Kitchen Progress: Flooring and Countertops

We've been in a sort of holding pattern with the kitchen. While we are making some very small progress we are held up by two things -- first the flooring and second the countertops. We are waiting to install most of the cabinet doors until after the flooring is in. We don't want to somehow bang the doors up in the process.

The good news is the pile you see under the tall ladder is all of our flooring!

It came in Saturday and we are very excited to get it installed. However, we have to get everything cleaned up before we can pull out the carpet and start laying flooring. The cold, snowy weather has made it hard to get that motivation. So much of what has to be cleaned up needs to go outside and down the hill to the garage... so we wait. Fortunately, the sunny weather today motivated us to get quite a bit cleaned up.

Here is a closer look at the flooring. It's engineered hardwood walnut floating floor from Smith's Carpet and Tile. 

We are planning to install it ourselves because a) everyone says it is super easy and b) it costs a lot of money to have someone install it for us.

We have installed out new kitchen lights. We are leaving the plastic on the shades for now in hopes of keeping them from getting dusty with some of the work that still needs to be completed. They look pretty good though. 

Our next big purchase is countertops. They are basically our budget buster in this whole thing. I had NO IDEA countertops were so stinkin' expensive!!! One quote we had was about $4500... that is the highest, but still... so.much.money!!

We are not wanting granite (I have my crazy, I'm a reporter and learn too much junk, reasons). We considered concrete but I have heard some people are really unhappy with it and that it cracks too easily. However, it is more affordable. We do like quartz and we really like soapstone. Soapstone is not very common around here and despite what This Old House says on their web site it is NOT affordable. Also, every place we call for a quote tries to talk us out of buying soapstone. We have done our research and feel it would work for us.

At this point we may just have to put plywood down and call it good. Seriously! I don't even know what I was expecting for countertops but it was not what we are getting as far as price.

Any suggestions are very welcome at this point.