Dream Book Design

Countertops Like Carrara Marble

If you haven’t payed attention, almost every stunning kitchen in those beautiful design photos has Carrara marble as its countertop. While I am totally smitten with that look, I am way more practical and realize my limits. I take care of things I love, but I also know that it’s not only me that uses the kitchen. Especially once bray, and future kids come along, the kitchen will be used and abused more and more. Marble just simply has too much special care and upkeep for it to work for us.

With that being said, I have been on the hunt to find something that at least has the same feel to it. We do realize there is nothing that looks exactly like it, but surprisingly there are some good alternatives!

We started off by looking at the three options found here.

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Here is a breakdown of our options:

Cambria in Torquay:
Cambria is a
“natural, quartz surfacing product that has a variety of uses in your home or business such as countertops, floor tile, vanities, fireplace surrounds, wet bars, showers, etc. Cambria is pure, natural quartz, one of the hardest and most common minerals on Earth. It has the natural look and feel of granite, but features superior performance because of its strength and durability. It is nonporous and will not absorb food and liquids like granite does. And best of all, it is maintenance-free.” -via Cambria USA
We love the look of the Torquay. It is a true white base, and has beautiful ‘veins’ of grey and some cream. It is super smooth, but does feel a little off. It was super tricky to be able to see a full slab of this stuff since it is normally made to order, but I got lucky and someone hadn’t picked theirs up yet! {Please keep in mind, I took these photos with my phone, so the lighting is totally off-sorry!}

Caesarstone Misty Carrera: 
We also liked this counter. The feel of it was exactly like Cambria {which it should be considering they are the same material} but the coloring isn’t nearly as white. It also is a little less ‘veiny’ and a little more spotty than the Cambria.

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Corian Rain Cloud:
Corian is the most affordable of all the options, but our least favorite. To us, it kind of feels like a really hard plastic. One thing thats nice about this is that you can get it at places like Home Depot and Costco, but that doesn’t outweigh the cons for us. Although, there are a ton of people who love this counter, including Young House Love.

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Now here are two granite options that don’t necessarily look a whole lot like marble, but they are the best granite options that we saw.
River White granite:
The grey in this granite is perfect, but it is definitely busy. It also has some gold and deep red swirled in some spots, which is a pro and con. Con because I don’t love the look of the colors, pro because we are still planning on having a brick wall, so the red would be tied in easily.

Bianco Montanha granite:
This granite is the lightest, least busy granite i’ve seen. It isn’t by any means a white, definitely more an off white/light cream color. But the grey is nice, and as always, granite is beautifully durable and easy to work with.

So, there you have it..those are some of the options we are looking at. The Corian being the cheapest, and the granite and Cambria/Caeserstone all being relatively the same price. What would you go with??? Any of you have one of these and want to give me a sales pitch to get it as well- or a pitch to stay away from it?! I would love any and all input. Have a great weekend friends

Comments

  2. Deb says

    I’d do quartz. Minimal (if any) maintenance, looks great and who wants to spend time worrying about stains, sealing, etc. countertops when you have a job, a family, a life!!

  3. Erin says

    Whatever you choose will be lovely! You guys have great taste. That being said, we currently have granite (black pearl) but I LOVE granite counters. We live in our kitchen and for me they are easy to clean, durable and classic (ours are sealed). I really like your Bianco Montanna option. So that is my vote. Best wishes on your kitchen remodel!!

  6. donnajward says

    I would check with other vendors… your sample of River White is not a good one. The veining should not be that dark or prominent. It is usually a lighter grey and much less red. I would say your vendor has the tail end of a vein. Try another source. It is really a beautiful stone and I have specked it for several clients over the years.

  7. Christen says

    I had the same problem and ended up having to go with Corian (we did Silver Birch color). I thought I would hate it too but I surprisingly LOVE it! The “dull” look that I thought I would hate actually hides dirt/fingerprints, it cleans up beautifully and I love having the “white” look without all the maintenance.

  8. Anonymous says

    I would recommend anything but the Corian. I used to work for a national homebuilder and we opted to not put it in model homes because it scratched so easily. Remember, these are model homes – not ones actually being used for cooking and life. Yes, you can buff out the scratches, but who is going to have that done regularly?

  9. Brooke says

    Holy Moley! This could not be a more appropriate post for me to respond to! My husband and I moved into our new build about 4 weeks ago. I will start off by saying that I dealt with a stone dealer who was both condescending and uncooperative, so I very much hope that you are having a better experience. Secondly, my sister is an interior designer and she had recently built a house where she used a carerra look alike granite in her daughter’s bathroom. It couldn’t look MORE similar. So I knew that it was out there and could be found…could be used. Well, here’s where the condescension began. The stone guy told me that THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE! That this product did and does not exist. Anyway. I felt the caesar stone was not “authentic” looking enough for me when I checked it out. Out of all of your options I liked the Bianca the best. There is a VERY carerraesque option that I found through a blog via pinterest that was available out of TN. It was called Bianca Miramar and was a granite. I was looking for this for my master bath, and in the end I went with legit carerra. It wasn’t crazy expensive – $26/sq foot for material – and it looks amazing, but I am still not convinced that the other doesn’t exist.
    As far as one of your other choices, I went with the River White granite in my kitchen for my countertops and island. I have a 12 foot by 4 foot island, then some ancillary countertops which I paired with a light travertine cut and laid in a herringbone pattern. It is AWESOME! I will say this…the River White is much grayer than I expected and the brown/red that you think will really come out doesn’t…it is more brown for sure. However, I have navy blue cabinets in on my island, so it may just be the blue that is picked up and when you have red cabs, that coppery color might pop out…but I get a TON of compliments on it, and I think it is very pretty without being “too much”. I am VERY plain…VERY VERY plain. I will try and get a pic up on my blog to show. Any other questions, you have I would be happy to answer!

  11. Brittany Smith says

    I really love the choices here! I would choose Cambria. Now I will say, we have granite and it’s been great! I love the last photo of the granite, if you do go that route. It’s so easy to clean, looks new all the time. I don’t know a whole lot about counter tops but those are my two choices!

  12. Annie P says

    We have Silestone in our kitchen and LOVE it! I don’t know what the pricing is like (it was here when we bought the house – lucky us). I seriously cannot say enough good things about it – no staining, hot stuff can be set directly on it, more sanitary than granite, wears well. I would recommend it to anyone!

    http://www.silestoneusa.com

  13. Anonymous says

    Pental Chroma quartz has a countertop material called Lattice…….suppose to look like Calacatta marble…..

  14. kurban ali says

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  18. Universal Stone says

    All options are lovely. That’s the beauty of stone though. There are so many varieties of colors and patterns to choose from that it’s hard to narrow down which one will look the best!

  19. Bardon Smith says

    My kitchen cabinets are a bright, pure white. I wanted Vermont Danby Imperial marble because I want a very subtle, relaxed, airy look, not busy. However, in the samples of this marble I received, it seems to have yellow undertones….creamy white…. and when I hold it against the cabinets, it looks dingy and almost a dirty yellow! So, now I do not know if all Vermont Danby Imperial marble will have this yellow undertone, and not look good with my cabinets! Should I start looking at carrara instead? Help! I really love the softer veining in the Imperial Danby, and hope I can find a carrara with the same look!

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