Should You Buy Your Countertop Based on a 3x3 Sample?
You're ready to purchase a new countertop for your home's kitchen, but how do you choose from all of the stones and materials available to you?
It can be tempting to select a slab for your new countertop based on a 3x3 sample that you can see on display or online. However, selecting an entire surface based on a 3x3 sample is one of the biggest renovation mistakes we see.
Natural stones have beautiful color and pattern variations that simply aren’t possible to showcase in a 3x3 sample. To really understand what a stone slab will look like, you need to go see it in person. Plus, there are many factors to consider, such as cutout dimensions, paint color, flooring, and budget, which samples on display can also fail to account for.
Before you pick your countertop material, you need to follow these easy steps to find the right material for your new countertop.
1. Select Flooring, Painting, and Cabinet Materials
Going to pick out a slab for your countertop in person without choosing materials for your flooring, painting, and cabinets can ultimately ruin your kitchen design. It's important to bring your cabinet, paint, and flooring samples with you when you choose your countertop materials so that you can share your vision with your contractor.
In addition to flooring, painting, and cabinet samples, you should also select your sink, faucet, stovetop, and cabinets before your countertop selection. Your contractor will need to know the dimensions of each to help you choose the proper slab and to template and cut your stone.
Selecting your flooring, painting, and cabinet materials before choosing a slab will also help you reduce extra work from your contractor down the road. When you have all the above work and selections complete before you have your countertop materials chosen and installed, you can avoid extra site visits to finish previously incomplete work. Otherwise, you'll need to spend extra time, energy, and money making sure all of your necessary work and selections are complete and finalized to accommodate flooring and repainting work that’s still pending completion.
2. Take Care of Plumbing Needs
Depending on which contractor you use for your countertop renovation project, you want to make sure that you take care of any outstanding plumbing and pipe reconnection work well before your installation date. It's important that you get in touch with either a general contractor certified in gas plumbing and reconnection/disconnection work or a certified plumber specializing in gas plumbing and pipe connections before your installation date. This step will help you prevent extra on-site visits and avoid unnecessary headaches.
Common plumbing tasks that tend to be overlooked include disconnecting appliances such as gas stovetops. It's imperative that these are disconnected so that your general contractor can proceed with the demolition of your old countertop. Otherwise, they’ll need to wait and come back on-site once you've had your disconnections completed.
It's equally important that you have a certified contractor lined up to help you reconnect your piping once your countertop installation is taken care of. If you're looking at a simple 3x3 sample of the countertop with the material you'd like to use, remember that your final product will likely look different based on your cook top's cutouts and how it's wired up in your kitchen.
3. Compare Finishes for the Same Slab
Countertop samples are especially unreliable when choosing a finish for your surface. For example, if you're interested in a unique leathered finish, you may want to see it on a large scale to be sure that you’ll actually like it in your home.
It's a good idea to consult your contractor about the texture, color, pattern, and thickness you want for your slab to see whether or not those features will be possible with a particular slab that you like. Unfortunately, a countertop sample on display can mislead you if you have different expectations about how it will look once it’s installed. Talk with your contractor about the slab you're interested in and decide on whether your desired finishing choices will work and look great with that material.
Get Your Perfect Countertop
We think that the best way to find a countertop you’ll love is to look at slabs and finishes in person, rather than relying on a 3x3 material sample. At Alpha Surfaces, we make it easy to pick the right slab for your countertop by providing homeowners and designers with multiple countertop options.
If you’re ready to get started on your countertop project, schedule a design meeting with Alpha, and we’ll start looking at materials together.