You know all those design shows that feature the newest, latest, most marvelous materials for kitchen countertops? Dont look for that here.

When it comes to kitchens, in this area we go for the tried and true.

Sure, well step out once in awhile with a bold move toward butcher block, but mostly we stick with laminate, high-definition laminate, solid surface/Corian or granite and quartz.

There are other surfaces out there that we dont do much with, like concrete, stainless steel and recycled glass, said Judy Mills, kitchen and bath design specialist for Wisconsin Building Supply in La Crosse. We dont have a call for them.

Because its the least expensive, laminate is still in demand in standard colors and edges.

The hot newcomer to the market is high-definition laminate because it does a good job of mimicking the more expensive granite and quartz. It can also come with custom edges and integral sinks.

Butcher block tops are also popular, Mills said, but not usually for the entire kitchen. It may be used on an island or at a chopping station.

Some even do wood countertops, though not so many.

If they can spend a bit more, customers opt for solid surface/Corian. And at the top of the price pyramid are granite and quartz.

With granite, youll always see the seams, Mills said. Because its actual stone, matching wont be perfect.

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Homeowners opt for smarter materials in kitchen countertops

Energy efficient luminaires illuminate wall light boxes and countertops in bathroom installation

West Caldwell, New Jersey - More than 52 million American households have viewed MaxLite's LED Lightbars, which were featured on a recent episode of "Bath Crashers" on the DIY Network, from the makers of HGTV. MaxLite is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of MaxLED, an award-winning line of innovative LED luminaires and lamps using state-of-the-art LED technology.

MaxLite's LED Lightbars, which are offered in the MaxLED family of products, were highlighted in Episode 404 of "Bath Crashers," the "Basement Bathroom Overhaul." The episode was first aired on Oct. 31, 2011 and will be re-running through March. The LED Lightbars, which were highlighted with on-air credit, were installed discreetly in three handmade light boxes that were installed on the bathroom wall. Four lightbars were installed around the perimeter of each light box, creating unobtrusive light sources to add a nice glow to the panes of glass in the center of the boxes. In addition to the lightboxes, the LED Lightbars were installed under the countertop of the bathroom vanity, which made the glass surface glow above. The host proudly boasted the long-lasting 50,000-hour life of the energy efficient fixtures.

The original bathroom was dark and dreary and shown with outdated furnishings. After the bathroom's demolition and reconstruction, the homeowners were brought to tears of joy after witnessing the bathroom's stunning makeover. The new sink, shower, hardware and lighting yielded a clean, cool and modern look. This Bath Crasher's "Basement Bathroom Overhaul" episode will be aired again on the following dates:

o March 05, 2012 1:00 a.m. EST o March 05, 2012 10:00 p.m. EST o March 13, 2012 7:00 p.m. EST o March 28, 2012 11:00 a.m. EST

To view a three-minute video clip of the episode, click on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keW8EAHi1-8

In coming weeks, MaxLite will introduce a second generation Plug-and-Play LED Lightbar, available in 6- and 12-inch lengths, for use in display case, under cabinet, cove lighting and toe kick applications in residential and commercial environments including hotels, retailers and restaurants. The new Plug-and-Play LED Lightbars are over twice as efficient as their predecessors, re-engineered with three times the lumen output for a more powerful light, and feature a new diffuser above the LEDs to minimize glare and deliver even distribution.

About DIY Network The DIY Network, from the makers of HGTV and the Food Network, is the go-to destination for rip-up, knockout home improvement television. DIY Network's programs and experts answer the most sought-after questions and offer creative projects for do-it-yourself enthusiasts. One of the fastest growing digital networks and currently in more than 56 million homes, DIY Network's programming covers a broad range of categories, including home improvement and landscaping. The experts on DIY Network equip consumers with accurate how-to project instruction for their homes and landscapes. Whether hosting their shows, blogging on DIYNetwork.com or appearing live on national media outlets, the hosts are real experts who know their trade.

About MaxLite (www.maxlite.com) Inheriting global manufacturing and marketing expertise that dates back to 1955, MaxLite was one of the first movers into LED technology in the industry. Committed to energy-efficiency as an ENERGY-STAR Partner of the Year in 2009, MaxLite established the MaxLED brand, an extensive line of indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures featuring innovative LED luminaires and lamps using the latest state-of-the-art LED technology. MaxLED includes the award-winning Flat Panel collection, the best-selling outdoor lineup, plug-and-play light bars, and LED lamps.

