Quartz and Marble. Happy and Sad.

At last! Our quartz kitchen counters are in! I was very happy to see this truck in front of our house yesterday morning.

When we arrived around 10, the crew had already made good progress:

The half wall between the dining room and kitchen.

Close up to show the recycled glass and mirror in our countertop. As well as an X marking the spot!

Baking row. Lowered baking center to the left, and Kitchen Aid home on the right.

Outer island. That's drywall by the outlets. That part will have the glass backsplash tile.

Close up of the outer island.

First look at our new Blanco single bowl sink

The quartz along the back wall had been set as we were leaving, and they were getting ready to cut out the hole for the cooktop.

My headache was really giving me grief, which greatly bummed me out because I was pretty excited about this installation. But, after Niels came home we came back to see the finished job. 

It was almost jarring to see all the white after seeing the dark cabinets for the last month. Our fears that our kitchen would be dark were unfounded.

Outer island, complete with sink.

Outer island Blanco single bowl sink.

The grid will protect the bottom from scratches, and also make thawing things in the sink easier.

Reverse view of outer island.

Aerial-ish view of the kitchen.

Inner island with prep sink. I didn't want a big sink, just big enough for cleaning veggies and handling food scraps.

Both sinks will have Delta Touch 2.0 faucets. They turn on and off by touching the faucet. This will be so nice when my hands are full of bread dough!

View of the islands from the corner.

Cooktop area.

Close up of the corner.

The command center looks really big with the counter on it. Joe will be back on Tuesday to put the cabinets and shelves up.

I was very happy to see the counters and how well they turned out. We had white Corian counters in our old house. They were there when we bought it, and weren't crazy about them, but over the years, we grew to really love them. So much so that we knew early on that we wanted white counters in the new house. We chose the Hanstone Specchio White because it uses recycled glass and mirror, so it's green, and quartz is easy to maintain (no sealing!) and anti-microbial.  I love these counters!

The day wasn't all joy, however. You may remember that we found a marble remnant for my baking center. Originally, we were going to do all quartz, and I was eyeing a marble slab from Williams-Sonoma for baking. The lowered baking center was orginally 32"x25" to accommodate a wheelchair. When we saw the 29"x25" remnant, I made the decision to make the baking center smaller, thinking that a guest using a chair could easily use the command center area.

Looks great from here.

This is what my baking center was supposed to look like.

Joe Yoder custom made the support to accommodate the size of the remnant.

Not big enough for a wheelchair, but it will fit a dining chair with toddler sous chef standing on it.

Unfortunately, this is what I got. 

The slab was cut wrong.

So, that was the downer of the day. I'm not sure how it happened. I remember talking to the fabricator and saying that the support was being made to the largest dimensions of the slab. It's such a beautiful piece of marble. Sigh... I know it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of important things in the world, but it's disappointing. 

I'm not sure yet what we're going to do. We used a remnant, because we sure wouldn't splurge on a slab. Stay tuned...

***update***
I am very happy to report that Canton Cut Stone is cutting us a new marble slab. I am very grateful.

Prepping for Counters and Sinks

We had a busy morning at the house today. We met with Cody from Canton Cut Stone to get the measurements for our countertops. We wrote about our choices here.

We did a bit of research last night so we were aware of the decisions we'd need to make today. Things like:

Edge Profile:
In our previous house, we a dupont edge. We did not choose this profile. We thought it was pretty when we purchased the house, but the love affair quickly ended when I realized how easily gunk got caught in the corner. I cleaned it with an electric toothbrush.

Profile options

Since we have a more modern/transitional approach in our new house, we selected an eased (straight) profile. The edge is just very slightly rounded to keep the corner from being a hip jabber.

Eased Edge

Radius of Corners:

We also had to decide what kind of corners we wanted to have. A 90 degree angle is a 0 radius. A very round corner is a 1 radius. Ours will be 1/8", which is basically the radius equivalent of an eased edge, like the photo above.

Honed or Polished Finish:
When stone is polished, it's shiny and reflective. When it's honed, it is buffed to a matte finish. Most experts agree that etching doesn't show up as much on honed, but a polished finish protects against stains. Sine we don't cut directly on our counters, we chose polished for our quartz. Our marble slab was already polished, so we'll have the same finish, although I might have chose a honed finish if I had had a choice.

Honed Marble

Polished Marble

Sink Detail:

As much as we like the Silgranit sinks, which are made of composite material, we decided to save a little money by going with stainless steel. We close Blanco Stellar sinks for our kitchen. We knew we wanted single bowls. Scratch that, Niels, as the sweet pot-scrubbing hubby that he is, strongly campaigned for a single bowl sink. It came with a promise to continue scrubbing pots and pans, so how could I argue? The steel is 18 gauge, which is on the strong side of the scale. 

Blanco Stellar 441024

Matching grid to protect the base of the sink from scratches.

Blanco Stellar 441026

Reveal:

Reveal refers to how much of an undermount sink shows. Another way to think of it is to consider the overhang. A positive reveal means that the counter does not hang over the sink (aka, the sink is revealed). You'll see a little bit of sink and the silicone caulking. Some people don't like this because gunk can collect on the revealed part. A negative reveal means that there is a little bit of overhang, which means that you won't see the top of the sink.

Negative reveal: you can't see the top edge of the sink.

Positive Reveal: you can see the top edge of the sink. It is "revealed."

We will be getting the negative overhang. To be honest, before last night, despite being consumed with all things construction, the reveal of a sink never crossed my mind. Since our fabricator does a negative as standard, that was fine with us.

Bath and Laundry Sinks:

While most of the time was spent in the kitchen, Cody did also measure all the other counters as well. Most of the bathroom sinks will be standard white sinks, the in-law suite will have a vessel sink. We aren't big fans of vessel sinks in general, because the bowls can be quite difficult to clean, but this one is square so it should be a lot easier. We chose the vessel to raise the sink above the vanity to allow more leg room under the accessible vanity.

Kraus KCV-150

CorStone White Self-Rimming Acrylic Laundry Sink

Faucets:

As part of our accessibility goals, we chose Delta's Touch 2.0 faucets for the kitchen and in-law bath. In the kitchen, we have the Pilar 3-hole in brilliance stainless. We'll also use the bar version for the prep sink.

In the in-law bath, we chose the Lahara style in chrome because the Pilar wasn't available:

For the bathrooms, we are using Charis' standard, the elegant Eva line from Moen.

So, armed with all the selections, Cody started measuring. First he wrote everything down:

Then he set up these little doo dads and used a camera like tool with a laser beam to get exact measurements.

Cody took the measurements back to the shop and the crew there will start measuring the template. Since we chose quartz and mostly remnants, we don't really need to come in to the shop to decide where on the slab the template will be placed. They'll just take that angle that fits. However, they will call me to come in for placing the master bath vanity template so I can make sure the veins are where we want them.

The next few weeks will be interesting as all the subs dance around each other. The counters will be one of the last things, with installation scheduled for January 24 and 25.

As I left, I took a nice picture of our house with the first snow of the season.