Calgary · Fabricated in-house since day one
Five surfaces, one honest comparison. Work out which stone actually suits how you cook, clean and live — then we template, cut and fit it.
Most countertop regret in Calgary comes from one thing: picking a surface off a 4-inch sample under showroom lights, without anyone explaining how it behaves after two winters of chinooks, hard water and a family that cooks.
We fabricate all five of the surfaces below in our Westwinds shop, so we have no reason to push you toward one. Granite pays for itself in a busy kitchen. Quartz is the safest choice for people who don’t want to think about maintenance. Marble is worth it if you accept the patina. Quartzite looks like marble and behaves like granite — at a price. Porcelain is the one that survives a Calgary patio.
This page is the short version of the conversation we have in the shop. Each material links to a full page with real spec figures, care requirements and pricing bands.
by material
Material decides your budget, your maintenance and roughly 80% of the final look. Room and layout come after.
Hardest-working natural stone. Heat-proof, unique slab to slab, needs sealing once a year or so.
Non-porous, consistent, zero sealing. Calgary's most-requested surface — and the most forgiving.
Nothing else looks like it. Etches and patinas are beautiful if you want it to age,
Marble's face, granite's durability. Genuinely hard — but half the market is mislabelled, so testing matters.
UV-stable, scorch-proof, only 6–12 mm thick. The right answer for outdoor kitchens and full-height slab walls.
Side by side
| Surface | Heat | Stains & etching | Sealing | Outdoors | Relative cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granite | Excellent — set a hot pan down | Resists staining once sealed; doesn’t etch | Yearly, 10 minutes | Yes | $$ |
| Quartz | Use a trivet — resin scorches near 150 °C | Non-porous; won’t stain or etch | Never | No — UV yellows it | $$–$$$ |
| Marble | Very good | Etches on contact with lemon, wine, vinegar | Every 3–6 months | Not recommended | $$$ |
| Quartzite | Excellent | Hard; true quartzite won’t etch | Yearly | Yes | $$$–$$$$ |
| Porcelain | Excellent — genuinely scorch-proof | Zero porosity | Never | Best in class | $$$ |
Cost bands are relative to each other, not fixed prices. Slab grade moves the number far more than material does.
by room
The same slab behaves differently depending on where it lands. A honed marble that’s a headache beside the stove is perfect on a fireplace surround. Once you’ve narrowed the material, these pages cover layout, thickness, overhang support and the details that actually get argued about on install day.
How it runs
01.
You see the actual slab, not a sample chip. Natural stone varies enormously across a single block, and a photo of “Black Pearl” tells you nothing about the piece that ends up in your kitchen.
02.
We laser-template after your cabinets are set and levelled. This is also when we walk you through seam placement — where the joins land, and why. Nobody should find out about a seam after it’s cut.
03.
CNC cutting, sink and cooktop cut-outs, edge profiling and polishing in our own shop. Nothing is sent out, which is why we can turn a template around in roughly ten working days.
04.
Levelling, setting, seaming and sealing, typically in a single day for a standard kitchen. Old tops removed and hauled away if you need that.
/ FAQs
Installed price depends on four things: material, slab grade, square footage and cut-out complexity. Grade moves the number more than material — an entry-level quartzite can cost less than an exotic granite. Send us a rough sketch with dimensions and we will give you a real number rather than a range.
Two to three weeks from template to installation for a standard kitchen. We template only after cabinets are permanently set, so the timeline starts from that date, not from the day you order.
Usually yes, as long as the sink is in sound condition and the cut-out geometry works with the new slab. Bring the sink to template day, or send us the model number, so the cut-out is machined to the actual unit rather than to a spec sheet.
Yes, and we dispose of them. Tell us in advance if the old tops are tile or laminate glued directly to the cabinet boxes, since that removal is slower and occasionally reveals cabinet damage underneath.
All five survive it, but they show it differently. Quartz and porcelain wipe clean without leaving mineral haze. Polished granite and quartzite spot slightly and want a quick dry-off around the sink. Marble is the one that records water rings if you leave puddles sitting.
Yes. Bring a door sample or the manufacturer's finish code to the slab yard. Judging undertone from a phone photo is unreliable — greys in particular read completely differently under yard lighting than under LED kitchen lights.
Free measure and quote across Calgary, Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere and Okotoks. No obligation, no showroom pressure.
Crescent Granite templates, fabricates and installs custom kitchen and bathroom countertops across Calgary — in-house, on schedule, and built to outlast the reno.
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