The very last piece of granite was installed today in the base of the garden window. Very cool. We’re glad we invested in this change.
Garden Window
Friday went well for our kitchen. The beautiful granite was installed, bringing our kitchen a bit closer to completion.
The Black Galaxy is amazing to look at … like a star system filled with thousands of sparkling stars.
The Silver Galaxy island … wow. We’re more than happy with our choices. Certainly worth the extra time and trips to make it happen.
We ate our first meals at the table end … roast chicken, baked potatoes and steamed baby asparagus. We played with “Convection Roast” for the first time. Cool.
Steel table base
Our old fridge moved again, this time out of the kitchen and into the garage. We’re tired that fridge and glad it’s not in the house.
The kitchen was decluttered a bit. We can now see the window soon to be replaced by a garden window (that is ready to be picked up and installed).
Window Ready to be Ripped out
And, we can glance into the butler’s pantry.
Butler
While we were at Hankins yesterday, we picked up our top choice board of handles and knobs.
Top Knobs
We are looking for modern, a little pizazz but definitely functional. We’re leaning toward the 3rd or 4th down from the top in the center column.
Back to the granite yard yesterday. One slab of our Silver Galaxy is potentially salvagable. A little chip, some cracking, a couple ugly black streaks ….
Ever so patient with us, our KD takes on another complete tour of the huge granite warehouse and yard. No slab is left unturned (not really, but that sounds cool). Nevertheless and (seemingly) miles later, we end back to where we started. Is this one last piece salvagable? Can the templates be arranged to work? Are there more hidden cracks?
Clever planning, arranging and re-arranging allowed us to leave hopeful all will turn out well. Myron from All Marble was ever so helpful despite the half-hearted push for us to choose “black” for the island.
While we were there we saw our perimeter granite already cut, polished and ready to go. Very nice. VERY nice.
Undoubtedly there is a huge audience just waiting to see our beautiful granite installed and the last few hundred details for the kitchen to be finished.
Was the granite installed Friday, Monday, today? No.
We heard from Jerry that the slab we had selected for the island was cracked. And the slab behind that one, and the one behind that one …. the whole batch was cracked and unusable.
We’re headed back to the granite place tomorrow to look again.
Oh, and not that it matters any more, but the name of the granite is/was Silver Galaxy.
The island granite template. One seam, at the sink, was the best we could do. Can’t wait for the install.
Huge Slab o' granite
We went armed with the charcoal door matching the island, a wood sample matching the perimeter cabinets and a selection of 5 floor tiles. We were able to reduce our choices down to 4. Then we wandered outside for a bunch more. We stumbled upon this grayish, redish, little brown, some black and copper speckled slab with a fairly wide vein running through it. A daring vein. A statement vein.
I wish I had taken a picture, but alas, I didn’t.
Samples are below.
the island surface
for the perimeter surfaces
a day at the granite place
just a fraction of the place
Waiting for granite shopping (that’s on us).
Drywaller doing a bit of this and this.
Electrician put in the remaining high hats and an outlet for the microwave and, and, and
HOOKED UP THE OVEN!!!
We baked and look what popped out - an iTouch Cake. We love the ovens (so far).
The oven baked wonderfully - a brand new chocolate chip pound cake and brownies. We had an interesting time on makeshift countertops rolling the fondant and doing the decorating.
Days 17 and 18 were totally quiet.
We went granite shopping Saturday.
Our kitchen guy, Jerry, will be shopping with us when it’s time to make the real decisions (when construction starts). This was just a “practice” run.
We’re going to most likely use two different granites; one for the island and one for the perimeter. A while back we ran into a nearly all-black granite with little flecks of gold colored sparkles. Gorgeous. Jerry tells us that when we go, we’ll change our minds.
Sure enough … we made the forever long trek to 
to browse. Wow. Wow. They claim 100,000 slabs of granite and marble (divided between three locations) and though we only visited one place, we were a bit overwhelmed.
So many colors, so many choices. We brought along some sample tiles from our kitchen floor and cabinet samples to help choose. Up and down the aisles we went. Up and down. Up and down. Then the yard outside. Up and down and all around.
It was a good and useful experience. I have never seen so many colors, patterns, blends and textures. WOW. The comforting news is that there were enough choices that felt like they are in range. Somebody who can coordinate colors will make our ultimate selections.