Types of Kitchen Countertops: Every Material You Can Buy in Ontario, What It Costs and How It Behaves

The table

The same numbers, with the extras (sink cut-outs, edges, removal) that sit on top of them, are on the countertop cost guide, and the calculator prices your kitchen in any of them.

What each one is like to own

Laminate. A printed paper-and-resin sheet glued to particleboard. The modern ones with a printed stone pattern and a square edge look better than they have any right to, and a laminate top is $2,000 to $3,500 installed for a whole kitchen. It will not take a hot pan or a knife and the seam at an inside corner is a seam. Water in the seam swells the particleboard. The right counter for a rental, a flip, a cottage, or a kitchen that is getting a quartz top in five years. The full case is on laminate vs. quartz.

Butcher block. Strips of maple, oak, walnut or birch glued into a slab. Warm, quiet, forgiving of dropped glasses, and it wants oiling every month at first and every few months after. Around the sink it needs either a varnish finish or a lot of discipline, because standing water turns it black. Most people who have it have it on an island only. Knife marks sand out; that is the point of it.

Solid surface. Acrylic or polyester resin with mineral filler: Corian, HI-MACS, Staron. Seamless, with the sink moulded in if you like, and scratches and burns sand and buff out. It has been out of fashion since quartz arrived, which is why it is now the quiet bargain of the list for a seamless white top. Not for hot pans.

Quartz. Ground quartz and resin, pressed into a slab. The default in Ontario now: no sealing, non-porous, any pattern, consistent. Heat is its weakness (trivets) and sunlight yellows it. Its own page: quartz countertop cost.

Granite. The natural stone that quartz replaced, and still the value buy in natural stone. Takes heat, takes knives, needs sealing once in a while, and every slab is different. Entry granite is cheaper than entry quartz. Patterns run from plain black to a busy brown speckle that dates a kitchen; the plain ones (Absolute Black, a honed grey) do not. Quartz vs. granite is the long version.

Quartzite. A natural stone harder than granite that looks like marble. Takes heat, resists knives, needs sealing, and costs more than anything else in natural stone because it is hard to cut. Some of what is sold under the name is marble; the knife-and-vinegar test on the quartz vs. quartzite page tells you.

Marble. Beautiful, soft, and it etches: lemon juice, vinegar, wine, tomato sauce leave a dull spot in the polish in minutes. Honed marble hides the etching; polished shows every one. The people who love marble counters have made peace with a counter that records their cooking. Everyone else should buy a marble-look quartz or quartzite. Carrara is the cheap one; Calacatta and Statuario are the expensive ones.

Soapstone. A soft grey-to-black stone that is non-porous, takes heat better than anything, and scratches easily, but the scratches oil out with mineral oil. It darkens with oiling to a near-black with white veins. Quarried in Quebec and Vermont, so it is a local stone, and it suits an old farmhouse or a cottage kitchen in a way nothing else does. Not for someone who wants a counter to look the same in ten years as it does today.

Porcelain and sintered stone. Dekton, Neolith, Laminam, Sapienstone: large-format porcelain or sintered slabs, 12 or 20 mm, that take heat, knives, UV, and anything you spill. The hardest-wearing surface on the list. The catches: it is brittle at the edges, it chips if a cast-iron pan lands on a corner, fabrication is specialist and the pattern is printed on the surface so a mitred edge shows a plain core. Also the most expensive quote to get wrong, so use a fabricator who has done ten of them.

Concrete. Poured in a mould and polished, or poured in place. Any shape, any colour, integral sinks and drainboards. It cracks in hairlines (that is concrete), it needs sealing, it stains if the sealer is let go, and the finished weight needs the cabinets to be ready for it. Made by a specialist, not a countertop shop, and the price is in the labour.

Stainless steel. The restaurant counter. Takes anything, scratches into a brushed patina within a year, shows water spots, is loud, and is cold to touch. In a home kitchen it is usually one run beside the range with something warmer elsewhere. Made by a sheet-metal shop, welded and polished, with the sink in one piece if you like.

Picking one in three questions

1. Do you put hot pans down where they land? Yes: granite, quartzite, soapstone, porcelain, stainless. No, and you own trivets: anything.
2. Will anyone seal or oil it? No: quartz, porcelain, solid surface, laminate, stainless. Yes, once a year: granite, quartzite, concrete. Yes, monthly: wood, soapstone, marble.
3. What is the budget for 60 square feet, installed? Under $3,500: laminate. $4,500 to $8,000: butcher block, solid surface, quartz, granite. $8,000 to $12,000: quartzite, marble, soapstone, porcelain, concrete, stainless. The calculator does the arithmetic.

Mixing two

A lot of good kitchens use two materials: quartz on the perimeter and wood or quartzite on the island, or stainless beside the range and quartz elsewhere. It puts the expensive or the fussy surface where it is seen or needed and the easy one where the dishes get done. Most fabricators will do a split without complaint; the wood or steel comes from a different shop and they coordinate on the template day.