Out of the company's two main distribution centers, ideally located in West Caldwell, New Jersey and Rancho Cucamonga, California, MaxLite ships products within the continental United States within one to three days on standard orders. Through MaxLite's innovative research and development capabilities in its California office, MaxLite continues to be at the forefront of energy-efficient technologies. For more information about MaxLite and its products, call 800-555-5629, fax 973-244-7333, email info@maxlite.com, or follow the company on Twitter at https://twitter.com/maxlitenewsroom.

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MaxLite LED Light Bars Featured on DIY Network's "Bath Crashers"

WASHINGTON — A couple walks into a house, in any city, on any HGTV show.

This house has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, the real-estate agent tells them. It has a fenced-in back yard, lots of light, a good school district, a new furnace. It comes with a unicorn. This house — she thinks they're ready to hear this news — this house will make them lose 15 pounds from their thighs.

Does it have granite countertops? the husband asks.

No.

Well, then ...

"What's interesting is how granite has quickly become the one and only material, across the country and across all price points," says Ron Cathell, a real-estate agent in Northern Virginia. It used to be a high-end thing, back in the 1990s when these countertops began making appearances. It was aspirational.

"Then, 12 years ago, the first sort of moderately priced homes started using it. Now, every home has to have granite if you want to sell it. Not just sell it, but rent it. It's become such a thing. It's almost — " he searches for the right metaphor. "It's almost like trying to sell a house without a toilet."

As the price has gone down, the popularity has gone up; just look at the graph provided by StoneUpdate.com, a website dedicated to the natural-stone industry. In 2000, 895,000 metric tons of granite slabs were imported to the United States. In 2011, that number was 1.43 million — and that's down from a high of 2.64 million a few years ago.

The recession slowed granite sales — even cheap granite, which can be bought for as low as about $30 a square foot. Less cheap can go for $80, or however much you're willing to spend, really. The backsplash is the limit.

Let's get deeper. Let's get more psychological.

Let's go to Counter Intelligence, a Maryland granite dealer whose 186 employees organize about 40 countertop installations a day. They pride themselves on quick turnaround: two days from order to installation. They strive for low price points — a basic order could cost about $3,000. A man could buy his wife nice jewelry for $3,000. Counter Intelligence wants to persuade this man to buy a countertop instead.

Richard Trimber is the president and chief operating officer of Counter Intelligence. Trimber has spent a lot of time thinking about countertops.

He knows, for example, that his average countertop installation is usually between 40 and 43 square feet, depending on how old the house is. He has read "Freakonomics." He has read "The Culture Code." Trimber knows that when people buy countertops, they are not really buying countertops.

"Our product is purely emotional," he says, back in his office at his desk, which is made of granite. "Nobody needs a new countertop." What the granite does, he says, is make a statement about who you are and where you are in life.

It says: I am not living in a group house in the city anymore. It says: I am not holing up in my parents' basement. It says: I will throw parties in my open-floor-plan great room, refilling the hummus for the kitchen island while chatting with my guests. I will buy the hummus from Trader Joe's.

Another thing. "Your stone," Trimber says, "is the only stone in existence."

Recently, the Dulles Expo and Conference Center held a home and renovation expo. Customers streamed in from around the Greater Washington, D.C., area. In the back, every hour on the hour, a woman wrapped in what looked like papier-mâché came out and became the "Living Fountain" display, with water shooting out of her fingertips.

Around this spectacle, people mingled. A young couple, holding hands, bought cinnamon almonds and looked at starter granite. An older couple bickered about whether they were buying countertops or looking at hot tubs. The woman wanted the counter. The woman won.

"What do you call this?" The man asked, running his hands over a granite tile at a dealer's booth. "Carpe diem, huh?"

Seize it. Seize the countertop.

Bring it home and install it. Styles may fade, but it would take eons and eons for the granite to crumble, returning to the elements from whence it came. Have something permanent. Something dependable. A big, weighty slab of the American dream.

The rest is here:
Granite becomes the kitchen-counter favorite

Q. I bought my house a few years back. The basement ceiling was installed upside-down (pink is facing up). Is this a concern?

JOHN, in Hotton’s chat room

A. Presumably the Kraft paper is showing. They did that because it is easier to staple the paper than hang the insulation with hangers.

While it is wrong, it might not trap moisture in the insulation. Open a bit of the paper and check the insulation for moisture. If it is dry, leave it. The paper does at least keep moisture from entering.

