Countertops Made Out of Lava

I got this voice message: "Wade, It's Mike Gibson. Just calling to let you know the countertops are freaking awesome. Okay. That's it. Thanks. Bye." Appleseed's specialty is custom cabinetry. To keep with the industrial feel and exposed materials, they built the kitchen cabinetry out of steel rather than wood. I like to reuse as much of the building's original materials as possible so they incorporated two sturdy old wooden display tables into the base of the kitchen island. The tables were once used by the dry goods store.

I had originally wanted concrete countertops. Mike told me that if everything I used was rough, then it wouldn't look like I was doing it on purpose; it would just look rough. He said that I needed to put some nice features in to contrast the rough look. He suggested a white Alabama marble, which I just didn't like. His next suggestion was onyx. I looked around online to see some examples. Turns out, onyx is slightly translucent, so you can light it. I thought it would be cool to have a countertop that looked like glowing lava, or a forge to compliment the steel cabinetry. Ben figured out a way to run LED lights around the edge. You can see the results below, and it looks incredible.

The cabinets in the master bath are also steel. However, the guest bath has standard wooden cabinetry, but we did use onyx on top. Mike claims to have "a surprise" for the guest bath countertop, so we'll see what that is.

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