The kitchen shop was back on site installing the quartz countertop in the first house yesterday. This, in combination with the drywall touchup and first coat of paint puts us right on schedule for tile to begin next week.
Counter installation is a fairly expensive task. A person can spend $50/sq ft on this material, and it was not too long ago a house in calgary could be purchased for $100/ sq ft. It is hard to imagine how cheap housing was 20 years ago given the price just of one part of the project.
In addition to the stone, we need to install 7 undermount sinks in various locations. Each needs to be cut and polished, so this adds cost as well. In these inner city projects stone counters is basically a standard feature. I prefer to use quartz over granite, but you see that material being used as well.
When you hear about renovations where the kitchen cost is over $40k (and the kitchen isn't particularly impressive), I often wonder what the breakdown is on that cost. There is no way that I could spend that much on a kitchen in a project of this value, even for all the bathroom cabinets, appliances, counters, tile, lighting, flooring, etc combined. Renovation kitchens are obviously a lot more costly to tie in the new material to the old, but I'd still be hesitant for anyone to invest that much in a kitchen reno. The cost of renovations is another reason I prefer new construction over dealing with old housing. In the areas I work in old houses trade for land value so there is not much benefit to renovations (they will end up in the dumpster).
The kitchen is complete with three pieces of quartz. The island is just over 8 ft long in this project. That is big enough to get a sink cabinet, recycling area, dishwasher and bank of drawers.
The master bathroom gets 2 of the 7 sinks we supplied to the kitchen shop.