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Our White Corian Counter Review

Merry Countermas to us!

They’re here. And they’re spectacular.

Counters View To Stove

Counters View To Hall

Just as a reminder, the cave room looked like this back when we moved in last December:

NewEmpty Kitchen

NewEmpty Kitchen Eat In

But back to our brand-spanking-new Corian counters. I didn’t expect them to feel as chunky, heavy, and stone-like as they do. They’re like marble without the veins. Seriously. Nothing plastic-y about them. And they’re sleek but sort of matte too if that makes sense, which looks/feels really chic and sort of honed-marble-ish (according to our installer the white matte ones are the only ones that don’t show scratches, which will definitely come in handy). So yeah, it’s safe to say that we’re completely smitten.

Of course things were looking a bit rough when they went in, but we’re used to the room looking like crazytown by now:

Counters In Pieces

One of the coolest things to watch was how they made them completely seamless by filling the cracks where the slabs met with some sort of glue-caulk and getting it suuuuuper hot with these defibrillator-looking pieces:

Counters Defibs Far

Counters Defibs Close Up

Then they were flash cooled and the installer polished them until the seams were completely gone. Seriously, I’ll give anyone who can tell where they were a hundred bucks because it’s impossible. Oh but for this step of the project Burger, Clara, and I went for a nice long walk and John shut himself up in our bedroom because it was a little fumey while the glue-caulk was heated up and cooled and smoothed down (but it thankfully wasn’t a dusty or messy process, which was nice). So I didn’t come back to chaos, just beautiful white amazingness with the fan going and the windows open.

Here’s where one of the seams ran (right up this corner) before he worked his installer magic. No evidence of it at all, right? Three cheers for shape-shifting counters. And yes, that is a baguette. We’re fancy like that.

Counters Corner With Stuff

The guy was awesome about talking us through maintenance stuff. Here are a few of the fun things that I stood there and actually took notes about because I’m ridiculous (in my defense, the guy seemed to be entertained by my furious scribbling):

  • Corian is nonporous, which means stains can’t penetrate it (and most of them can simply be scrubbed off, even if you don’t catch them right away)
  • If stubborn stains (like red wine that somehow sits for a few days) do discolor the top layer of the Corian, a spray bottle full of 10 ounces of water and 1 ounce of bleach should strip the stain right out.
  • The white color runs all the way through the counter, so if some insane spot refuses to come out, it can be lightly sanded in a circular motion with extremely high grit sandpaper (400 grit) and then followed with a very fine buffing pad (which was provided to us by the installer along with the sandpaper). It’s like they knew we were DIYers. So we don’t have to call anyone in to “resurface” things in a decade or two if we feel like polishing them up because they essentially taught us how to do it ourselves.
  • Our counters are warranteed for 10 years, so if anything ever cracks or otherwise has issues they can come fix it for free (holla!) using the same method they used to fill the seams, which makes any prior damage completely undetectable.

So that combined with the fact that John’s sister has had the same exact counters for five years with three kids and a big dog (and zero repairs/stains) makes us deliriously excited. And I’m happy to report that we’re not being nearly as anal as we were with our first kitchen’s granite counters (the light color of them really freaked us out in the beginning). We’ve jumped right into using our kitchen even more – so things like spaghetti sauce have already made an appearance without any disastrous results.

Oh but there is one problem. Our sleek new counters make our old cabinets look like crapola by comparison…

Counters Close Up

… but once we sand, prime, and paint them (along with fiiiinally replacing the eyeball hardware) they should be worthy of such pretty countertop company. Can’t wait to rebuild/cut down some matching doors and get to the whole priming & painting step.

You can read all about why we chose white Corian and how much it costs here, and how the templating process went here. This post is just really about photos. Glorious, glorious photos of the counter that we waited 20 sinkless days for (read more about removing the old counters and sink here).

Counters View From Office

Counters Peninsula Alt

See that hulking 3 foot by 5 foot peninsula? Pictures don’t capture how big it really is (it’s larger than the wood dining table that we used to have in here). That baby is pure joy. So much space to spread out and bake/craft/eat/serve up appetizers, etc. The kitchen is pretty much 100% more functional and there aren’t even stools there yet (or any wood trim pieces on the back and side of the peninsula to hide those ugly brackets)…

Counters Peninsula

Oh yeah and see those counter edges on the peninsula above? They’re gently curved, so there’s no pokey part to stab Clara in the eye or John in the hip or me in the belly (yes, we’re all dramatically different heights around here).

