Granite The Countertop of Choice for 2008
Granite is now the surface of choice
By Bob Karlovits
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
 Granite and quartz have survived a rocky stretch a few years back to rise to the top of the heap in kitchen counter materials. The natural surfaces have grown more popular in household projects, being seen as artistic but practical. "Nature just does it right," says AnnaMae Lenkey, who is wrapping up a kitchen makeover with granite countertops in her Fox Chapel home. "I knew that was what I wanted as soon as I started looking at the granite." Ruth Thompson, an interior designer from New Angle Designs in Hampton, says granite is "like a piece of art" in the variety of colors and hints of shade through its variegated surface.
Five years ago, Blume's Solid Surface in South Buffalo, was working almost entirely in the cutting and preparation of what was then the biggest major rival to the natural surface, says the firm's Michelle Goetzinger. The company, near Freeport, was working with solid-surface acrylics, often known by the brand names of Corian or Wilsonart Gibraltar. Now, she says, 75 percent of their work is granite.
Sean Russell from the kitchen division of Crescent Supply in Lawrenceville says 70 percent of that firm's work is in granite, 25 percent in quartz -- and the rest is made up of everything else.
Jeffrey Backus, president of Manor House Kitchen and Bath, says his firm also saw growth in that direction, so he built a Greensburg cutting facility called the Granite Factory about five years ago. He says 90 percent of their work is in granite and quartz. "Ten years ago, the only granite you saw was is in really custom kitchens," he says, "but now it is everywhere." He says five years ago, his firm bought $500,000 in granite a year. Now its supply runs to $3.5 million. The popularity, it would seem, is a matter of the aesthetic and the practical. But it has another side, too "It is a matter of marketing," says Steve Erenrich, president of Patete Kitchen and Bath Center in Carnegie.
Supply gets bigger, cost gets less
That marketing issue becomes a cyclical one, Erenrich says. As desire for granite leads to more jobs, those jobs lead to more granite being brought in. "It is one of those supply-and-demand things," Backus says, agreeing with Erenrich on how the greater amount of granite available leads to a lower price. Six or seven years ago, the professionals say, there was a major difference in the price of natural products and solid-surface acrylics. Now, Backus estimates, solid-surface and granite-quartz countertops can be purchased for about $125 a linear foot. Of course, that all depends on the type of granite being used. Solid-surface acrylics are man-made and prices can be controlled, but granite comes in different grades. It is possible to get granite or quartz at $59 a square foot, says Crescent's Russell, while it also is possible for that price to be $99. Erenrich says a countertop job could cost $3,900 or it could go to $8,900 with a better grade of stone.
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