Following design profiles on Instagram is how I find my daily zen. I don’t watch television – I have terrible ADD and really can’t (or don’t want to) focus long enough to sit and watch a whole show. However, I can sit and watch Instagram stories in short bursts and be totally happy.

These design profiles wow me again and again with dazzling white countertops. Pearly, marbled, beautiful, simple, elegant, bright countertops – exactly the opposite of the granite I have right now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my current granite, it’s just not what I am lusting after:

Yes, I have had countertop envy for quite some time. So I began my quest to find the perfect white countertops. I didn’t set out with only one type of stone in mind – I was open to granite, quartz, quartzite – just not actual marble because I don’t have the patience to deal with etching and staining in a kitchen and bath. In my last blog post, I posted the five samples I was considering – all quartz.

This was a big decision, but there was one that kept jumping out at me. I hemmed and hawed because, let’s face it, how am I supposed to pick based on a tiny sample? And yet…it kept calling me. Pental Misterio. I made an appointment for my husband and I to meet at Pental Surfaces in Van Nuys, CA after he finished work one day.

As soon as I saw the Misterio slab, I was surprised that I wasn’t convinced (if you know me, you know that this is not shocking at all). However, it was the closest thing to my vision that I had found so far. No, we didn’t buy the slabs. I’m clearly a glutton for punishment, so I made my husband make a separate trip back down to Pental a few weeks later, once I was for sure – for sure – sure that I wanted Misterio.

If you have purchased quartz, you know that it’s manmade, so there is not a lot of variation by slab. Actually, there is next to no variation by slab if it was created in the same run. The original slabs we had looked at were still bugging me. The veining had a lot of beige when I really wanted grey. The veining was also just a bit sharp and busy for me. The helpful Pental warehouse manager pointed out that he had a completely different run he could show us, but not to expect much difference. And yet, I saw it and it was…wow. They pulled a few slabs of this second run out with their forklift crane and brought them to the warehouse door so we could see it in natural light and my heart soared. It had the same pattern as the first slabs, except it had delicate, soft grey veining with just a hint of beige undertone to it. I fell in love with these slabs. So we did it. We reserved three and off we went to sit in the usual rush hour traffic on the 405, but it was by far the best hour that I have been stuck on the 405 in a long time. I had found exactly what I had been looking for.

Now that countertop selection is out of the way, we need to start thinking about a backsplash. Again, I like simple and classic and I’m going for broke (literally!) on the white theme. I’m off to explore the endless options out there, but once again, I have a sneaking suspicion that I know just what I want. More on that soon.