Mostly out of necessity (cabinets falling apart) - we are heading into the stress of a full kitchen remodel (floring, cabinets, counters, some appliances). Some quick opinions form the board are welcome:

Dishwashers: any issues with stainless interiors? Best brands?
Contertops: We want stone and are looking at granite and Silestone (an engineered product) - thoughts?

Has anyone used Granite Transformations (cover current counters with a granite product)?

Our house has all GE Profile appliances. The previous owners bought them about a year before they sold the house to us. Nice stuff!
We installed Granite countertops. The admiral looked hard at Silestone, but in the end, she liked the look and feel of granite better.
We also refinished our cabinets in a "glazed" style. Kind of a rustic look.

You have to remember that my only role in this whole ordeal was giving the admiral a budget. I don't even thin I was allowed in the kitchen while all the remodeling was going on.

We are in the same boat, although we are just looking at new counters, backsplash and appliances.

First, counters: We looked at Silestone but liked the natural look of Cambria more...of course, granite is still on our list. We have a friend who did granite transformations. THey love it, and we are considering it, although since I found out it is an engineered product as well, I'm not as into the idea. They only offer about 20 colors, and not many custom edges or countours are available. I thnk they paid about $4000 for their entire kitchen, where they got an estimate of $8200 for solid granite

Dishwashers: We like Kitchen Aid and LG for looks. I have not heard of problems with stainless tubs except for noise on th echeaper models. Overall, I think Kitchen Aide offers the best for the money. Of course, if you want the better brands, there is always Asko or Fisher & Paykel

Our last kitchen overhaul was a to-the-studs affair. Big work. Came out great, though, and we were especially pleased with the Bosch dishwasher. Stainless tub, and nearly silent in operation. You almost had to have your hand on the door to know it was running.

For cabinets, consider Conestoga. They do BEAUTIFUL doors (in about 200 styles) and ship all-wood carcasses KD. We did a full kitchen and pantry for less than half the quotes from Lowes and HD.

Right now is a great time to shop granite. I've found it out here for less than we paid in 2000.

We went out looking for the Bosch dishwasher but came home with the Kitchen Aid instead. Really like it, but it's so quiet that I keep opening it up while it's running.

We just built our house ourselves and found out a couple things about kitchens.

1. The big box stores Home Depot/Lowes are ripoffs when it comes to cabinets and countertops. We got custom build cabinets installed for the kitchen/2 baths/laundry room for 14k. This is with all plywood boxes i.e. no particle board, all hardwood drawers, pull out drawers in every cabinet including under sink, pull out spice racks along side oven/pull out trashcan and large custom built cabinet surrounding fridge, glass door uppers. Home Depot was 12k for just the kitchen with no options and particle board boxes. The secret is to find an independent cabinet maker or finish carpenter.

2. Granite is bit of a racket also. The wholesale price for granite is less than $20/sq ft. The secret here is to also find an independent. Go to the high priced show rooms to find what you want and then to the independent. You will save money. Again we got the entire house 45+ linear ft plus back splashes all around and bar top in an upgraded granite with whatever edge we wanted for $5200.

I second that. We finished our basement several years go, and had a granite counter top put on the wet bar. We contracted "The Great Indoors" (TGI) to do the wet bar part of the project (the overall basement project went very well, except for the wetbar, which was a fiasco). TGI wanted $4,000 for the granite, plus we had to visit a granite yard an hour away to pick out a slab, and they also needed several months lead time. We ended up going with an indepdent guy, who did the job for less than half the cost, brought granite samples from the slabs he had in stock, and did the job within days. The workmanship was fantastic.

BTW - Every time we dealt with Home Depot or The Great Indoors, it was a fiasco. Many of our friends have had similar experiences.

Same boat w/ kitchen remodel. Does anyone know anything about quartz countertops? I can get granite or quartz wholesale - trying to decide which to use.

With regard to cabinets, if the main part of the cabinet is in good shape you may want to look at cabinet refacing. My partners and I are doing this on a condo we have in Destin. Much cheaper that new cabinets and a good product. We have inspected several units in our building that have done this. The product is by Quality Doors and Home Depot has a display where you can see the product.

As to counter tops, we have granite, but either granite or a quartz product such as Silestone will be a good choice.

Don't mean to discourage anybody but here is a link to an article I read yesterday:
http://cnnmoney.mobi/money/real_estate/r...23532B2307624F8

Our CT are Cambria like PP2 noted, to me it looks like granite and doesn't require sealing.

No opionion on the appliances.

We just re-did our kitchen a few months ago. Friends of ours are in the home building business, and we got everything at thier cost, which saved us some $$$.

Our kitchen was original from 1945, so it all had to go.
The cabinets were provided by a standard cabinet maker, but we upgraded about the whole thing.

Flooring was re-done to ceramic tile.

Countertops, we went with Dupont Silestone which is the quartz. We were tossing around either granite or the quartz, and talked to the countertop representative and were told that the quartz is the strongest countertop you can buy because it is man made with no natural imperfections. It is much more resilient to heat (we were told granite could actually shatter under the right conditions???), does not need to be sealed as there are no holes in it. One of my bosses had just re-did his kitchen and used granite. He had the decorative edging and showed me two spots that the edges chipped out, that kind of steered us away. Maybe he had a bad install/cut/whatever, but for the money we weren't taking the chance. I am very happy with the Silestone, it looks like stone, very glossy, and so far extremely durable. If you like the granite look, get granite, silestone doesn't do a great job in mimicking the natural stone look.

Appliances were mostly Whirlpool Gold, except the Amana frig, don't get an Amana frig. I'm a big fan of buying at Sears when they have thier sales, which seem like they are having one all the time. We bought new appliance over a 2 year period getting ready to do the kitchen as a whole. Kept the big chunk of money down somewhat.

Granite IS quartz...well, quartz with bits of iron, mica, basalt or other minerals in it. But I think that is what gives granite its character. I think they are calling granite with fine grain "quartz" these days to maintain high prices for those that think they are getting an "exotic" material. It's all SiO2 for the most part.

O.H. who did you go with on the Cambria, and what did it cost, if you don't mind me asking? We are leaning toward granite because the costs with install are about the same as engineered product. I like the depth and character of real granite, but may go with Cambria if we can get a good price on it.

Yes, but I think what the countertop people are calling quartz is actually compressed material, not natural. Look at the cross section of a piece of Silestone, and it is as solid as Corian. Which is what is supposed to give it its strengths.
I think the Cambria is the same thing, different manuf and different look.

I got Cambria through a local granite company in Lancaster. I will PM you the name since they are not paying me to adverstise their name. We saw the Cambria product at a kitchen place and my wife fell in love with it. It was costly at the kitchen place so I looked else where. The Cambria rep informed me of another place I could purchase it from and that place in turns subs it out to the local granite company. I skipped the middle man and went straight to the source. I was able to get some reduced pricing as I am in construction and my company does business with that company. I would like to remember that it cost just shy of $3k and that was with an upgraded ogee edge. I would not get the ogee edge as the buck was bigger than the bang.

We did our kitchen about three years ago. The cabinets were fine, but we did all new counters, appliances, sinks and faucets.

I redid the island to a dual level design and modified the cabinets to accept the new counters with a place for barstools.

I did most of the work myself - it's a big kitchen with all premium appliances and it didn't cost as much as I've seen remodeling contractors charge for a small kitchen. The granite guys installed the counters, All I had to do was rip out the old ones, then install the sinks, faucets and the cooktop - it was all pretty easy.