Rental Property Investor · Jersey City, NJ · Member since 2011 · 1k+ posts · 876 votes
7y
My last kitchen I did 10.5 feet of slab counter in 3 pieces for under $900 including stainless sink. At that price my labor plus tiling materials didn't make sense. My little tiny kitchens on the other hand make more sense doing tile since the stone vendors would still charge me the same amount for less than half the counter.
Rental Property Investor · Cedar Park, TX · Member since 2014 · 414 posts · 272 votes
7y
I wish granite tile would catch on. I've built one countertop with a drop-in sink, like the ones @Johann Jells did, and it looked great at a much lower cost than slab granite. The only complication, compared to regular tile, is that I paid a guy to put bullnose edges on some of the tile with a grinder.
Investor · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2013 · 8k+ posts · 10k+ votes
7y
You can have all the granite tiles (mostly veined black & gold) I trash out of 20 year old Vegas homes. They aren’t as bad as the small white tile, but granite slab is soooo cheap. $1500 max ($1000 for a small kitchen.) for tear out of old countertop, disposal, install new countertops and under mount sink. Takes them less than 2 hours start to finish.
You can have all the granite tiles (mostly veined black & gold) I trash out of 20 year old Vegas homes. They aren’t as bad as the small white tile, but granite slab is soooo cheap. $1500 max ($1000 for a small kitchen.) for tear out of old countertop, disposal, install new countertops and under mount sink. Takes them less than 2 hours start to finish.
Not here. Slab granite counters will run you a typical $80 per square foot, marble gets as high as $130.
Sounds tough to do without the pro tools. How do you do the sink cutout? I've built a lot of 12x12 granite tile counters with a drop in sink.
Undermounted sinks, seams, and complicated edge profiles are my main limitations at this point. I can easily do slab with a drop-in sink and slab with an flush-mounted apron sink is just a bit more difficult, but still manageable. Still, getting the corners done on undermounted sinks is not quite a difficult as many of these guys make it out to be.
But I was talking more along the lines of small bathroom vessel sink stands, windowsills, tables, that sort of thing.
If it is precut and ground. It is a piece of cake.
Have you ever cut a slab with a saw, done a simple bullnose, and polished the edge using diamond abrasive pads on a variable speed polisher? It's really not that difficult, and the savings add up.
Handyman · Pittsburgh, PA · Member since 2018 · 5k+ posts · 13k+ votes
7y
A lot of small galley kitchens in older houses in my area are one 24x72 piece with a sink cutout and two smaller 24x24 pieces with no cutout. Many other 1-wall kitchens take even less granite. I have a scrap granite guy I tend to trade with and I can get the three pieces of 3 cm/1 1/4 in. granite I'll need for that project for under $400, work them myself, and have a basic kitchen done with granite countertops for peanuts. In Pittsburgh, that's a HUGE unfair advantage a DIY landlord can put in that separates a property from others in the low-income market niche.
2cm marble is even easier to work with for different small projects.
I wish granite tile would catch on. I've built one countertop with a drop-in sink, like the ones @Johann Jells did, and it looked great at a much lower cost than slab granite. The only complication, compared to regular tile, is that I paid a guy to put bullnose edges on some of the tile with a grinder.
I bullnosed a 5x11 bathroom in granite tile with tools I bought on Amazon on a dirt-cheap Kawasaki variable-speed polisher in a vise. 21 linear feet. Very cheap. $3 ft2 granite tile on walls with bullnosed edges often comes out cheaper than ceramic tile with overpriced matching bullnosed edge pieces. You can train somebody to do the grinding and the polishing easily as well.
Since my wife is a potter, we've now reached the point where we have full custom tile-making, firing, and glazing capability through her home studio. We're also going to be getting into CNC panel woodcarving down the line, well before when I used to think we would. I do some custom cabinet building and metalworking.
Granted, a good amount of this is more about art and the fun of making stuff than making real estate $ for us, but I tend to find quite a bit I can make money on hiding in the corners of the stuff we do together for fun. Slab granite has been a nice surprise for us.
Rental Property Investor · Jersey City, NJ · Member since 2011 · 1k+ posts · 876 votes
7y
My last kitchen I did 10.5 feet of slab counter in 3 pieces for under $900 including stainless sink. At that price my labor plus tiling materials didn't make sense. My little tiny kitchens on the other hand make more sense doing tile since the stone vendors would still charge me the same amount for less than half the counter.
