this - marble is traditional, where as granite is more contemporary. They are equally good, wear/age differently - personally I think the aging of natural stone is what makes such a choice ideal. When laminate wears the integrity of the counter top is compromised, however when natural stone wears it just looks better and better - one has to get past the initial shiny surface which doesn't last forever. Quartz is nearly indestructible but you have to get over the fact that it looks artificial.
3. Determine necessary square footage of countertop you need
   • Key here is to know how much you need as well as what is the largest single span. Your building supply company should be able to tell that, but if not, count up the linear feet of your countertop and multiply by two.
4. Pick out the material
   • Here we highly recommend going to the supplier and walking through their warehouse to pick out the raw material to be used - depending on your required square footage you may need one or more slabs of material. The slabs come in random lengths but typically 5'x9' and can get as large as 6x11 (larger sizes are very rare). Your chosen fabricator will be happy to recommend suppliers you could visit to choose the slabs you want - most fabricators are also willing to get the material from other suppliers if you have alternate preferences.
5. Pick out your faucet(s)
   • The more contemporary the surface, the more you'll want to look at more modern looking faucets (like single handled ones), where as the more traditional you go (e.g. marble), you'll want to look at more aged faucets like bridge faucets. Some of the best faucets you might consider would be those from Grohe or Waterworks. I personally like Grohe - very good mechanicals, excellent style, and generally heavy grade (built to last).
6. Select a filtered water faucet (more common today than it used to be)
   • The most common place for this is to the right of the main faucet or in the right corner of the sink. These filtered water faucets or Reverse Osmosis (RO) faucets are typically small (use a 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch hole through the stone) and have a handle on their right side. However if you move over the sprayer, this area can get tight... I'd recommend the left corner of the sink - much less crowded but then you would need a left handled RO faucet (which are very rare). I didn't like any of the RO faucets that come standard with various water purifiers and RO systems - they all looked cheap so I found one to match our bridge faucet. The combination looks amazing!
7. Pick out the location of where you want to place your faucets
   • A very helpful suggestion is if you go with a faucet that has a separate sprayer is to place it further from the main faucet. If you don't say anything, your fabricator will place it in the default location - right next to your cold water control which gets a little tight. However, if you place it an extra 2 inches away from the standard location, everything will still work normally but the sprayer will be that much more convenient to use (and will not interfere with the levers of the faucet).
8. Choose the type of edging you want
   • A small amount of rounding (just to take the edge off) is ideal. However other options are available. The more shaping you place on the countertop edge, the more it becomes weakened - take this into consideration. Some older castles used some edging, but many of those countertops have chips in them - where as the ones that were solid (minimal edging) still looked amazing even though they were hundreds of years old.
9. Choose where (if any) seams will be placed
   • This depends on how big your largest span is. Generally the fabricator doesn't want to install a piece that is 10 feet long - not only because how heavy such piece would be and how difficult it would be to carry this into your home, but also because the longer it is the more likely it could develop a crack. Generally, the fabricator will want to limit spans to 7-8 feet and will want to put a seam in an inconspicuous place - however you may want to think about this and tell them where you want to place it rather then let the fabricator have fielder's choice and place it where ever they think best.
10. Choose a backsplash
    • We went with a standard (traditional) subway tile (3x6 white tile with white grout) that you can buy from any home improvement center like homedepot, etc. You can also have natural stone you are using for the countertop extend up a few inches to provide your backsplash. The tile option looks amazing, is very cheap, and is extremely durable. Note, that your tile installer can use a product called "boost" instead of water as a base for the grout. Boost cost a little more, but has the benefit that the grout will never need sealing - I highly recommend this option. Our title runs from counter top all the way up to the bottom of the top cabinets. In areas where the counter top extended beyond the upper cabinet. we ran the tile all the way out to the edge of the countertop and then cut back in to the bottom of the upper cabinets. This choice ended up looking better than leaving some small portion of the countertop without any backsplash just so the tile could run down the edge of the upper cabinet.

Depending on whether you are your own general contractor or you are hiring someone else to do that for you, you still need to be involved in some way regarding the above steps. If you let them make all these decisions for you, you still might be ok - just not 100% satisfied. So, it is best to ask to be involved so you make sure you are getting exactly what you want.

Marble versus Granite

When we visited kitchen specialty stores and inquired about natural stone (specifically marble). We received a very negative response. The representative said, "Oh, marble is very soft." The same thing was said by the supplier. However all you have to do is go back in time - marble was the product of choice for castles of Europe and still exists today. Granite, while somewhat stronger than marble has a very different look to it - often has shiny particles (Quartz) in it. As a result, Granite "feels" more industrial/commercial where as marble feels more tranquil and has a very traditional/classic look to it. They both can withstand heat (to a degree) but can be damaged if exposed to a very hot pan placed on them for an extended period of time - unlike Quartz which is heat proof.

Granite is often more expensive than marble, but they are both more expensive than Corian but less expensive than Quartz. Note that in this case, the most expensive choice is not always the best. Rather, it has more to do with what looks best in your kitchen. If you spend the money for Quartz and ended up not liking the way it looks, you won't be the only one - a lot of people on the Internet has also voiced this conclusion. Quartz just has a very different look to it and can easily overpower the overall look of a kitchen. Certain types of Granite can have this impact too. Based on my research, the people that have gone with marble seem far more satisfied with their overall look of their kitchens than those that went with granite or quartz. But it all boils down to personal tastes and what "look" people are after.

What you cannot do with marble or other natural stone products is clean them with abrasive cleaners (like comet, etc). Simple soap and water works perfect and does not harm the surface. You should also plan to seal the counter tops every other year or every year if you remember. If you do those two things, the countertop will last forever. We fell in love with the natural beauty of marble - but there are two similar products White Carrara and White Venatino and they do not look the same. The Carrara marble is often used with high end bathroom countertops and does not have a very heavy or dark veining - Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware for instance use Carrara marble on its high end bathroom vanity countertops. The Venatino is just the opposite and often has very dark veins. Its a personal taste thing, but most marble countertops are Carrara. The other difference between marble and granite is the stain resistance. Once sealed, they both fight stains pretty equally - however a slight edge for long term resistance to staining goes to granite. Either way, you don't want to leave spilled red wine on the surface of natural stone for long periods of time (overnight). However a few hours of exposure (during a party for example) will not matter - particularly if you properly seal the surface yearly. Some websites are extreme and sound as though any exposure is doomsday - however I can tell you through experience that a few hours exposure doesn't leave any marks. Regular safe cleaning with soap and water along with yearly sealing are the best preventative care - its peace of mind from the whole subject of staining!

Care

After the install, the same sealer that your installer uses is commercially available and brain dead simple to apply. One of the best sealers is from GranQuartz and is called impregnator. It is far cheaper to buy and apply yearly then pay someone else to do this for you.

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