And for those wondering how we’ve been dealing with an in-progress kitchen and asking if we’ve been eating out every night, we’ve actually been really lucky to have a fully functional fridge, stove, and dishwasher this time around (which was not the case during our first kitchen gut job). So we’ve still been eating/cooking at home without counters and a sink (we just used a piece of plywood leaned on top of the cabinets as prep space with a cutting board and other platters and plates to keep us from actually prepping food on the plywood). But the whole washing-pots-and-pans-in-the-tub thing was getting old. So happy to have this guy back in action:

Counters Sink Cutting Board

Our counter fabricators even left us a handy little cutting board that they made out of the sink hole for us, which can also be used as a trivet (super hot things shouldn’t be placed directly on Corian counters, but we never put hot stuff on our old granite counters without a cutting board or trivet, so we should be cool). Oh and for anyone local wondering who we used for installation, we were beyond thrilled with Five Star (our installers) who were hired through Home Depot (where we ordered our Corian). More on that here.

Oh but wait, before the counters went in we hid a little time capsule behind one of the cabinets (which will only be found when our counters are someday removed).

Counters Time Capsule Note

John sweetly wrote it. It reads:

Today our new countertops are being installed. We are a family of three (well, four if you count our chihuahua Hamburger). I’m John Petersik (age 30), my wife Sherry (age 29) and I moved here 11 months ago in December of 2010 with our daughter Clara (age 1.5). We write a blog about our home improvement adventures called Young House Love (www.younghouselove.com). If you’re reading this it means you’re probably getting new counters too. Hope you enjoy them!

Here’s how we hid it behind the corner cabinet by the window (stapled to the back of the cabinet in a ziplock bag).

Counters Time Capsula Taped

Ah memories. We can hardly picture the top of the cabinets anymore. Isn’t it weird how your eyes adjust so fast? So next up we have to cut down and hang a cabinet for the built-in microwave next to the pantry, start trying to retrofit/build matching doors for the secondhand cabinets that we added to the room, prime and paint the cabinets, tackle the backsplash, hang our built-in range hood and floating shelves, redo all the lighting, lay the cork floors, install our new stainless dishwasher, add crown molding, etc. Whew. Might not be done until late January (we originally were aiming for early Jan) but we’re inching slowly towards the finish line. Just taking things one day at a time seems to be the secret to sanity. That and washing things in the sink again. Oh man, it’s good to have that guy back.

UPDATE: We’re officially in love with our new counters. Check out the update post about them here.

Comments

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We’re waiting to paint the cabinets because installing counters can scratch painted cabs (it happened in our first kitchen, so that was a major bummer). We figure we’d rather wait and paint them once instead of worrying about touching up scrapes (which might never look as good as avoiding scrapes in the first place).

      xo,
      s

    • Chelly says

      I was thinking the same thing, and I understand about not wanting to scratch the fresh paint; but I would have at least prepped the lower cabinets for painting before the countertops went it- like sanding and such.

      I do love the corian countertops! cheers.

  8. Shannon @ Bungalow960 says

    What an amazing idea with the time capsule. I sort of wish we were able to do the renovations of our home, but they were done when we moved in. I would have loved to find something like that! I am so curious about the previous owners of our house (it’s 86 years old!), so much that I contacted the city for more information, but they didn’t have much that I didn’t already know. The next owners of your house are so lucky to have your blog for documentation.

    Reply

  14. RLR says

    Woohoo! What an improvement! I know you are glad to have the sink back! As someone with not-quite-enough counter space, I am trying not to covet the peninsula!

    Reply

  15. Cristin says

    They look beautiful! And the time capsule is a great idea – we found a book of matches in our ceiling but that wasn’t really meaningful to us at all, like yours will be!
    Just a tip about your new cutting board – earlier this month I was looking at some very cute Corian cutting boards, and a kitchen knife guru told me that it is one of the worst things to cut on and that it destroys your knives. I thought I would pass on the tip!

    Reply

    • Anna says

      It’s so exciting to see someone’s vision come into being. Thanks for sharing with us.

      This puzzles me – why can you put hot things directly on the Corian that was made into a cutting board/trivet, but not on the Corian countertop?

  18. beth says

    Congrats!!! You can really see it starting to come together. Your vision is starting to become more clear to me…I can see it shaping up! Way to go!!!

    Reply

  20. Lindsey @ arkadian belle woods says

    Gorgeous! I love them! Final phases Petersiks! Your time capsule letter is so cute! It’s so crazy to think that one day someone will find that letter and check out your blog and all of the hard work you did to their home. It’s a weird thought to think that far!

