On the Cutting Edge
| By Kate Madden Yee

Choose from traditional materials or unusual eco-friendly options for a countertop that blends beauty and function.

Memories of the kitchen of my childhood home in San Jose conjure up a charming breakfast nook and warm, mellow sunlight streaming all day through a bank of south-facing windows. Ask my mother about this same kitchen, and she’ll gripe about its disjointed, early-1900s design and the single long Formica counter shadowed by bulky cabinets.
And who could blame her? Kitchens in the late 1800s and early 1900s might feature small, piecemeal workspaces over here, the stove over there, and refrigerator away over in the corner. A cook had to do the rounds like a host at a party of wallflowers. As Linda Svendsen and Jane Powell write in their book Bungalow Kitchens (Gibbs Smith, 2000), it was when Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s 1915 time-and-motion task studies trickled down into the culture that architects developed the continuous countertop, standardized cabinet heights and depths, and the idea of a work triangle that is still used today.
Continuous kitchen countertops made food preparation easier and changed the whole nature of how kitchens are used. Nowadays, people use the countertop for eating, doing homework, paying bills, playing family games, and entertaining. It’s no wonder that a kitchen remodel can feel like a heart transplant—and demands much consideration for the countertops.
Today new materials such as glass, ceramic cement, and even paper join newly styled but tried-and-true stone, ceramic tile, wood, concrete, and stainless steel. Whether your home’s kitchen is a crowded scene or a quiet reserve, the counters set the tone.
Counter Intuitive
“ Consumers are finding that ecological options for the home can be beautiful and affordable,” says Taja di Leonardi, managing partner of Ecohome Improvement, the business she opened this past November that offers environmentally friendly paint, flooring, kitchen cabinetry, and countertops. “There’s been a fusion of quality, price, and style for environmentally-friendly home improvement products. Our clients are discovering that they can purchase materials that match their values.”
Ecohome is the source for four new, unusual counter materials. PaperStone has the look of soapstone or slate, but the feel of wood. PaperStone is made from 100 percent post-consumer, recycled, 100-pound paper compressed with heat, water-based resins, and pigment. It’s stain-resistant and heat-safe up to 350 degrees, and it comes in seven colors, including Slate Black, Leather Brown, Mocha Brown, Denim Blue, and Forest Green. PaperStone is cut in slabs of several different sizes. Another new paper-based material is Eco-CEM, made of Portland cement, fly ash, and recycled paper, and comes in tiles or slabs in six colors.
Customers often ask about the durability of a paper-based material. After all, who would imagine chopping nuts on a surface made of crushed paper cups? But this is no soft, squishy surface.
“ Although no countertop is immune to staining or scratching, these products aren’t any more susceptible to damage than traditional countertop options,” di Leonardi says. Both PaperStone and Eco-CEM can be easily resurfaced with wax and a scrubber sponge pad.
Not only is the material in ceramic cement Lithistone eco-friendly (a mixture of recycled glass and fly ash, natural minerals, and stone), it requires fewer resources to process than conventional Portland cement, does not off-gas, and is colored with organic, colorfast pigments. Its look tends to be smooth and even, like stained concrete, but some colors contain speckles that add interest. Custom-made for Ecohome Improvement, Lithistone comes in tiles and slabs that can be seamed or grouted and they also offer integral sinks for a seamless look.
Recycled glass counters, a current trend, have a marble-like feel and a mosaic look made from cement and 85 percent recycled glass diverted from landfills: old traffic lights, curbside recycling, and factory scraps. Ecohome’s source, Eco-TERR, offers color combinations ranging from spunky to sedate. The look is striking: Some consumers use it as an accent material in a larger design plan.

