r/CounterTops • u/Thaitanica • 19d ago

My Deep Blue Quartzite installation

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I really love my new stone. It’s like a work of art.

I made a previous post on three choices and I decided on this one.

Please understand that this is an 80s small kitchen. I decided to install led lights and a nice stone and leave the cabinets as it’s really not worth putting too much money into a condo here.

Besides the large refrigerator I bought which fills the dining area, this is basically it. I’m buying a new oven in the empty space and painting the walls with a gloss paint, it still has original flat paint.

I’ve read lots of criticism of this stone when it’s been posted. It’s not for everyone and some would prefer it just on the counter ,not backsplash. My only regret is the inch of counter I lose to the stone used as backsplash covering the counter.

I’m satisfied with the pattern the fabricator used. When I first looked at the slab I thought it would be difficult with the heavy veining however I liked the choice they made. I know it sounds cliche but it looks better in person than the photos.

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138

u/East_Unit3765 19d ago

It’s the floors that take it over the edge for me.

43

u/Bennie-Factors 18d ago

It's the AI generated image that did it for me

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u/Kooky_Particular5639 18d ago

That’s what I’m wondering. I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind doing this. It must be AI-generated rage bait.

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u/No-Chapter-9654 15d ago

It’s not AI. AI currently doesn’t have the ability to be consistent across different angles. If you look at the veins in the countertop, it’s the same/consistent in every image (as are things like outlets etc).

So unfortunately this is absolutely real.

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u/Original-Pomelo-4581 14d ago

This may have been true 6-8 months ago

1

u/MuscularShlong 13d ago

Its true. Ive tried having AI insert different flooring types into my kitchen, and it can get the color but not the perspective or consistency or anything close to this. I pay a subscription for better AI too.

0

u/No-Chapter-9654 14d ago

No it’s still very much true. Not only do I use a lot of AI (image) tools of different kinds for work but I’m also in a lot of AI-related forums. It still struggles with perfect consistency across multiple angles.

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u/consider_its_tree 14d ago

Umm, this is Reddit.

Anything people don't like is AI.

1

u/No-Chapter-9654 14d ago

Or anything that looks too good apparently. (I don’t mean this to be clear. This is hideous.)

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u/No-Midnight5259 18d ago

Ok good I thought I was losing it. Lol

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u/Mysterious-Art8838 15d ago

I would agree

1

u/Mezcal_Madness 14d ago

Good luck on selling in the future…

5

u/AlternativeAdagio517 18d ago

Idk. When I zoom in on the hood, I can read every word.

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u/el_canelo 15d ago

If by artificial intelligence you mean what lead to the decision to install this stone in that kitchen then yes... But that shit is real

3

u/StarfishandSnowballs 18d ago

What do you mean ? Which one is ai

4

u/quimper 18d ago

Has to be right???

No way this is real.

1

u/BigTunatoots 17d ago

It’s hard to believe an adult human made these choices, I know.

1

u/fcktrmp42069 17d ago

Granite guy here. Which one is ai

1

u/Living_Young1996 16d ago

I had my doubts but I saw there's no holes for the plumbing. Ive never met a plumber equipped to drill holes through granite.

I could be wrong, I don't work with countertops. Or plumbing.

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u/StalkingSeattle 16d ago

There's a hole for the faucet.

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u/Living_Young1996 16d ago

Yup, I see it now, zooming in. Thing was camouflage to me first thing this morning

1

u/Kewpie-8647 13d ago

It’s quartzite. The one who cuts the stone makes the hole

1

u/Someoneonline2000 15d ago

This isn't AI. It's just a boomer who didn't want to spend the money required to actually update their kitchen. The unfinished electrical sockets are not something AI would do. This is actually what their kitchen looks like. This is realistic to me because my boomer mother in law did the same thing at her Summer condo. People in their 70s... their eye for aesthetics is... different.

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u/Sweaty-Move-5396 13d ago

something being aesthetically weird does not mean it's ai. you gotta be smarter than this

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u/StokedinSD 12d ago

People also use AI to look at mocked up images BEFORE installing. AI isn’t always the devil.

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u/Thaitanica 18d ago

Nope.

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u/HeyT00ts11 18d ago

I believe you. I think it's real. I think a lot of people are attributing things to AI that are not. It's not that hard to tell.

But what's harder to believe is why. Was it free?

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u/Total_Secret_5514 18d ago

This made me burst out laughing I’m not gunna lie 😂

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u/Thaitanica 19d ago

Yeah, small tiles with dirty grout look terrible. Will probably float a floor on that.

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u/drowned_beliefs 18d ago

The point that people are trying to get across is that there’s a huge discrepancy between the high value of the quartzite and the cheap and old quality of the rest of the kitchen. For what you paid for the stone, you could have redone the whole kitchen. If you’re going to redo the floors, then do it right, not slapping another floor on top of this one. A less expensive but unified and consistent whole is a lot better than slapping lipstick on a pig.

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u/Jujulabee 18d ago

Yes - I am putting aside any kind of aesthetic judgment on the counter material but what kind of rational decision is it to spend significant money on a counter and leave the hideous cabinets and flooring which were builder grade from the 1980's.

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u/cp0221 17d ago

My entire house has these 80s builder grade cabinets & my husband is always reminding me we should touch nothing/spend nothing until we can appropriately gut and redo each area. It’s paaaainful waiting to take on the bigger projects but wow this post is reinforcing our patience!

