What is the most popular kitchen countertop?
What is the most popular kitchen countertop?
Once upon a time, it was granite. Now, it's quartz, otherwise known as engineered stone.
Apartment Therapy has a great blog post on quartz that will answer most all of your basic questions about quartz (engineered stone) countertops.
I am seeing quartz countertops more frequently in new renovations in Cambridge and Somerville, MA.
When we renovated our own Cambridge kitchen, we chose Caesarstone (a type of engineered stone) for the countertop and have been very happy with our choice. We even used Casesartone for our vanity top in our bathroom renovation.
As the Apartment Therapy blog post on quartz notes, "If you want the look, but not the maintenance, of natural materials like soapstone or marble, quartz is an attractive alternative. It used to only be available as a solid color, or flecked, depending on how coarsely the quartz was ground during the fabrication process. If you liked a very minimalist, manufactured look this was fine, but the overall effect was rather cold and impersonal and didn't resonate with customers. Today, technology can produce quartz with organic-looking variations that resemble real substances found in nature. This makes a huge difference in the look and feel of a room."