Q. I have had wall-to-wall carpeting for eight or nine years. Now, the carpeting is wrinkling. I have had it stretched and relayed a few times, but the wrinkles continue to come back. What’s wrong? Also, I am getting a slight musty smell in the carpeting upstairs. How can I fix that?

A. Alas, the carpeting is inexpensive (read that as cheap) and has absorbed moisture and expanded. There is no cure for such a product. Replace the carpeting with a top-quality product. For the upstairs musty smell, water vapor rises and has entered the carpeting. Ventilate those rooms or have the carpeting de-molded or replaced.

If you live in a spec house (one that is built for speculation), or in a remodeled condo, you will see the cute tricks builders use to save money. Much of everything brought into the house except the structure is as cheap as possible: Carpeting, appliances, boiler or furnace, plumbing, even roofing shingles, and they all might fail in less than their warranty period. Even the manufacturers put their names on the cheap products.

Another trick performed by these people is instead of installing hardwood floors and then the wall-to-wall carpeting, they install the carpeting on plywood floors. This is OK but the carpeting can fail after 15 years.

Q. I have some bathtubs I believe are enameled cast iron. They have several chips in four different places. Can I have the tubs refinished? What can I do myself?

By the way, the tubs are white, and I have kept some of the chips.

A. You have the best tubs in history: porcelain-enameled cast iron. You can’t get any better.

Do not refinish the entire tub; besides, the reglazing technique is not porcelain, but an epoxy, and you still have a superior finish. You can try putting in the chip with glue, if it fills the space. Then sand smooth and paint. For the others, it is best to use a filler paint. You can do it yourself, one chip at a time, easily enough to make a nearly invisible repair. Buy an appliance repair kit, a small bottle of thick oil paint with the brush in the cap. Apply a coat to cover and partly fill the chip’s space. Let dry for two or three days. Sand lightly and apply another coat to fill the space. Let dry and try a third, fourth, or fifth coat, or at least until the paint is above the old surface. Then sand smooth with emery cloth. If it’s almost perfect, be happy with that. No one will notice.

Q. My new granite kitchen tops are showing terrible stains, and no one seems to know what to do. I asked the dealer, who suggested I replace them with new granite. What do they need to look good again?

A. The problem with granite and most other natural stones is that they are absorbent. Marble is the biggest culprit, and will stain if you look at it. Granite is one of the hardest and densest of stones, but still absorbs water and stains. When granite became popular, many got on the bandwagon and became dealers, with little or no experience.

So, what you can do is clean the granite with soap and water. If it seems clean, seal it with a high-quality sealer. If it does not come clean, rub hard with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Or, have it polished by a professional, who will abrade it with finer and finer abrasives. Then seal it. If you have to replace it, (heaven forbid!), replace it with Corian.

Globe Handyman on Call Peter Hotton also appears in the Sunday Real Estate section. He is available 1-6 p.m. Tuesdays to answer questions on house repair. Call 617-929-2930. Hotton (photton@globe.com) also chats online about house matters 2-3 p.m. Thursdays. Go to http://www.boston.com.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Upside-down ceiling concern

Industry insiders help you select the best surface for your bathroom countertop:

Granite

Long-lasting, stain-resistant and beautiful, granite is the Rolls-Royce of countertops. It is the most durable and easiest to care for of any of the natural stone materials. While relatively expensive, it provides an elegant look that is incomparable. Tip: Tammy Crosby, CEO of thehousedesigners.com, suggests comparing prices at local stone shops. You'll save even more if you can use leftovers from another homeowner's project.

Maintenance: Granite countertops need to be sealed every six months to a year. Clean countertops with warm water and a liquid detergent. Avoid abrasive cleaners; they'll scratch and dull the finish. Small chips and scratches can be polished down.

Cost: From $75 to $200 a linear foot, installed.

Manufactured Quartz

Manufactured quartz imitates the look of limestone, granite or marble, but is more resistant to scratches and stains. Made up of 90 percent quartz particles, this synthetic composite comes in a wide variety of colors and thicknesses.

Maintenance: Practical for the bathroom, quartz is durable, easy to clean and doesn't require sealing.

Cost: From $110 to $250 a linear foot, installed.

Tile

Tile has always been a popular material for bathroom countertops, but homeowners often complain about the need to clean the grout.

These days, however, tiles are coming out in much larger sizes, which eliminate the need for numerous grout lines. Through-body (unglazed) porcelain tiles are stronger than granite and about a third of the price.