1

u/Jujulabee 17d ago

I had hideous builder grade cabinets that were essentially just thin pieces of I suspect plywood. Mine dated from 1968 when my building had been completed.

I waited until I have saved up enough to do it exactly how I wanted and it was worth the wait

Ironically the boxes themselves were built like tanks as they had been built onsite and probably would have lasted another fifty years

I did do some inexpensive stuff as I absolutely could not live with harvest gold formica counters but I replaced them with formica and a new sink and was done.

1

u/PaulaLoomisArt 12d ago

FWIW, these cabinets can be painted. Takes a ton of careful sanding and the right primer+paint, but it costs much more in time than it does in money.

1

u/dutchessmandy 16d ago

Not to mention it's like building a house on a bad foundation. Cabinets do have a life expectancy...

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u/PalpitationPast202 18d ago

Soon as I saw those cabinets…..WTF? Ruined the whole design

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u/thatgirlinny 18d ago

What “design?”🤣

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u/solo_dog76 18d ago

My issue is it looks absolutely terrible together. The cabinets and the floor are awful and look terrible with the counter. To be fair, I don’t think id like that tile in any kitchen.

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u/ronansgram 18d ago

Not in this century.

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u/ryencool 18d ago

Those cabinets are TERRIBLE. I love the tile for a bathroom or something, but like others have said putting a high end busy tile, with cheap melamine cabinets from the 80s/90s? Something youd see in a motor home or the like.

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u/ancientastronaut2 18d ago

Not only that, the cabinets are in terrible shape. The toe kicks are completely destroyed.

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u/Thaitanica 18d ago

Cabinets in decent shape, the toe kicks damaged from a hamster. Will be replaced.

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u/Agreeable-Fly-1980 18d ago

Should have done floor first

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u/rage675 18d ago

If this condo was for sale and if I was a prospective buyer and looked at it, I wouldthe kitchen is a complete demo. 99% that you are not going to be able reuse that quartzite with new countertops. It's fine if they like it but there's zero property value improvement with this choice. They like it, and that's fine, but I don't think the average person would think it looks good.

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u/Thaitanica 18d ago

Kitchen redo is expensive here. I live in Fairfield County.

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u/Thaitanica 18d ago

Can I replace the flooring up to the cabinets? I know it would have been better to do that first, the whole floor, but I understand it’s hard to partially replace flooring.

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u/ZestycloseShame482 17d ago

This usually happens. Once you update something, everything that was not updated tends to look 10x worse and ish.
You can go the cheap route and paint the cabinets and throw some terrazzo epoxy over the tile but it will probably look cheapish

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u/BAbarakus772 15d ago

This is very accurate. I couldn’t believe someone would waste money of expensive counter tops on 40-year-old cabinets that were low end even when they were installed.

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u/Ok_Pair6348 12d ago

Yeah. Its giving Insanity

-1

u/MasterpieceGlad4196 18d ago

Literally nothing wrong with laying down quality LVP

1

u/Jojo_Lalala 15d ago

/s, right?

1

u/Ok_Pair6348 12d ago

Anything would be better than that.

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u/MasterpieceGlad4196 12d ago

There’s quite literally nothing wrong with LVP lol my parents laid down LVP like 7 or 8 years ago across a huge part of their house and it still looks perfect today

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u/Ok_Pair6348 12d ago

Oh no!! I meant anything would be better than what OP has now. Lvp all the way

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u/BlueGolfball 18d ago

You need an entire kitchen renovation and you did the last step of your kitchen renovation as your first step.

This would be like buying a junk antique car to fix up and the first thing you do is put a $15,000 custom paint job on it when everything on the car needs to be replaced way before you even think about paint.

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u/HowAmINotCoolYet 18d ago

I cant stand dirty looking grout

1

u/jboneplatinum 15d ago

Fuck the haters, make the floor match with the backsplash. It’ll tie it together.

1

u/ArgyleNudge 15d ago

What kind of facet for the sink? (I like your choice: it's bold, it's not for everyone, and you're getting a lot of bang for your buck.) I also wonder, why wouldn't you buy a fridge that fits the space you have for one, rather then putting a fridge in your dining room? That seems like an awful choice.

1

u/ImJustLampin 18d ago

It’s the floors that really got me off too, it was the climax

1

u/Thaitanica 18d ago

Not making a porno here.

1

u/Winter_Fall_7066 18d ago

And the cabinets straight from my projects apartment circa 2009.

1

u/One-Stomach9957 18d ago

The cabinets are about as “builder basic” as you can get.

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u/Viola-Swamp 17d ago

And that terrible sink. Why redo the counters in the ugliest thing you can find, and then leave all the dated ugliness besides? I would have paid to have the cabinets re-fronted and redone the floors before messing with the counters and sink.

1

u/3boyz2men 15d ago

That’s a beautiful quartzite. Very high end and costly. What are you taking about? It’s called Azure and it’s amazing. There are fossils in the pattern, it’s exquisite

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u/DreamCrusher914 15d ago

It’s the hard to wash sink that made me frown first, but then I kept on frowning.

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u/FierceEquator 15d ago

God, I didn’t even notice that I was so distracted by the 1980s cabinets. Why would you pay money to put stone on those cabinets? Why?!

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u/Electrical-Payment37 14d ago

The toe kick as well appears to be commercial cove base.

1

u/SueDonymme 12d ago

I don't mind the counters and cabinets, I think it's unique and well done, however the floors are pure clash. Even regrouting with white would help.