Kitchen remodels

[Irulan]

- Granite. Love it. Costly, maybe bad for the environment, but super easy to deal with and looks fab.

I also hear that granite stains easily, and requires annual sealing to prevent staining and scratching.Anything that requires extra maintenance if there are other options is not on the hot list.
I'm not sure why one would say that granite bad for the environment...... I'm sure the glue used is full of VOCs but there's no shortage of granite; most of the planet it made of it. (fuel used in transport? I'm really not getting why you might say this)

I re-did my kitchen top to bottom last spring, and there were a couple of things that I really wanted but in retrospect ended up being pains in the butts and expensive.

First and foremost is the cook top. I REALLY wanted a flat cooktop and a built in oven. I had a big, old, ugly slide in and felt those cooktops and built in ovens looked oh-so-lovely. Okay, so they DO look lovely, but the ceramic is a b*tch to keep clean. I had to buy a scraper and a special cleaning solution and it's just a lot of work. The built in oven's nice, but because my kitchen's small I could only put it right below the cooktop, it's so low to the floor that I literally have to kneel down to do anything with it (put things in/out, look in on it). Next time, I hope I can have gas so I'll just get a slide-in gas stove (we're only allowed electric in the condo).

Another thing I'm not terribly keen, and I've been told, is the stainless appliances. That also looks nice out of the box, but not very practical (especially if you have kids. I don't and it's still hard to keep clean).

I've had a ceramic electric cooktop for about 12 years and I don't have any trouble keeping it clean. So that must vary on cooking and cleaning style. We had a gas line run during the addtion, so I will be getting gas and possibly a dual fuel stove.

I don't love stainless either, but anything I can find on "trends" says it's here to stay. That, or white, or matching your cabinet fronts. Black is out, colors are out. So I guess stainless it is.