Corner Stone
For some, the idea of bringing natural materials into the home carries special power. “You bring a million years of nature’s work into your house,” says Dilmohan Chadha, owner with his wife, Ameeta, of Integrated Resources Group, a natural stone import business. “Man-made materials may be practically maintenance-free, but the natural beauty of stone overtakes all other issues.”
Granite, an igneous rock, is formed by the solidification of molten material such as lava or magma, and is rich in feldspar and quartz. It’s quarried in large blocks, but the stone is so hard that it takes five to six days of constant cutting to slice the blocks into 30 to 40 slabs.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock, formed in layers at the Earth’s surface underwater as microscopic organisms build shells out of dissolved calcium carbonate or silica, die, and shed their shells to the sea floor, producing interesting slabs embedded with fossils. Marble is a metamorphic rock, and develops when limestone is subjected to heat, pressure, or strain.
The Chadhas import slabs of granite, marble, and limestone from around the world, but particularly Italy, Brazil, India, Spain, Israel, and Turkey. In their Brisbane warehouse, more than 10,000 slabs are stacked on A-frames for clients’ perusal. It’s a dizzying array of nature’s handiwork.
On one piece of Brazilian granite called Ironwood, dusty red swirls with gray and black; Australian granite, called Canberra, features rivulets of black stone coursing through eddies of apple green and terra cotta; Jerusalem Gold limestone from Israel blends creamy ivory and peach tones; and Italian Crema Valencia marble melds honey-colored stone with dusty red and ocher veins.
At import businesses like Integrated Resources, customers can handpick their slab of stone themselves. The piece is delivered to a fabricator, who creates a template, then cuts the selected material to specifications; a good fabricator makes sure to make tight seams and match the grain of the stone. Most fabricators also do the installation, Chadha says.
Common finishing choices are polished (smooth and glossy) or honed (also called matte, which is a satiny but not reflective finish). Customers can also pick from a range of edge treatments, such as square, bull-nosed, ogee, and sandwich; they can also design a particular edge themselves.
Stone tiles are a good alternative for those who love the look, but not the price, of slab fabrication and installation. Jon Boshard, owner of Italics in Emeryville and San Rafael, offers “minislabs” of Italian and Turkish travertine, limestone, and marble.
Stone-synthetic composites are also available, made of about 90 percent quartz particles and 10 percent acrylic or epoxy binder. Since they are man-made, composites don’t have the unexpected variation that occurs in real stone, but they are tough and durable. Silestone, Okite, CaesarStone, and DuPont all offer continuous countertops made of composite stone. Like pure stone counters, composite stone is cut to shape with a template and installed.
Choosing stone for a countertop does require a commitment to maintenance: All of them can be stained or etched to varying degrees by acids like lemon juice or wine, and can also be scratched. Limestone and marble are heavy in calcites, so they are more vulnerable to damage than granite, and need to be cared for. But the power that stone exerts in the aesthetic imagination can’t be underestimated, and for those who want it for their kitchens, a bit of maintenance doesn’t dissuade them.
“ The beauty of having natural material like stone in your home is how the marks and scratches of daily life are added to its million-year history,” Boshard says.
Counter Mix
Classic, charming, and traditional to much East Bay architecture, ceramic tile has also benefited from time and technology. Concerns about keeping grout sanitary have given tile a bad rap. But industry-wide improvements in grout technology, sealing, and maintenance products have minimized those problems, says Boshard. Also, tiles are no longer just one- and two-inch squares with lots of grout lines. They come in larger sizes—up to two-foot squares.
Ceramic tiles that simulate stone or concrete have a more sophisticated look than in the past, as vendors have developed a new kind of silk-screening process that makes pattern repeats difficult to see. Ceramic tile also takes heat well, requires little maintenance, is one of the least expensive options available, and can be arranged in creative color combinations and designs.
Concrete, a popular material for the past five years, can be stained almost any color and offers the possibility of incorporating other distinctive touches, like mementos, tiles, or even fossils. The concrete can be poured off-site and installed in large sections, requiring seams, or poured in-place for a contiguous look. If your contractor does the latter, make sure he or she protects the cabinetry so it doesn’t get covered in concrete too.
Concrete can require waxing and can crack, though the cracks are usually superficial and do not undermine the structure.
Wood countertops are reentering design consciousness, going beyond butcher-block styling. Wood counters range in type, color, and hardness, and are maintained with vegetable oil and wood soap. Oakland-based Capstone Cabinetry and Design offers countertops by Spekva, a Danish company that makes counters out of an astounding array of sustainable hardwoods, including, elm, bubinga, teak, sipo mahogany, iroko, and jatoba as well as the more traditional oak, maple, and three types of cherry.
“ We’ve seen a renewal of interest in wood countertops,” says Sherri Buffa, owner of Capstone. “It has a natural antibacterial quality that works well in a kitchen, and can be sanded down when necessary to remove the signs of use.”
Stainless steel is also incredibly durable, and creates a particularly sleek, contemporary look in a kitchen; its cons are that it’s costly and it scratches easily. Some consumers like to combine wood and stainless steel together (such as a stainless steel backsplash behind the stove or a section of wood counter adjacent to the sink where chopping is likely to take place) for a look that is both warm and modern.
Counter Balance
A prominent kitchen trend, according to Buffa, is a contemporary look characterized by flat cabinet doors with dark or opaque stains that still allow the grain to show through. Countertop styling emphasizes clean lines, with under-mount sinks so that the counter surface is smooth, rather than interrupted by a lip around the sink area.
The backsplash offers a way to play with color and design, finding ways to complement the countertop and experiment with texture, finish, and movement. Backsplashes can be made of the same material as the countertop or a contrasting color or material for dramatic interest. Some creative backsplash ideas use varying sizes of tiles to create patterns or mosaic pictures, or tiles made of unusual materials, like translucent glass, crushed glass in concrete, or metal.
No matter what kind of material you choose, countertop options today allow for plenty of creative license, whether you’re rehabilitating an old Craftsman kitchen to its original form or designing an ultra-modern workspace. Perhaps memories of childhood kitchens, like my sun-filled space in San Jose, will inform your design choices so that in the end, the kitchen of your dreams will be a counterpart to your lifestyle.
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Kate Madden Yee is an East Bay freelance writer.

