Granite Color Advice: Dark or Neutral Granite?
Hi Tom
We are putting white kraftmaid cabinets in our kitchen. Our floors are maple and all of our appliances will be stainless. Our walls in the surrounding room are a gold color but we can do something different in kitchen area. I’m torn between going (granite) dark with butterfly verde w/wihite, uba tuba, or peacock verde versus going lighter more neutral with something like new venetian or something of that flavor.
Thoughts?
Thank you,
Krista
Hello Krista,
The white cabinets with the maple floors allow you to go with a complimentary light color. However, the stainless really limits the light granite colors that you should consider. The only one that I would recommend is Giallo Ornamental because of it yellow/cream background and silver fleck that will compliment the stainless fixtures.
Still, go dark! Unless your kitchen is very small, you have opened the room enough with the white cabinets to go with dark granite and that will compliment the stainless best. I really suggest a dark green as you mentioned, but now, which green?
In a subsequent email you mentioned Verde Jewel Granite. Unfortunately, suppliers do change names a lot so what I am about to say, needs to be investigated further by you. First of all, be absolutely sure where it comes from. The Verde Jewel granite that I am familiar with is from India and is sometimes called Verde Hawaiian or Verde Esmeralda. This granite is what I call, “A bad stone”. This granite as low flexural strength, meaning the quartz structure is loosely bonded and inherently fractures with very little stress. This granite is a fabricators nemesis because is it beautiful, inexpensive, but deceiving durable prior to installation.
This is a ‘finger-pointing’ stone because the granite provider will honestly believe that the fractures you find in the finished countertop were there prior to fabrication. In other words, when you approved the slabs, you must have seen them. For this reason, I hate this granite.
Very similar granites from Brazil are Verde San Francisco or Candais Green. I suppose Verde Jewel (India) came into the market because it is slightly lower cost that the Brazilian ‘better’ alternative. You can see the Brazilian granites on www.HomeGranite.com or www.GraniteStock.com.
If you simply must have the Verde Jewel, then carefully follow the Home Owner’s Checklist when you select the slabs. My very best wishes to you and thank you for donation to World Vision,
Tom
March 4th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Hi Tom,
We are having our cabinets and an island done in cherrywood with a medium dark brown stain. The ceiling was removed and will now angle from a 10 ft ceiling to a 16 ft to open up the kitchen. The windows are on the eastern side. The center window is elevated about 6″ and the area extends out 1 1/2 ft , like a garden window.
We have stainless appliances and haven’t decided on a black granite-like sink or stainless. Faucet is brushed stainless (Grohe).
We decided on Kokiak granite. The decision is on the differences this granite can have. We have 2 slabs on hold that is more cream and somewhat uniform. We also have 3 slabs of another Koliak on hold that has alot of movement …. large area of quartz, iron oxide and black etchings and the background color is more….pale salmon?
My question is, will this be too busy?
The contractor wants to use tumbled limestone tiles in a diamond pattern as a backsplash up to the bottom of the cabinets. I feel it may be too busy with the granite that has movement, but would look nice if we choose the slabs that are creamy in color. But my husband really likes the one with the movement and thinks we should use it as the backplash also. I prefer to have a matte, like the limestone, as a backplash but need to know if this wiould look good. I have no idea what nuetral color, grout and the design placement of the tiles.
I hope you can help because I’m pretty sure were leaning toward getting the Kodiak with the movemnt.
Thank you for any suggestion.
Paula
I forgot to mention that the contractor wants to put the granite in that garden window area.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Hi Tom-
We are torn between a couple different choices of granite. Our kitchen is a medium sized L shape, gets a decent amount of light and is open to the living room, which makes it feel bigger. Our cabinets are a dark brown stained oak with grain in them. Stainless steel appliances and cherry butcher block on the island. Our light choices are venetian gold, Santa Cecelia dark, or Crema Brazil. Our darker choices are Andes black, Verde butterfly, or Ubatuba gold. I always tend to be drawn to the darker colors, and may have already picked the verde butterfly if i weren’t so afraid to stray from the normal range of browns and blacks. Does this look glaringly green when on the counters? Any help would be great!! Thanks!
Sarah