    Reply

  23. dori says

    here’s a cleaning tip (that may be a hair safer than bleach): i got some semi-perm hair color on our corian bathroom counter and it stained. i made a paste of oxyclean and water, glopped on top of the stain and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Voila…stain be gone! Dont know if oxyclean is better than bleach, but it certainly smells less toxic!

    Reply

  24. Sandi says

    They look amazing! My parents have had Corian countertops in their house for about 11 years now and they are holding up great. My mom is a huge baker so for her to just flour a massive surface and be able to roll dough and such out on it is fabulous. Super easy to get scratch or anything out. Hope y’all enjoy I can’t wait until we start our kitchen renovations!

    Reply

  25. Lizzy says

    they look awesome! such a small thing but i think my favorite part is the cutting board – ha! did you know they were making that too?
    your kitchen already looks so much happier – and i bet it will look amazing once the cabinets are painted!
    congrats!

    Reply

  26. JennyB says

    When I first saw the WHITE countertops, I thought, “YIKES, they’re gonna hate that.” I had white in my last house and it was awful BUT they were the cheap-oh formica..not Corian. I must say, after reading your description of how to care for them, the Corian sounds divine!! They absolutely look terrific!

    Reply

  28. Pammy says

    Ahh wow they look so amazing! I thought I wanted concrete or butcher block in our kitchen, but now Corian is looking like a very real possibility. It’s beautiful, and I love the low maintenance aspect too!

    Reply

  31. KC says

    That note that John wrote was sweet. It reminded me when we did our first DYI project and replaced a medicine cabinet in our first house (in 2004, the year we were married), my husband wrote our initials with a heart around them and the date for future owners to see when they’d decide to make a change. I always regret not taking a picture of it…but it lives in my memory!

    Reply

  34. Jean Abrams says

    I LOVED my Corian countertops in my last house. We got a light gray color with a white sink and they didn’t show scratches or stains either. I loved the sink molded into the countertop, as well because of the ease in cleaning. No under-lip or over-lip grooves to clean out. I’m sure you’re gonna love your new counters, too!! Can’t wait to re-do mine in this new-to-me/old Craftsman home someday.

    Reply

  35. Naomi says

    How exciting! They look so sleek and purdy! I love time capsules it would make me ridiculously excited to find it in my house. Also I read Clara’s age as 15 years… haha.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We have a new stainless dishwasher (just have to wait to install it until after the new cork floors go in) and the lighting will most likely be recessed can lights in the cooking area and pretty pendants hanging over the peninsula (and one over the sink).

      xo,
      s

    • Karen J says

      I was wondering about the dishwasher too!!! I forgot you were waiting (I kept looking at it thinking: hmm, that dw does NOT look like it’s stainless, Ha Ha.)

  37. Kristin says

    I’ve been telling my hubby for a year now that I’m DYING to get granite counter tops in our kitchen. But after seeing these Corian beauties, I’m seriously reconsidering. Thanks for sharing. I am anxiously awaiting the final product and LOVE everything that has been done so far. :o)

    Reply

  38. Eva says

    Congrats on the new counters! Looking good! But the lights and the ceiling fan really sting the eye now… can’t wait to see those replaced.

    Reply

  43. Julia @ Chris loves Julia says

    The fact that you worked a Seinfeld reference into a post where you completely sold me on beautiful countertops–so much so, that I can’t wait to get some for our kitchen in a year or so–with so many pictures–AND that time capsule…I’m floored. Best. POST. ever!!!

    Reply

  44. Beth@oddgirloutblog says

    they look great! when we reno’d our kitchen we found all kinds of the previous owner’s stuff {from the 60s} when we pulled out the old cabinetry. hehehe! one of witch was a little plaque that said ‘god bless our home’. i have sensed made it a little more current in a sleek frame backed with cool paper, and it hangs in the house. swoon.

    Reply

  46. Meagan says

    I feel like this kitchen reno is going so fast! Especially for doing so much yourselves. Only 20 days without a sink! That’s fabulous!

    I love seeing all the progress and can’t wait to see it all come together.

    Reply

  47. Debbie says

    i dont think id enjoy a “single stall” sink. im more of 60/40 split, farmhouse depth, undermount kind of gal. we have many hundreds of feet of imported italian marble counter at our chicago home & its beautiful, but you have to baby the crap out of it.

    Reply

  50. Christie says

    Sooooo excited about all the progress! It is really starting to look great. I am beyond anxious to see it with the cabinets painted!

    Reply

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