Maintenance: Grout lines need regular maintenance and cleaning. The tiles can be easily cleaned with any household detergent.

Cost: For plain-colored tiles, $2 to $40 per tile. For hand-painted tiles, $5 to $75 per tile.

Solid-Surface Materials

Designed to look like natural stone, solid-surface is one of the most popular countertop options available. Known by brand names such as Corian, Staron, Gilbraltar and Avonite, this easy-to-maintain synthetic product can be molded to fit any design specification.

Maintenance: Being nonporous, it's easy to clean.

Cost: $75 to $150 a linear foot, installed.

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Choose apt bathroom countertops

Corian is specially priced for 2012 at Aurora Cabinets and Countertops Inc., a Bay Area granite countertops and cabinetry design company.

San Rafael, CA (PRWEB) February 14, 2012

During 2012, Corian, a durable polymer surface, will be specially priced at Aurora Cabinets and Countertops Inc. The Bay Area cabinetry design company features an abundant selection from the Classics to the Private Collection and offers corresponding sales on sinks.

The 2012 Corian Classics promotion is sold at Group A Pricing and the colors available are glacier white, bisque, canyon, aurora, linen, moss, platinum, Sahara, sand and silt. The Private Collection is sold at Group C pricing and is available in these colors and styles: burled beach, clam shell, lava rock, jasmine, allspice, arrowroot, basil, hazelnut, hickory smoke and witch hazel.

The free sink promotions are as follows: Aurora Cabinets is giving out a Vanity 810 sink. The installation price is set at $149 each. This sales ends on March 31. The free kitchen sinks available in this promotion are model numbers 850, 873, 874 and 881. Installation price is set at $380 each, and the sale ends Sept. 1. The kitchen sinks with model numbers 871 and 872 have an installation price set at $260 each, and the sale ends Sept. 1. Last but not least, the free Vaso Kitchen sink, model 966, has an installation price set at $589 each. This sale also ends Sept. 1. The sinks are only available in bisque, bone, cameo white and glacier white Corian.

“In addition to the new Corian available, customers appreciate Aurora for great prices, fast service, careful installation, plus a large selection of cabinets and countertops,” Bill Withers of Sausalito said.

For more information, please call 415-213-4789 or view the company on the web at http://www.auroracabinets.com. Aurora Cabinets and Countertops Inc. is located at 30 Mark Drive in San Rafael.

About Aurora Cabinets and Countertops Inc.

Bay Area’s Aurora Cabinets understands that the key to a perfect cabinet is a seamless installation. With 50 years of industry experience, customers can remain assured that their cabinet makers and installers will not only meet but also exceed their expectations. Unlike most in the Bay Area cabinetry design industry, the same men who build the cabinets also install them. This allows for the knowledge of exactly how the cabinets were built to fit together. Aurora is the first stop for the Bay Area’s custom cabinets, granite countertops and cabinetry design.

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Donna Susmani
Aurora Cabinets & Countertops, Inc.
(415) 472-4171
Email Information

Continued here:
Bay Area Custom Cabinetry Design Company, Aurora Cabinets and Countertops Inc., Announces the Availability of Corian ...

All this time you’ve assumed that you can’t afford the home you really want: The cozy, comfortable house with all the neat features that you want to get your hands on, stuff like slate countertops; the island range with the stainless steel hood; the rustic beams on the ceiling. Oh, and some really cool lighting fixtures and a tiled shower with two shower heads.

Woo Hoo!

And you know you can’t afford that house because you’ve looked around and nobody’s building that cool house for less than a biodiesel-powered truckload of Krugerrands.

You know that the only way to hold down construction costs on a house is to strip all the niceties away.

The only reasonably priced homes for sale in your area are disposable vinyl and Styrofoam junk or ugly piles of brick and drywall

You’re half right. A typical builder’s “spec” home price gets into the stratosphere when you add all the goodies. But, the good news, you’re half right, too! The reason most houses get ridiculously expensive is that they’re pretty poorly planned.

Plan better – WAY better – and you can get what you want and keep those gold coins in your pocket.

Here are seven ways to beat the high cost of construction and home improvement:

1) Smaller is Smarter (Really?)

The summit of obviousness, making a home smaller makes it less expensive. But random hacking away with a machete is the wrong approach – we need a scalpel and a surgeon. So think carefully about redundancy – why do you need a dining room AND a breakfast room AND five stools at the kitchen counter? A living room AND a study AND a family room AND a sitting area in the master suite?

