Article By: Paul Long Photos By: Josh Triggs The way Jason Singer sees it, experience counts for a lot. Singer, the owner of Berkeley County-based CounterTop Solutions, estimated that he and his employees have remodeled more than 1,000 kitchens during the last 20 years, and he believes that’s something that potential customers might want to take into consideration. “We’re proud of the fact we’ve built a place you really should see before you complete your project,” he said recently, “even if you go with someone else.” Singer grew up in the kitchen and bath business. For many years, parents owned a showroom called Innerspace in Hagerstown Md. He left the area for awhile and explored other aspects of the construction business before returning to this area and opening CounterTop Solutions in Hagerstown in 2005. He has worked extensively in both the residential and commercial building sectors. “I’ve been lucky to have the skills to work with my hands,” said Singer, adding that he sees himself as more of an entrepreneur these days, and he has been trying to branch out into other things. Every now and then, though, it feels good to handle the work himself. In December 2016, he relocated his business to the Eastern Panhandle, opening the Earth Art Slab Studio and Granite Factory at 286 Langston Blvd. near Spring Mills. At approximately the same time, he launched a new showroom, the Earth Art Slab Studio, at 2625 Valley Ave. in Winchester. Earth Art is CounterTop Solutions’ particular brand of stone, Singer explained. “We wanted to bring up the retail portion of our business,” Singer said, explaining that CounterTop Solutions has been focusing more on retail kitchens since 2013, when it opened a retail showroom in Williamsport, Md. It was at that time that Singer and his staff began photographing slabs on a green screen, an important advancement in the design process. Moving to West Virginia made sense from a location standpoint, according to Singer. While Berkeley County’s population is substantially smaller than that of Washington County, Md., Singer’s market is centered along the Interstate 81 corridor, and his proximity to I-70 is also a bonus. CounterTop Solutions serves customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia as well as Washington, D.C. Its residential coverage area runs from Harrisburg, Pa., to the north; Harrisonburg, Va., to the south; Deep Creek, Md., to the west and Frederick, Md., to the east. The company also has commercial clients in Baltimore, Washington and several communities in northern Virginia. As a general rule, Singer said, CounterTop Solutions will travel anywhere within a 100-mile radius of Berkeley County to work with a client. Occasionally, though, they will go further out. Singer and his staff specialize in granite countertops but also handle kitchen and bath renovations as well as cabinetry and even outdoor kitchens. He estimates that about 60 percent of his projects are done with granite, about 30 percent with quartz and approximately 10 percent with other surfaces. Remnants and partial slabs of granite, marble, engineered stone, limestone and other materials are available for smaller projects. CounterTop Solutions utilizes the latest in available technology to help design its projects, including a 3D project layout system that shows a customer exactly what his or her new kitchen will look like. Singer and his staff can work between slabs during the design process. Customers can bring in their own measurements, or CounterTop Solutions employees can go out and handle the measuring themselves, using a process known as templating. This allows CounterTop Solutions to obtain accurate measurements without having to remove a customer’s existing countertops. The new countertop is then built at the company’s production...