Decisions, decisions

We're still making decisions about our kitchen but mostly we're making decisions about who to hire to do our kitchen. The first company* to come out has been insistent that he can't give us an estimate until we pick our counter and tile. We thought we had our counter but found a couple more enticing options on the website and asked to see a few that had not been brought over to us (specifically Rolling Fog and Pelican White, if you're keeping track). But the counter person has not been particularly responsive, so in an effort to keep moving, we took our borrowed Peppercorn White sample to the tile store that had been recommended to us and got to work.

See anything you like? After walking around a few larger displays (thanks to IKEA, among other things), we know that we like offset tiles, like subway tile patterning, rather than tiles that line up vertically. We don't like the tiny decorative glass ones that we loved so much when designing an accent tile in our bathroom. We think they would be too busy in our kitchen. We do, however, seem to like some kind of texture or pattern more than just plain white subway tiles. So here are some options we're considering.

This one is probably *too* textured, but it was kind of cool.

Too much Turkish sauna-vibe maybe? 

We like it! But would it be too busy for a full backsplash?

Hard to tell from the picture but it's sort of iridescent.

For this one, we like the wavy pattern on top, but in the white just below it.
 

In the meantime, a second company* came out and more reasonably told us he would give us some baseline prices in a few days, taking into account our general counter and tile preferences. We plan to push back on company 1 to insist on the same. When we asked to see the additional two counter options, he said we would have to travel about 30 miles to the counter store and pick which one we liked definitively before he could give us prices. Now, I understand that our selection impacts price. But wasting a Saturday to pick out countertops before we even pick out our installer seems a bit much to task. We may have to move down to company 3* and drop 1 before they get very far.


*I'm using "company" as shorthand but in reality, most of these people are just single contractors who then subcontract out the counter and do all the installation of the rest by themselves.

Counter-point

Counter guy came today with some samples in the white to gray color scheme we were thinking of. It wasn't Silestone brand, but a similar (and cheaper) quartz composite, MSI Q Quartz. We're doing some reading to find out if it's comparable, but a quick look seems to suggest it should be just fine.

Here's the whole layout he brought. Right off the bat, we were able to eliminate the two solid colors (5 and 8, in the main row) and the brownish ones (2 and the one up higher than the rest).

 That left the cooler grays and whites.

The guy took plenty of measurements, and noted that our sink might cause a problem. Apparently it's cast iron and very heavy, and he believe's it's being held up with a frame for support, and not simply fitted in with an under-mount, because the caulking structure wouldn't hold it up. This will affect the fine tuning counter measurements. He said that if we decide to go with this contractor, he would need to remove the sink and take the final precise measurements of the hole before the counter is fully cut, to make it fit perfectly. He also suggested a different alternative - a new, stainless sink. Trade cast iron for steel? No way. I didn't realize it was cast iron but it makes sense - it's super sturdy and cleans up well, and it is spacious and wonderful. And apparently it is a Kohler K5834. Thank goodness for phone camera reaching into strange places - here is the underside of the sink, from inside the cabinet.

For now, we will worry about those logistics later. We're still in the estimate stage of the game, though we have yet to find a second person/company we have wanted to invite out to give us one. We usually rely on neighbor recommendations and the kitchen remodeler seems to be a sparsely populated category, at least for the (low) level of remodeling we intend to do.

So in any case, today we considered our counter options. It may be hard to tell from this picture but we have them sort of arranged light to dark with a similar rock pattern on the bottom "row" (I use the term pretty loosely here - we were in a rush to take photos). We also liked the smoother marbling of the two on the top with the solid in between. What's your favorite? Scroll down to see what we picked (though it's still not too late to change our mind of course, so please share your favorite). 

The middle one on the bottom was our winner. We thought the one to its left was too monotone, though we did like how much it would potentially lighten our room. The one on the right (askew in the picture) was too similar to the color we currently have and, while we love the darker grays, thought it would close the room in too much. And the quartz pattern in that row looks, we think, more natural and actually set with embedded stones.

So "White Peppercorn" is the winner (probably). Though now that we have a new countertop brand, I'm tempted to peruse the website and select all manner of choices beyond the 10 or so samples that he brought. What do you think?