Most of these uses can be combined into the same space – one nice large place to eat, for example.
Think about your furniture and how you arrange it – when you don’t know how a room is going to be used you usually make it much too big.

Carefully trim out the wasted, unused space and put the cash into that homey board-and-batten wainscot you love. Or lots and lots of chocolate.

2) Efficient Use Of Building Materials

Way back when, some really smart guys figured out that if building materials were all designed on a common module, they wouldn’t have to use or waste so much of it. So sheets of drywall and plywood are both 8 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Which works great on an 8-foot x 16-foot wall, but not so good when it’s 9.5-feet x 17 feet.

Lots of wasted material!

For the same reasons, structural lumber for floors comes from the mill in 2-foot increments. So whose idea was it to make rooms 13-feet wide? Design your house as much as possible on the established modules of building materials and stop filling the dumpster with scrap!

3) Use It Where It Counts, Don’t Use It Where It Doesn’t

I visited Steve Wynn’s Treasure Island Resort in Las Vegas a few years back and remember how impressed I was that the décor in the bathrooms in the furthest back corner of the casino was just as nice as the décor in the baths up front.

But Steve Wynn has a net worth of $2 billion. You probably don’t. So while I hope you become a billionaire, don’t spend like one just yet. Go ahead, put the granite countertops in the kitchen and the master bath, but not in the laundry room. (A classic “Parade of Homes” head-scratcher, that one.)

And your kids can do without solid brass faucets, crown molding, and a hand-painted tile backsplash in their bath. (Go ahead, ask them – they don’t care!)

Same with carpet. Nice stuff in the family room, cheaper everywhere else. Put the money in finishes and fixtures you’ll enjoy every day.

P.S. – Steve Wynn still has his $2 billion AND a hundred bucks of mine.

4) Design for Low Maintenance

This one sounds like a paradox: Spend more here to save more later. Cheap siding, roofing, and windows will cost you way more in the long run than quality components will now. There are entire industries built around the hope that you’ll buy replacement windows and a new roof for your house someday, probably much sooner than you think.

Quality is the tortoise in this race. Do it right the first time.

5) Lower Your Energy Bills – Dramatically

This goes way beyond insulation, Argon-filled glass, and geothermal systems, and will be the subject of a lengthy article in the near future. In the meantime, don’t make the mistake of designing a home that isn’t climate- or site-specific and try to force it to be highly energy efficient – you’ll be addressing less than half the problem.

The real problem you need to solve is how your house DESIGN responds to the climate and the site. For example, don’t put a big wall of glass facing prevailing winter winds where the heat will get sucked out like a black hole.

Remember your 7th-grade geometry, how a square encloses the most area with the least perimeter. Remember how you thought you’d never need to know that? Turns out it comes in handy! So call up your old math teacher and tell her she can be proud because you’re going to use that knowledge in your house design. You’re going to enclose your new highly-efficient floor plan in a relatively square footprint and reduce your heat loss with fewer building materials!

Do this right and you get a big bonus – a tight, energy-efficient house doesn’t need an expensive geothermal heating system at three times the cost of a conventional furnace. Cha-CHING!
Bonus #2 – that square box is going to be better-looking, too…read on.

6) Boxy is Bee-you-tee-full

We have millions of really great-looking homes in this country, though most were built over 70 years ago. The designers and builders of the first American suburbs were experts at making simple homes elegant and attractive.

Good-looking homes are very often based on relatively simple box forms, properly proportioned, composed, and detailed.

Today, too many designers compensate for their lack of skill by loading the exteriors up with as much stuff as they can – gables, complex roof forms, heroic-scaled arched windows, inappropriate details, etc. Lots of money spent and nobody benefits but the home builder (and the replacement-window guy I mentioned above.)

 

Keep the house forms simple and you’ll save a ton of green on the building materials. Look to the early 20th century suburbs for inspiration and lessons on the elegant simplicity of the box. You’ll have a better looking home that you can be proud of.

7) Good Design Sells

Speaking of good looking, energy-efficient, less expensive, low maintenance, smaller homes, guess what? They sell faster and for more money! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!!

My all-time favorite blow-my-own-horn story is of my client who (8 years later) sold his house in two weeks – without a real estate agent – for twice what he paid to have it built. All he did was stick a sign out front. The buyer said it was the uniquely functional and interesting floor plan and irresistible exterior design that sold him on it.

How happy do you think he is that he invested in better design?

