<p>I looked closer at my “black” granite, and it has gray and silver flecks. You don’t see them if you don’t really look at it, but it’s not solid black. We do have a smaller kitchen, but the white cabinets really open it up so the black granite doesn’t make it feel small. We have cherry wood floors in our kitchen (which are beautiful but give me heart failure whenever we spill) and a gray tiled backsplash with some blue-gray in it. There are two seams, but I’d never noticed them before… they aren’t really visible, you just can feel them if you’re looking for them.</p>
<p>Someday I’ll get that tile that looks like wood in my kitchen instead and the butcher block counters I wanted. No idea what I’ll do with my stupid bathroom counter. We were at one point sealing it every six weeks and it made NO difference in the staining, now I give up and will only seal it every 6 months or so since it makes no difference. Most water stains will fade in a few days, but heaven forbid any soap drip onto the counter from the soap dispenser or mouthwash from the side of the bottle. Those stains never fade. The area around the sink looks like hell.</p>
<p>ETA: I like the look of soapstone a lot, especially a more matte finish. That would look sharp in my kitchen.</p>
<p>gloworm, I looked up your quartz. VERY pretty. :)</p>
<p>If I were going to build a new house or remodel a kitchen, I think I would go with quartz simply because I’ve never had it before and it would be a nice change from the granite.</p>
<p>Yes… every choice has potential to look dated. But some are more expensive than others to replace. Probably none are as inexpensive as formica, but we won’t do that again. If DH formica, we could keep what we have (blue/grey speckle, wood edge). I love it myself, and it still looks it has worn well over the past 20 years.</p>
<p>My kitchen has honey maple 42" cabinets by Ward’s Cabinetry and Uba Tuba granite, which is black with green and gold flecks. I love it but the black, while it does hide a lot of dirt it also does show dust.
Here is a link to a photo that I took of it a few years ago (but it looks the exact same now).
<a href="http://i244./albums/gg18/seiclan/daisy085.jpg%5B/url%5D">http://i244./albums/gg18/seiclan/daisy085.jpg</a></p>
<p>Lets see if this one works:
<a href="http://s244./user/seiclan/media/daisy085.jpg.html%5B/url%5D">http://s244./user/seiclan/media/daisy085.jpg.html</a></p>
<p>Nope. Last try:
[URL=<a href=“http://s244.****************/user/seiclan/media/daisy085.jpg.html%5D%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i244.****************/albums/gg18/seiclan/daisy085.jpg%5B/IMG%5D%5B/URL”>http://s244.****************/user/seiclan/media/daisy085.jpg.html]
<p>Gosh I wish I could remember the name of my granite! If anyone is dying to know…there is a thread from early 2012 that probably has it…as that is when I got it! There was also a lively discussion of counter options at that time. </p>
<p>At Home Depot today, an employee told me he had been using a granite cleaner on HIS granite for 35 years! Not likely!</p>
<p>My husband is a carpenter and we are our second custom kitchen (by him) with wood countertops. Our first house had teak, this house has cherry. </p>
<p>The teak was more resilient than the the cherry. Every so often he would scrape the teak and re-oil it with mineral oil and buff it. </p>
<p>The cherry is really pretty, but requires lots of attention in that you can’t sit a glass down with a wet bottom-or wet dishes, for that matter. I put them on a cookie sheet if they aren’t going to be washed right away. Cant sit anything hot on it, either. </p>
<p>We have a breakfast bar that is a black granite with some kind of colored flecks, it was a leftover piece. We have white cabinets with brass fixtures, tan stone floor and raspberry walls and white trim. I do love this kitchen.</p>
<p>If had had to do it over again, I might have done wood floors, too. We had them in our old (1905 schoolhouse-original floors) house and they held up well.</p>
<p>Me, too. That photo I linked earlier in the thread wasn’t the one that I thought I was linking and really isn’t like the granite I have. I’m sure I probably mentioned the name in that previous thread, too. Maybe I should search.</p>