Buncombe Custom Countertops is a trusted Buncombe County fabricator of countertops in Asheville, NC, specializing in scribed granite, honed marble and quartz for older houses. We offer bed and breakfast countertops and rebuilt shop and taproom counters.
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Or call (828) 470-1105. Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
Our team provides templating on the cabinets as they stand, delivering countertops that close up tight against a wavy plaster wall for both residential and commercial projects. We template off your installed cabinets and the real line of the wall, then make every scribe and sink opening in our own shop, so nothing gets ground to fit inside a century-old kitchen.
From a backsplash scribed to a leaning wall to a counter rebuilt under a district's design review, our team handles every detail. Serving Asheville along with Woodfin, Black Mountain and Swannanoa, we plan each measure around the house you actually have rather than the one a drawing describes.
Why Buncombe Custom Countertops
The crew that measures your kitchen is the crew that sets the tops.
Countertops in an older Asheville house are templated to the walls and floors the house really has, because a home built between 1890 and 1920 almost never offers a square corner or a level run. The Montford Area Historic District alone holds about 600 buildings, mostly residences from those three decades, in Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Colonial Revival and Bungalow designs. North of downtown, the Grove Park Historic District was platted between 1908 and 1914 and counts 290 contributing buildings in Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival and craftsman bungalow styles. Chestnut Hill, Lakeview Park and Norwood Park are on the National Register too, and Albemarle Park is a local historic district. A kitchen in any of them has had a century to settle.
A plaster wall that bows by a quarter inch over eight feet leaves a gap behind a straight slab. We trace that bow on the template and cut the back edge of the stone to follow it, so the top meets the wall instead of leaving a caulk line you can slide a finger into.
Heart pine floors that dip toward the middle of a room pull the cabinets with them. A kitchen counter normally stands about 35 to 36 inches off the floor and runs 25 to 26 inches deep, and in an old house we shim the boxes back to that height before a template is taken, not after the stone arrives.
Honed marble and soapstone read as period materials in a Queen Anne or bungalow kitchen. Marble etches under vinegar and lemon, and soapstone darkens into a patina with use, so both suit an owner who likes a surface that shows its years. Owners who would rather not think about it usually land on a honed granite or a quartz with a soft, low-sheen finish.
A bed and breakfast kitchen works like a small commercial kitchen that someone also lives in, so its countertops are chosen for a full breakfast service every morning and a family dinner every night. Montford is known for its many bed and breakfasts, and in the United States a B&B typically runs four to eleven guest rooms, with the hosts living in the same house.
Inside the city limits that owner-host is the norm. Asheville allows a homestay only in a residential zone, only where the owner lives in the house full-time, and only for one or two rented bedrooms, while renting a whole house by the night is limited to the Resort Zoning District. The person buying the top is the person who will cook on it for years.
Tell us your guest calendar at the measure. The install date is set around your bookings and written on the quote, so a checkout morning can become a countertop day.
Businesses rebuilding in the River Arts District and Biltmore Village need counters built from drawings, approved before fabrication and installed around a reopening date. Hurricane Helene damaged about 80 percent of the River Arts District's studios and buildings in September 2024, and Biltmore Village took up to six feet of water from the Swannanoa River.
The two districts rebuild under different pressures. The River Arts District grew out of former mills and factories along the French Broad, including a 1907 Nabisco building on Depot Street, so a gallery counter or a taproom bar there often sits inside an industrial shell with uneven slab floors. Biltmore Village began as George Vanderbilt's planned English-style village and holds its buildings to strict design guidelines, strict enough that a McDonald's had to be modified to comply, and those guidelines have slowed reconstruction.
We return shop drawings showing seams, edges and cutouts for your approval, and a sample for any review board that wants to see the stone. Templates are taken on the installed casework, never from the plans alone, because rebuilt walls and floors drift from the drawings. Send the drawings and finish schedule and we return a bid.
A standard kitchen of new stone in Asheville is typically estimated at roughly $2,500 to $6,000, and an older house tends to sit higher in that range because scribing, leveling and a tight route in all add shop and crew time. Quartz is generally estimated at about $60 to $150 per square foot installed and granite at roughly $40 to $100, depending on the group and grade of the slab.
These are the items that move an Asheville quote:
Every figure here is an estimate drawn from typical ranges for this work, and each one is subject to change once we have seen the kitchen and you have chosen a slab. Your written quote from the free in-home measure sets the final price, with each item listed so you can see why it is there. Commercial counters are priced by bid from drawings rather than from these ranges.
The process
An Asheville countertop job runs in five steps, and the install date is fixed at the measure and printed on your quote.
We check the cabinets, the walls and the floor, then walk the route from the curb to the kitchen: the porch steps, the front hall, the turn into the room. An old house decides how long a single piece can be.
You pick the actual slab at the stone supplier's yard, because natural stone changes from one slab to the next and a chip never shows the movement.
We mark every seam, cutout and scribed edge on your slab and send the layout for your sign-off before any cut.
Cutting, edging and polishing all happen in the shop with water on the blade. OSHA notes that water applied to a blade substantially reduces the dust from cutting stone, which is why none of that work happens in your house.
The crew sets the tops, glues the seams, fits an undermount sink with a silicone seal, and cleans up. Your plumber reconnects the faucet and drain once the stone is set.
Questions
Yes, a scribed back edge is how stone meets a wall that bows or leans. We trace the wall on the template and cut the stone to follow it in the shop, so the gap you see is a thin, even bead rather than a wedge.
Whether interior work needs any review is the city's call, not ours, so check with Asheville's historic preservation staff if you are unsure. We can give you a slab sample and a layout drawing to show anyone who asks.
A standard kitchen is typically estimated at roughly $2,500 to $6,000, with older houses leaning higher because of scribing, leveling and access. These are estimates and are subject to change; the written quote from your measure sets the final price.
Often, yes, if the boxes are sound and can carry stone. At the measure we check that the cabinets are level, square enough to template and strong at the corners, and we tell you plainly if a box needs reinforcing first.
Usually, with planning. We book the tear-out and install around your guest calendar and put the dates on the quote, so the kitchen is out of use on a day you chose rather than one we guessed.
No. A licensed plumber disconnects the sink and faucet before tear-out and reconnects them after the stone is set. We cut the openings, set an undermount bowl to the stone and seal it, then hand over to your plumber.
Send the plans or a dimensioned sketch, the finish schedule, fixture cut sheets and your opening date. We return a bid, then shop drawings for approval before anything is cut.
Yes. We measure and install across the whole city, from West Asheville to the neighborhoods north of downtown and the streets around Biltmore Village, and on to the rest of Buncombe County.
Free measures across Buncombe County. Builders, cabinet shops and property owners can send drawings for a bid.
Licensed, bonded & insured. Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