Read more:

Richard Taylor is a residential architect based in Dublin, Ohio and is a contributor to Zillow Blog. Connect with him at http://www.rtastudio.com/index.htm.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Zillow.

 

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Seven Ways to Beat the High Cost of Home Building

GLASS RECYCLED – the Texas based firm that manufactures hard-surface materials for countertops and flooring for a variety of commercial and residential applications – announces their new simplified pricing program for 2012.

Plano, TX (PRWEB) February 08, 2012

GLASS RECYCLED – the Texas based firm that manufactures hard-surface materials for countertops and flooring for a variety of commercial and residential applications – announces their new simplified pricing program for 2012.

According to Tim Whaley, inventor of the GLASS RECYCLED process of recycling and transforming discarded glass and porcelain into beautiful, sustainable applications, “Since we have added literally hundreds of new color combinations to our product offerings, we decided to simplify the pricing process to make it even easier to specify our products for countertops, flooring and custom specialty decor uses. By streamlining pricing, designers and architects can now rely on one simple price per square foot regardless of the color or size combination specified.”

This simplified pricing program is available on products offered under the GLASS RECYCLED umbrella. The company’s major premise is taking unused glass and porcelain products of all shapes, sizes and colors and combining them in a unique epoxy system to create a granite-like product that has the added benefit of total customization in both color choices and final use. Like granite and other terrazzo-like materials, GLASS RECYCLED products are extremely durable and sophisticated but offer the added benefits of unlimited size and color combinations.

Hundreds of clients have already enjoyed the benefits of this sustainable product in major commercial and residential uses including flooring, wall panels, bars and countertops, bathrooms and landscape accents, as well as one-of-a-kind decorator touches including art-like murals and company logo uses.

GLASS RECYCLED has created four sub-brands including GlassSLAB - a stunning product suitable for kitchen countertops, bathrooms and other countertop applications in a variety of sizes, GlassPLANK - the company’s unique flooring and wall panel products that can be installed with seams as little as 1/64” and available in a variety of sizes and thickness, GlassDECOR - uniquely designed interior products that include recycled glass table tops, glass panels, ceiling tiles and other imaginable applications and GlassSCAPE – a recycled glass landscaping material, which is loose, bagged recycled glass and porcelain aggregate product that can be used as a permanent and beautiful alternative to groundcover, mulch or used in fountain and aquariums.

GLASS RECYCLED recently unveiled their exclusive Designer Showcase online. Hundreds of color combinations can be viewed, or one can create their own combination and the company will produce a sample to view before ordering. With the company’s new streamlined pricing structure, a simple calculation is all that is needed to finalize budgets to include this cutting edge product. To find out more about GLASS RECYCLED – which is marketed and fabricated in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas and shipped internationally as needed, visit GlassRecycled.com, phone 888.523.7894 or contact glassrecycled(at)gmail(dot)com.

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Sales
Glass Recycled
9724733725
Email Information

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GLASS RECYCLED Announces Their New Simplified Pricing Program

Beltsville, Maryland (PRWEB) February 08, 2012

My Home Granite started planning the construction of their online portfolio of residential granite countertops in Maryland and other areas they serve last fall, and has finally made it live on their recently launched website.

Ideas don’t come easy to a human being when they are constantly under different types of stress. “It is very difficult to think outside of the box when you are constantly worried about things that demand your full attention, such as the kids, work, groceries, cooking etc., so in turn it is very difficult to get your creative juices flowing; well, we’ve tried to simplify this by providing our clients with endless options for their redesign projects, such as their kitchen, bathroom, bar top etc.” says president of My Home Granite.

Natural stone has now taken a different turn over the past decade. Granite countertops were once one of the most popular applications of granite and natural stone, but due to its popularity and automation of the industry which has helped to bring overall costs down, people are getting much more creative with what they can use granite for. We now find people doing shower surrounds, fireplace surrounds, bar top areas, laundry rooms, shelves, dinning and coffee tables and hundreds of other applications which are all human created.

“We wanted a place on our site to provide our clients with different ideas and options for their granite countertops, and I think we’ve accomplished that” says Joe – sales and marketing vice president.

My Home Granite is a leading granite countertop fabricator located in Beltsville Maryland. They have been around since 1997 and specialize in natural stone surfaces. You can visit their website or contact them at (240) 607-6470.

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Granite Countertops Maryland Launches Residential Gallery

20-10-2009 10:56 Justin shows the quickest way to Install Formica Countertop End Caps.

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How to Install Formica Countertop End Caps - #14 - Video