It's a couple 1x6s I had lying around that I used to cover up some imperfections in the wall. I usually don't think too much about backsplashes. In fact I don't think I've ever bothered to do a backsplash. I guess it would be one more thing I'd have to maintain though and I try to avoid doing things that are purely cosmetic other than floor covering and painting where needed since I do not do flips. I do the granite tiles because they cost less than the laminate sheets and because I rather cut a sink hole in plywood than the laminate sheet because it would be ruined if I mess it up. I figure they will probably last longer too and tenant might appreciate it more. I've thought lately about building my own open cabinets rather than buying the stock cabinets at Lowes because there's a good chance I'll have to replace them at every turnover because they're made so cheaply.
Real Estate Investor · Chicago, IL · Member since 2017 · 172 posts · 47 votes
7y
wow .. this was going through my mind , not necessarily to do it myself , but atleast have everything ready for a good handyman to train and do it
@Jim K. usually I can find the prefab slabs pretty inexpensive ( 112 by 26 , 2 cmor 3 cm ). But I was stuck at thinking
-- How do we transport it to site ? I think we need A frame and and some dolly specifically for slabs . I think you might be using a more simple - no non sense approach . So thought I should ask
-- Now that we have the slab , cutting to size , and cutting the sink cut out are the next things to deal with . I saw lots of videos using a 1100 rpm grinder with a specialized 4.5 inch wheel
what would you suggest to make this cutting manageable ?
By the way , i was also looking at thin slabs which weight less and easy to cut , they should be installed on plywood , but provide the same benefits
other options I considered are Porcelain slabs / corian , its very thin , but it looks like there are no price savings , but atleast they could be transported easily , if in case you find a good deal a little farther from your place
The slab you're talking about it is over nine feet long. I've never moved a counter slab that big. I think the wisest way would be to put it on the flat bed of a pickup, preferably on something like a custom pallet made of OSB/plywood and 2x4s. I would not put this on any sort of dolly. I'd have three guys carry it in, supported on the pallet.
The industry standard to cut 3cm slab is a 14-inch diamond blade on a computer controlled saw. I have a much smaller wet stone cutter produced by a company called DAMO. You can buy them on Amazon. You can also cut slab with a regular 4 1/2 in. grinder equipped with yes, a specialized blade very common in the tile business called a diamond turbo blade. Typically when you do this, you put duct tape along the edges of the cut on both sides that you're plunging into with the grinder -- cutting stone with a dry blade (like the diamond turbo) tends to greatly increase the amount of wear and chipping you get on surface and edges.
Doing a cutout for an undermount sink requires some specialized tools that you mount on a variable-speed wet stone polisher -- Makita makes the industry standard. I would typically not do an undermount sink, although it is the professional industry standard. I would spend more money on the sink and go with a flush-mounted apron sink with square edges. That's not impossible to do with a handheld slab cutter, the grinder with the diamond turbo blade, and a polisher with a 4-inch diamond cup wheel on it.
I think if you're going to DIY granite counters, it would be best to go with the heavier, thicker slabs. They're not that much difficult to cut with the right tools.
It's relatively easy with some practice to put a simple bullnose edge treatment on a slab with an attachment for your polisher that you can get on Amazon. The more complex edge treatments -- we don't do those.
Investor · Lakeland, FL · Member since 2016 · 105 posts · 61 votes
7y
I personally use pre-fab granite slabs. http://www.flooranddecor.com has pre-fab granite slabs starting at $149 + tax. They are 112 inches long and 26 inches wide with finished/polished edges. They are 2 cm thick granite (3/4 inch) and they are 4 cm (1.5 inches) at the edges. I usually cut the slabs myself with my circular saw using a diamond blade and running the saw reverse, gliding the guide along a angled piece of steel which I clamp down on the slab.. Here is one of the slabs I used.. Real granite.. just over $150 for the slab.. A medium sized kitchen requires 2 slabs... $300.. Cutting them is easy.. Here are pics of 2 kitchens that I did with those pre-fab slabs.. The bigger one cost me just over $300 for the granite and the smaller one was just over $150...
