Kitchen Countertop Replacement in Toronto — Sequenced, Not Just Supplied

This is worth stating before anything else, because the trade is full of companies that blur it.

Kitchen Made New holds two trades: cabinetmaking and spray finishing. Stone is not one of them. We do not own a saw big enough, a waterjet, or a yard, and a company that tells you it does everything is subcontracting most of it and putting a margin on the handoff without telling you.

What we do on a countertop job is specify the material, take you through slabs, price it into your project, hold the contract, and — the part that actually matters — schedule the fabricator against our own cabinet work so your kitchen is out of action once instead of twice.

The fabricator is named in your quote. You can look them up, and you can see their warranty terms rather than being told there is one.

The great majority of what goes into Toronto kitchens now is engineered quartz, and that is a sensible default rather than a fashion.

It is non-porous, which means it does not need sealing and does not stain from red wine or oil the way a granite that has gone a year without sealer does. It is consistent, so what you see on a sample is what arrives on a slab, which is not true of natural stone. And it is hard enough that ordinary kitchen use does not mark it.

Its two real limits are heat and sun. A pan straight off a burner can scorch the resin, so trivets are not optional, and prolonged direct sunlight can shift the colour of some lighter shades over years — worth knowing on a south-facing island in a house with big windows.

Granite and natural stone we will still specify where somebody wants them, and where the movement in a particular slab is the point. Laminate we will not recommend for a kitchen that is otherwise being refaced, because it will be the part that dates first.

Three choices get made at template stage and they are worth thinking about before somebody is standing in your kitchen with a laser.

The edge profile changes the look more than people expect. A square eased edge reads modern and shows the full thickness. A pencil round is softer and forgiving on a house with children. Anything ornate — ogee, dupont — reads traditional and dates faster than the stone does.

The backsplash decision is whether the stone runs up the wall or stops at the counter and tile takes over. A stone splash is seamless and expensive; tile is cheaper, more interesting, and introduces a grout line behind the hob that will need cleaning. Neither is wrong and the choice affects the quote by a real amount.

The overhang matters at an island where people will sit. Anything past about twelve inches needs support underneath, and support that was not planned for arrives as a bracket somebody's knees hit.

We go through all three at the design visit, with the written quote already in your hand, so none of it is being decided under pressure.

Stone is priced on four things: the slab you choose, the square footage, the cutouts, and the edge profile. The slab is the biggest lever by a distance — the same kitchen in an entry-level quartz and in a premium one can differ by more than the entire labour cost of fitting it.

Cutouts are individually priced: sink, hob, taps, and any pop-up outlet. The edge profile is priced per linear foot and a decorative profile is meaningfully more than a square one. Removal and disposal of the old top is its own line, and it is higher for a stone top than a laminate one for obvious reasons.

Your quote shows the fabricator's figure and ours separately rather than as one number. That is deliberate: you can see exactly what the stone costs and what the coordination costs, and you are free to decline the coordination and book the shop directly. Most people do not, once they have seen what the sequencing does to the timeline.

The written price comes back inside 24 to 48 hours from photographs, and the stone portion is confirmed against the actual slab before anything is cut. Cash, debit, credit and Visa.