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Friday, February 19, 2016

Deciding on 'Fantasy Brown' Quartzite Granite


Our kitchen reno is officially over.. what a fun and stressful time!! Before I show you the full reveal let me show you some of the progress.. Here is one of the main staples in the design of our kitchen.. The counter top!!
Now that we decided on cabinets came the fun part .. choosing a counter top.. I thought this was going to be a no brainer.. I went into it thinking No more laminates.. maybe butcher block, granite or quartz, would love a marble.. but I'm not that careful in the kitchen plus I have kids.. Then we went and looked at options.. First let me tell you.. warn you if I may.. Never go down the marble aisle!! NEVER!! It will end up in heart ache,, seriously I knew I loved marble before but when you see all the big slabs staring at you its insane how gorgeous it really is! Even my hubby loved it.. But from a practical stand point I just couldn't..I know that when I inevitably stained or scratched it, I would be so mad at myself.. So onto the Granite aisles.. so many to choose from, all I knew is I wanted a light-ish granite like a Carara Marble. Ah hah ha ha sounds so simple right? wrong.. Oh my gosh first off granite isn't just granite..who knew?? Not me! It's granite quartzite, quartzite granite.. all very confusing. The short of it is.. The granite quartzite is more like a marble, softer, more likely to scratch or stain :(.. But not nearly as delicate as a marble.. the colours however broaden our search a ton, with a ton of marble-like options with lighter creamier whiter, grayish bases.. so I had my list of granites to choose from thanks to Pinterest. .. And you know what.. it all went out the window when we walked by this slab 'Fantasy Brown Quartzite'.. now wait the name makes no sense :) It doesn't have any true brown in it.. Bits of ivory, taupe's and greys! It's slightly busy in its movement BUT the colour tones are soothing, right up my alley. and the best part is the hubby and I agreed!! Now this fact is not lost on me.. quite the opposite actually I lost sleep over it.. Me and the hubby agree??.. "No way, there must be a mistake!we need to choose another slab!".. And so we went back again just to be sure.. and sure enough I was in love! The only thing I will say, is you really have to love the stone you pick.. Embrace its natural beauty.. Because in certain lights, for us its natural light.. which we have a ton of.. On a certain angle you can really see the dots inside the stone which makes it look kind of like water marks :( We are calling them 'fleckles' in the stone.  Now I am just EMBRACING its natural beauty and not letting it bother me cause I know its all part of it, the stone itself has a ton of character almost like a geode glittery stone.. So if you are looking for a marble alternative this might appeal to you. Obviously our counter is still new but so far we LOVE it! So here it is..
I took the above picture at my local Home Depot that shows all the granite options they carry.. The 'Fantasy Brown' granite is the most whitish granite pictured in the middle right.  Below is a picture of our BEFORE counter. It was a faux granite Laminate counter top.
And here it is now :)

We went with a 2 1/2" thickness for the edge.. The slab starts off as 2cm quartzite/granite and then you choose the edge.. I HIGHLY recommend the "Mitered edge"... It creates a seamless flow of the granite down the sides/edge. The company we went with did an incredible job mitring it. It's honestly so hard to even see the seam.


We ended up painting the island..You can see our full kitchen reveal HERE!!



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7 comments:

  1. Fantasy is a quartzite/marble. It has both properties and is the softer of the quartzite (actually is a dolomite). This is not a granite and it can etch and stain so be sure to seal as frequent as you can.

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  2. I am in middle of a kitchen reno and I also fell in love with fantasy brown. I have 5 kids and cook a lot so my husband thinks i'm crazy if i go with it due to concetns of etching/staining. Im wondering how your countertops have been holding up over time?

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    1. Hi, I completely understand your concerns. Our counters have held up good so far mostly due to the fact that I am CONSTANTLY wiping up water drops etc.. My suggestion would be Quartz.. I think if and when we move agaiN, I will be going with Quartz counters instead.. Less stress, life is stressful you don't need to worry about your expensive counters giving you a headache too.. It does look great though ;) Best of luck in your decision.

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  3. We are in the decision making process right now and had no idea it would be so hard. The fantasy brown sample in our store looks to be more beige and green instead of the beautiful greys, whites, and browns I am seeing online. Do your counters reflect green at all? And would you still go with quartz over this material in the future?

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    1. Thanks for checking out my blog..Well its kind of a loaded question lol.. our counters do have subtle amounts of green.. but it is more like a grey green tone so I actually like it. I love the colouring of this granite. its quite amazing to look at.. What i don't like is the dots that are part of the natural stone..they look like water marks / stains.. so in certain lights it can look so dirty BUT its so clean ;( So if I could do over or when we move again.. I will most likely be choosing a quartz product over granite/quartzite as I hate all the little reflective dots... But honestly either way you go it will look beautiful. best of luck in your decision.

      ~Lisa

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  4. Your house is lovely, we chose fantasy brown also (we renovated a 1961 oak kitchen) and after having it for awhile I love the durability, we picked the leathered finish. I also love your plate and wine racks. I still have to figure out something to do with the 4 ft of space over the sink and I am leaning toward a combo of your beautiful ideas.

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  5. Where did you get lights

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