Finding My Dream Kitchen Countertops with HanStone Quartz

It’s kitchen crunch time for our home build, and if you’ve been following along on Thompson Teardown, you’ll know that I was having a really hard time finding our kitchen countertops – not only do I want something beautiful (obviously), I really wanted something durable + low maintenance and with bold veining (simple, right? Lol).

Luckily for me, HanStone Quartz somehow checked every box with their Calacatta Extra colour!! It has the bold marble look I wanted, with some warmth in the tones to compliment the cabinet colour I’ve selected AND is a gorgeous option to place vertically as well for our backsplash.

I had a lot of questions when I shared what I chose asking why I didn’t just go with marble if I was going with a marble look… and while there’s no denying quartz is more cost effective than marble, this is my dream kitchen and I would have happily invested for marble. The real determining factor for me is that I wanted something low maintenance! Isla loves to help in the kitchen already, and I hope Skye will follow suit, and I don’t want to be that mom that fusses if their kid gets coloured icing on the counter!! Nor do I want to be the psycho lady yelling “COASTER!!” from the other room when we have people over (& make no mistake that would be me lol). I do love a material that ages/matures (for example, I’m going with all unlacquered brass for our kitchen hardware), BUT there is a big difference with something that patinas as a whole versus a stain. I’m self aware enough to know that a ring from a coffee mug or wine glass on my counter would drive me insane, and if you’re the same then quartz is truly a game changer.

HanStone quartz is heat, scratch, stain resistant, and non-porous which means you never have to seal it (once again, unlike marble which you should do bi-annually). They are also Canadian which I’ve mentioned is always the cherry on top for me when I’m selecting materials for our build (also, eco-friendly!!!)

One last thing I’ll note if you’re in the market for quartz, is that they are not all created equal and to get the full benefits of its durability you want to make sure you’re going with a stone that isn’t diluted with a bunch of filler materials (HanStone slabs are 93% quartz!).

Overall, I am just SO excited to have HanStone Quartz onboard as a big part of our kitchen, and can’t wait to share more with you all once it’s installed!! Any questions, drop them below! x

*This post is in partnership with HanStone Quartz, but all thoughts are my personal & unbiased opinions*