Counter Tops Field Trip

December 13, 2019

Counter Tops Field Trip

Spokane, Washington is the biggest city near us and it's definitely turning a corner to coolness. There is getting to be a lot of markets streets that are being rehabilitated with some funky fun shops to par-ooze. Before I cam home from my counter top search I meant to make a quick stop to pick up a bigger Shop-Vac, which turned into getting a little lost and stumbling on a gem of a place I can't wait to tell you about, but right now, we are talking counter tops.

Yesterday I spent all day on the road visiting countertop suppliers in Spokane. I went to three different warehouses in which the product is on display and they send you through with a clip board to take notes on what you like, like Ikea. I found this incredibly annoying, though I can understand their disdain to work with the general public. I of course don't consider myself as general public, I am a contractor with an LLC and insurance, I have aspirations. However I learned once you say YOUR contractor sent you here, the desk person's eyes glaze over and they recite basic safety information [if your lucky] before they dump you into their warehouse and get back to whatever it was that is more important.

Each warehouse has a completely different rating system for their slabs, sometimes it's a color or numbers or both, don't try to make sense of it, pick what you like, write them down, take lots of reference photos, if you trust your contractor let them work on the sale, but definitely shop around!

So here we go...

Bedrosian's was my first stop. This is where I learned they drop you thru a door for museum style viewing. They have a showroom with tiles and stones perfectly displayed. I walked the isles as though I was looking at pieces of art with no prices [ remember, rating system]. Their options seemed of high volume production pieces. When I was leaving I was asked if I had any questions.

My picks here:

Cosentino's was my next stop. This was a little more of a traditional warehouse and I swallowed my pride for not being treated as a person who was about to spend thousands of dollars on a rock and actively held conversation with the rep for as long as I could to answer questions and learn more about the slabs, a lots changed since I shopped countertops 9 years ago, this lasted about 15 minutes, they were friendly.

My picks here, this is the same Quartz as Bedrosians, however this one has a matte finish [Note: Quartz pretty much has a standard pattern for all their stones, which is what I like least about them, but they can be a budget friendly option with good durability ]:

Third stop was Cosmos, this place was most warehouse like. My favorite to view, because their slabs were flatly displayed and they had a lot of exotic stones. This is also the place I saw the slab that made my heart go pitter patter. See First Option below, I don't think it was in my price range, but who knows what "purple" color code really means.