DIY countertops?

Do you think that picking out countertops would be the fun and easy part of this house build?

😆😆😆😆

Trust me, I did my research. I will spare you the details!

No, it wasn't going to be marble or soapstone or slate. Sigh. Yes, it was going to be a DIY project.  

One of my temporary kitchens

Our options left were wood, stainless steel and...tile. (Thankfully we closed the door on DIY epoxy countertops, because I can't imagine the mess that would have been!) Can you believe it become another tile decision? Probably influenced by my temporary kitchen tile "counter" (which was only for keeping the toaster oven from melting the plastic table underneath). 

The idea was tempting. We already had the tools for tiling work. I heard it was hard to clean tile countertops though.

Still, it was a tad cheaper than quartz countertops, and we could save the cost of labor by asking our in-house tile guy to do it.

One thing was for sure, no one wanted to figure out how to tile around the sink. It was finicky business. After a lot of discussion, we decided to do sink section that would be on its own and make it out of quartz. 

We found a "bargain" remnant in grey, that we thought would go with any material we chose for the counters.

There was some investment in tools to be able to cut quartz, of course, and some training to be found on YouTube.

The edge had to be shaped to match the sink bump-out. 

Of course it was not perfect on the first try. 

In the end, this piece sits up on the hill waiting to be useful with a shop sink someday. Thus ended phase one of "DIY countertops."