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We are buying a house built in. 1995 and has pickled oak cabinets and pinkish beige floor tiles.
We are looking to replace countertop with quartz or granite and need some color suggestions.
Before you seal those obsolete pink colored cabinets down with new granite, you need to really consider doing the cabinets also. Pickled oak went out of style during the Dinosaur days.
And yes quartz is a better choice over granite. A tad more costly but it's food safe and don't need to be sealed.
Lessor importance is that it is a fact granite is losing it's appeal and sales are decreasing. It's my opinion that it will never completely go out of style. The big fad I spoke of the past few years with decorative concrete counter tops never caught on as all the trends showed it would. It's all but dead now. No one wants to pay $90 SF for decorative concrete counter tops.
Funny pickled oak begun as a big thing in flooring back in the 80s in the northeast and I believe more specifically where you are in NJ. Then some kook got the idea that since pickled oak floors were so popular, why not make cabinets the same? The result was successful but that fad only lasted 8 or so years.
Into the late 90s and early 2000s pickled oak was dying quick. Those cabinet manufacturers who still produced it began calling it by other names like Oatmeal or Pearl or similar names. By about 2005 most all cabinet manufactures have discontinued pickled oak.
We are considering having them painted a white or off white. But that tile floor covers the entire 1st floor and replacing that will cost a fortune. So coordinating with that is also a challenge.
We are considering having them painted a white or off white. But that tile floor covers the entire 1st floor and replacing that will cost a fortune. So coordinating with that is also a challenge.
You can't paint cabinets. Well you can but everyone will point and laugh. People paint all kinds of crazy things. They paint their roof shingles, they paint glass windows, some even paint the grass green on their lawn. NJ even paints rocks on the side of the GSP green to look like grass. But how does it look? And ESPECIALLY oak will look horrible. You can put 55 coats of paint on oak and the grains will show right though. Smoother wood species you can get by but only if a professional prepares it and sprays it.
And people ask me about refacing all the time. Refacing is ALWAYS more expensive. Replace, don't reface. Refacing is like putting a nice clean pressed Italian suit on a dirty unwashed man who is wearing soiled underwear and worn sneakers.
Yes I know all that tile can be very expensive. Good luck on your new home.
I think the floor is going to hurt you as it clearly blends it all together.. We had the same cabinets in our previous house (also built in 1995). Replacement cost was too high for me at the time, and the resurfacing guy called me crazy for even thinking about refacing high quality solid wood cabinets. We tried our best to get the eye to not catch the pink color, and after trial an error, went with light walls/dark counter, we also did the floor (which was white cheap vinyl to begin with, so we were doing it anyway). Anyway, when looking for it, these are still clearly pink. By when walking in the house and not exclusively looking for it, the eye tended to not notice as much as the contrasting counter tops were what caught the eye more. We sold this house 6 years ago, so that bear in mind the trend changes since then...
My wife corrected me. It's not oak it's maple. Which will show less grain if painted. Still in the early planning phase.
Desertsun hates painted cabinets. I do agree with him that pickled oak was a horrible fad. I personally like painted cabinets and have painted cabinets many times with great results. No one has pointed and laughed. In fact, I get asked how to do it.
I have pickled oak cabinets in my house as well (built in 1995) that the previous owners painted them. Our bathroom cabinets are still the original pickled oak finish/mess. I will be painting them at some point. Anyway, I painted the cabinets white (previous owners did a creme distressed finish that I got tired of). We got bianco romano granite (a whitish stone). Lucky for me the previous owners put down a different ceramic tile a gray/blue tone when they painted the cabinets the first time. My granite had flecks of these colors so it went together well. I think your flooring will be the biggest challenge.
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