Counter Calculations
The following offers general price ranges on different countertop materials. As used here, square foot is a two-dimensional equation of width multiplied by length. A linear foot is a single dimensional measurement of length. Unless specified, the following prices do not include installation.
NEW MATERIALS
PaperStone: $30 to $60 per square foot
Eco-CEM: tiles, $15 to $20 per square foot; slabs, $50 to $70 per square foot
Lithistone: 24-inch tiles, $60 per square foot; slabs, $100 per square foot; inclusions can be incorporated for an additional price
Eco-TERR: $15 to $20 per square foot
NATURAL STONE SLABS
Granite: $10 to $150 per square foot
Limestone: $10 to $15 per square foot
Marble: $10 to $50 per square foot
STONE TILES
Average price per square foot is $4.50 to $10.
Minislabs, cut 24 by 28 inches, cost approximately $100 to $180 apiece.
STONE-SYNTHETIC COMPOSITE
Ranges from $110 to $250 per linear foot, including installation.
CERAMIC TILE
Average price per square foot is $3 to $6, making it
one of the least expensive options available.
CONCRETE
Concrete: ranges from $100 to $300 per square foot.
NeoMix: a DIY countertop mix from Cheng Design costs from $50 to $110 to cover three cubic square feet (www.concreteexchange.com).
WOOD
Ranges from $150 to $175 per linear foot, including backsplash and front edge.
STAINLESS STEEL
Approximately $250 per linear foot
Approximately $300 per linear foot for textured stainless steelResources

Artistic Stone, 2973 Teagarden Street, San Leandro, (510) 483-1298; www.artistic-stones.com. Manufactures, imports, and retails prefabricated granite products at lowest prices.

Baker Marble and Granite Company, 2430 Union Street, Oakland, (510) 444-3005; www.bakermarble.com. Fabrication and installation of kitchen, bar, and bath counters, and any custom manufactured natural stone product.

Capstone Cabinetry & Design, 6522 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, (510) 654-0661; www.capstonecabinetry.com. Custom cabinetry for kitchens, baths, and all other areas of the home. Also shows a wide array of countertops, including the new composite stone.

Cheng Design, 2808 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-3272; www.chengdesign.com. Contemporary kitchen and bath design, as well as custom concrete counters and a DIY concrete product called NeoMix.

Custom Spaces, 1603 Solano Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 526-7333; www.customspaces.net. Newly relocated from Seventh Street to Solano Avenue, featuring fine cabinetry, countertops, fixtures, and hardware.

Daltile, 2303 Merced Street, San Leandro, (510) 357-6197; www.daltile.com. Natural stone tile and slabs.

Diamond Bullnosing Co., 1950 Olivera Road, Suite B, Concord, (925) 685-7100; www.4stone.com. Fabrication and installation of natural stone countertops, fireplaces, showers, tubs, and tabletops.

Ecohome Improvement, 2619 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 644-3500; www.ecohomeimprovement.com. Ecological and healthy home products, including paint, flooring, kitchen cabinetry, and countertops; also offers color consulting, color matching, and kitchen design.

General Appliance and Kitchens, 2524 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 549-0800; www.generalapplianceofberkeley.com. Offers granite, stone, Corian, and Abonite countertops, cabinetry, and many appliances.

Import Tile Company, 611 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 843-5959; www.importtile.com. Offers porcelain and natural stone tiles imported from around the world, and prefabricated, bullnosed, 99" x 26" granite and marble slabs in a variety of colors.

Integrated Resources Group, 275 Valley Drive, Brisbane, (415) 657-0280; second showroom at 6800 A Sierra Court, Dublin, (925) 829-1133; www.marblecompany.com. Stone boutique with unusual and hard-to-find selections in marble, granite, limestone, and slate from Spain, Brazil, Italy, India, Egypt, and Israel.

Italics, 6598 Hollis Street, Emeryville; (510) 547-1872; 650 Irwin Street, San Rafael, (415) 451-6150; www.italics-stone.com. Ceramic tile, natural stone, glass, and metal tile showroom.

J.B. Turner & Sons, 3911 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, (510) 658-3441. A full-service design/build firm and kitchen and bath showroom.

Kitchens Italia, 63 Lafayette Circle, Lafayette, (925) 284-1578. Kitchen design, Italian cabinetry, and counter options including CaesarStone, quartz, Formica, and stainless steel.

Tileshop, 1005 Harrison Street, Berkeley, (510) 525-4312; www.tile-shop.com. Carries ceramic, porcelain, stone, and marble tile, metal borders, decorative relief molding, and glass mosaic tile.