I personally use pre-fab granite slabs. http://www.flooranddecor.com has pre-fab granite slabs starting at $149 + tax. They are 112 inches long and 26 inches wide with finished/polished edges. They are 2 cm thick granite (3/4 inch) and they are 4 cm (1.5 inches) at the edges. I usually cut the slabs myself with my circular saw using a diamond blade and running the saw reverse, gliding the guide along a angled piece of steel which I clamp down on the slab.. Here is one of the slabs I used.. Real granite.. just over $150 for the slab.. A medium sized kitchen requires 2 slabs... $300.. Cutting them is easy.. Here are pics of 2 kitchens that I did with those pre-fab slabs.. The bigger one cost me just over $300 for the granite and the smaller one was just over $150...
Wow .. 300 fr countertops with some sweat equity , If time permits can you detail more. Like if you use a wet saw or dry saw . How do you take measurements and make sure that the slab fits right . I am scared that I won't be accurate and end up wasting a slab
Wow .. 300 fr countertops with some sweat equity , If time permits can you detail more. Like if you use a wet saw or dry saw . How do you take measurements and make sure that the slab fits right . I am scared that I won't be accurate and end up wasting a slab
Here are the details of the process:
1) cut approx. 3/4 inch plywood in the size of the cabinet(s) you want to install granite on.
2) Install plywood on cabinets and then cut out sink and cooktop etc, slightly larger than the space needed
3) place the pre-fab granite slab on 2x4's so that it is well supported along it's entire length.
4) Measure your cabinets and then mark the granite slab where you want to cut it.
5) use a circular saw with a diamond masonry blade to cut it using the following process:
a) measure the distance from the saw's guide to the blade (usually around 1.5 inches)
b) clamp down a angle iron in proper distance from the cutting line (if the blade is 1.5 inches from the guard, place the angle iron 1.5 inches from the cutting line). Before cutting, place the circular saw with it's guide along the angle iron to make sure that the blade is lined up with the spot that you want to cut the granite.
c) place blue painters tape along the cutting line and use some water to soak the tape in water.
d) you can cut the slab either wet or dry.. Wet is usually a little smoother cut but not too much difference..
e) cut with the circular saw in reversed direction, gliding the guard of the circular saw along the angle iron. You need to cut reverse as circular saws, unlike tile saws, have a blade rotating in the opposite direction, so, in order to get the correct up to down motion of the blade, you need to cut in the opposite direction. You can have an assistant spray a little bit of water at the front of the blade while cutting to get an even smoother cut.. If you cut very slow and carefully, you should also be able to get a very fine and nice cut without having someone spray water on it.. The important part is that the angle iron must be clamped down well so it won't move and mess up the cutting line.. If you cut the slab with the circular saw guard gliding along the angle iron, you will get a perfect cut..
Flipper/Rehabber · Montgomery, NY · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
7y
I've done granite slabs before (before ever flipping houses) but the time and effort involved it is much easier to have a granite shop do it. You can get $40/SF here plus $250 or so for sink.
The slabs shown look nice, but the drop in sink is one of the things that I would never do. For a rental it probably works well though and the tenant wouldn't notice/care.
I've done granite slabs before (before ever flipping houses) but the time and effort involved it is much easier to have a granite shop do it. You can get $40/SF here plus $250 or so for sink.
The slabs shown look nice, but the drop in sink is one of the things that I would never do. For a rental it probably works well though and the tenant wouldn't notice/care.
I have done undermount sinks before when I still had a guy who would professionally cut out and polish the stone around the undermount sink for $300.. That guy is no longer in business and now, nobody wants to just cut the slabs and sink but to install it too for $$$$$ and they want well over $1k for that.. Cutting my own slabs, the granite + installation materials costs me $400 versus $1600+ if I have buy the granite at $40 per square foot.. I highly doubt that the resale value of the home is lower if it has a top mount sink unless of course, you are dealing with high end property... In the last 5 years, I have done all my counter tops with top mount sinks and all the homes I sold, sold very closed to appraised value (buyer's appraiser). I doubt that the top mount sink made a difference.. Nobody is going to walk away from purchasing a home because the sink is top mount vs. undermount. Of course, at high end properties, it may make a difference but I personally don't deal with high end property.. All me homes are mid range homes and I never have a problem selling them at around appraised value with the top mount sinks.. In recent years, whenever I listed a property at market value, I usually get a contract within 1 to 7 days on it..but I do live in a high demand area.. Real Estate is still relatively cheap here in Central Florida compared to other areas..