Dishwashers, and sorry, Squak
Posted by K Sun, 21 May 2006 21:39:00 GMT
The excitement in these parts lately is packing. Also, buying dishwashers and, as featured on the To Do List, agonizing over countertops.
Earlier this week, when the nice people at Squak told me that shipping the slabs from Washington state to DC would cost me almost a thousand dollars (which, combined with the actual cost of the slabs would have brought the cost of raw materials to over $2500), I realized that Squak was going to be a no go. If we were moving to Seattle, just maybe, but not in this case.
So countertop-wise I guess we are now between:
Corian: The pros of this are that it is easy enough to maintain and we have it in our house here and it is fine. The cons are that it isn’t very exciting, looks kind of fake, I don’t love any of the colors, and it isn’t going to be cheap. For the price we will end up paying for Corian I would like to be a little tiny bit excited about it.
Soapstone: The pros are it is kind of goregous and looks like a science lab worktop. The cons are it might be too expensive in the long run for us, I can’t figure out who/how to get it installed in DC, and you have to oil it (well, you don’t have to, but it looks best oiled, I think). It’s not all fakey-rich like granite but still looks like natural stone.
It turns out there is a soapstone place down the street from us so we stopped there yesterday to look at some and got a sample and I have been playing My Little Soapstone with it and oiling it and taking care of it to see how I feel about it. It’s pretty nice, so far.
Wood: I don’t know how I really feel about wood but am throwing this in there because maybe we could do a soapstone island and then wood countertops on the wall counters to break things up and also make things more affordable. I am definitely not going to put wood around the sink, since that is just asking for trouble. Pros are it is warm and soft and can look nice. Cons are it is soft, can get stained/burned/scorched/cut easily (not that I would ever cut right on a wood countertop), and I worry about it clashing with the wood cabinets.
Concrete is almost in the running but I think will be too expensive to do. I don’t know. Still wondering about it.
Packing has continued this weekend, interspersed with some TV watching and dishwasher buying. Dishwasher buying was surprising since I was sure we would be getting a Bosch but when we looked at the actual dishwashers we ended up with a Kenmore (rated the same as the Bosch by Consumer Reports, so no harm there). We kind of decided that for the price we wanted to pay a stainless steel tub was less important than things that would make loading easier/better/more efficient, like a movable top rack and fold-down tines and a goofy modular silverware basket that can be taken apart. Consumer Reports says that a plastic tub is fine and will probably last longer than the actual dishwasher anyway, so whatever there. The one we got actually scored higher than the Bosch for ease of use and convenience. And Greener Choices tells us that the Kenmore uses less water per cycle than the Bosch.
We also looked at refrigerators and stoves while we were out and about, but can’t afford to replace them yet. We will see. I think I know what stove to get but the fridge remains a mystery as of yet. I just know when I look at/touch/use them that I like or don’t like how they are set up.
