Please: pics of your granite with espresso cabs!

10 years ago

I am feeling defeated tonight.....my husband and I went about 2 weeks ago to the design studio of our builder to pic out our finishes ( including everything for the kitchen). Long story short, we had selected white shaker cabinets, absolute black granite with white subway tile backsplash. Well, we just got our pricing back and we are way, way over! We knew picking out the cabinets and granite, what the cost would be but there were some structural changes we needed to make to the house and they pretty much whacked us on that, which we were not expecting to be as high. We decided tonight to rethink our selections as this home is not our "forever home". The cabinets were a huge upgrade so now we are thinking of going with the builder grade which are basic espresso colored cabs. The problem is, I need to pick out a granite and I am not sure which one to go with. I would like something that is contrasting....maybe mostly white/cream with browns or taupe? By the way, the granite that comes with the home is a level 1 granite ( Santa Cecilia) but I'm not so sure about that? I would like to try to keep the subway tile we had selected as it will lighten up the dark cabs. Our floors are a light hickory engineered hardwood.
Could I please see your counters with espresso cabs! Any suggestions would be helpful too as this is our first home building ( and my first home) experience. Thank you so much!!

Comments (3)

CEFreeman
10 years ago
I feel your exhaustion.
I can't get good pictures with my cell. It just causes glare.
However, I have Shaker espresso maple cabs in my MBR and used Emperdor Dark in mine, with chrome (shiney silver) fixtures. My sinks are very light/white cream.

I love my bathroom.
The floor is a tile with lighter and darker browns in it, but my dark oak flooring is very visible from the bathroom area. I think it's beautiful.

Don't dispair.
There's also a lighter Emperdor (I'm not sure I'm spelling that right.). This is marble, so you'll have to go through all the hoo-ha about whether or not you should/shouldn't put marble in a kitchen. However, it remains your choice.

There's also no reason you couldn't put a butcher block counter top in there, and before it's sealed, rub very, very watered cream or white paint into it and wipe it off immediately. Then seal. It would give you a beautiful wash and a lighter look. This would probably help your costs immensely in your not-forever home.
attofarad
10 years ago
More like black than espresso, but here is a shot of my bar area, nearly done. The island is the same near-black, and the other cabinets a light cream. Glass backsplash, mostly glossy, with 1/8 matte through in at random.

Search the web for Santa Cecilia granite, for lots of photos.

or

http://www.houzz.com/santa-cecilia-granite-espresso

Here is a link that might be useful: Santa Cecilia with dark cabinets

This post was edited by attofarad on Thu, May 2, 13 at 14:52
modern_mom35
10 years ago
we went with quartz rather than granite, and chose to contrast the espresso with white. we are very happy with it.