Nitpicking: Because Design is In the Details

Somewhere in my computer, there is a much better picture of this island backsplash in which you can see that this backsplash on the left was cut about 1/8" shorter than the adjacent backsplash on the right.  Those who know me will understand that, once I discovered this, I was driven to distraction by it.  It looked like a dark line between the backsplash and the raised bar countertop, and it stared me in the face and mocked me while I made my morning lattes.  If I could find the picture I was looking for, perhaps you would understand why this was so unacceptable to me.  Perhaps not -- but sweating the details is what I do for a living, and I spent too much money on the new countertops to be disappointed every time I look at that seam.

Bernie remembers that, during installation of the countertops, an adjustment was made to lower the island countertop slightly for the sink installation, and he thinks they may have already cut the left backsplash when the counter was sitting higher because the backsplash on the right was cut second and it fits perfectly.  In the end, however, too short is too short.  Tile Collection sent a repair technician out to change the caulk from translucent to white in hopes that the gap would be less noticeable, but no dice.  I asked for that backsplash to be replaced with a new one cut from the leftover pieces of my granite slab, and Tile Collection obliged.

The tricky thing about this is that initially, backsplashes are cut from adjacent parts of the stone so that the movement or pattern in the stone flows as uninterrupted as possible from one piece to the next.  Since the countertops adjacent to the backsplash were already installed in my home, the fabricator wouldn't have them in his shop as a reference when cutting the new piece.

My solution: Crayons to the Rescue!

I have a roll of heavy white butcher's paper in my sewing room that I use for making patterns, and I used it to make templates of my countertops indicating where the major veining patterns were located.  While I was doing this, my husband was looking at me like I was a wild-eyed crazy woman. 

I took pictures too, naturally, and those were invaluable for showing which colors I needed to have in various places.  I took my pictures to the granite fabrication shop along with my paper patterns, which I laid out right on the leftover piece of granite and found a place where the veining lined up even better than on the original backsplash.

Isn't that fabulous?  SO much prettier than before.  Scroll up and look at the original backsplash again.  I wasn't wild about the Big Black Blob on the original piece, and this one matches perfectly with all the beautiful golds and greens in exactly the right places.  I should tell you that in order to get this perfect piece of backsplash, they had to cut my little strip of stone right in the center of the remnant at about a 45 degree angle, which pretty much ruined a large remnant that they could have sold to another customer for a sink vanity or table top -- and to their credit, no one batted an eye.  I love these guys!  Everyone has great customer service before you sign the deal and stroke the check.  It's really important to me to know that my workrooms and suppliers are willing to go the extra mile for me at the end of the job, making adjustments and corrections until everyone is satisfied with the installation.  I highly recommend Tile Collection to anyone in the Charlotte, North Carolina area for stone countertops or tile work.

The same day that the backsplash was replaced, they also installed my red laundry room sink with its little granite counter.  Bernie and the installers were joking around that my sink is so big, all I'm left with is a granite sink frame instead of a countertop.  Whatever.

This little countertop was also cut from the remnants of the CD Volcano slab we chose for our kitchen.  After I butchered one of the two remnants for my Backsplash of Dreams, this was the only piece left that was big enough for the laundry counter and splashes.  It would have been nice if there was a smattering of the red and green in this piece, but the red ties in with the leftover kitchen fabric that will eventually be used for a little valance on the window in this toom to tie everything together and cheer up my laundry room.  The red enameled cast iron sink was special-ordered from Kohler, and it's the exact shade of red in my fabric (Monado in Havana colorway from Vervain).

The faucet is going to be the Venetian Bronze Delta faucet that I bought for my kitchen about a year ago, but the plumbing isn't connected yet.  Also, there is a nasty fluorescent tube light fixture in the laundry room that is going to have to go.  It casts a horrible sickly light and makes my colors look gross.

Hood Classic Globe from Rejuvenation Hardware

I really like the new Hood pendant with caged glass from Rejuvenation Hardware, so I think I might get that one for the laundry room.  It's based on industrial styles that were common from 1910-1920, and the wire cage served the useful purpose of containing broken glass if the globe should shatter.  It comes in 12", 14", or 18" diameter and uses a single 300 watt bulb.  I just think it would add a nice splash of personality and character, complement the dark bronze and opal glass fixtures in the kitchen beyond, yet it's a simpler, more functional style that's better suited to a workspace like a laundry room. 

-- Ooh, wouldn't it be fun to rip out the perfectly serviceable tile floor in the laundry room, and replace it with vintage-style 2" hexagonal mosaic tile like this?



Merola Tile Old World Hex with Dot from Home Depot



I'm not even going to suggest that to Bernie; I can't risk a mutiny.  Still, IF I was going to do it...  I like the way this particular background tile ties into my granite, but not so much the black dots.  The dots would need to be a more subtle contrast for me, maybe more of a golden/rust/brownish color on the same spectrum as the golds in the drapery fabric and the tones of the cabinetry.  So it would probably have to be custom-ordered instead of conveniently purchased from the local Home Depot. 

At some point, you just have to say that enough is enough and call it "done."  For now...  ;-)

Kitchen Tilework Commences, and Bernie Gives the Kitchen a Test Drive

Okay, so in this picture of the molding tile, you can see how nicely the polished marble backsplash tile complements the lighter areas of the CD Volcano granite countertop in the background.  All of the marble backsplash tile is this creamy off-white color.  The field tile is just a polished marble brick with slightly beveled edges, to be laid in a brick pattern except for the focal rectangle over the stove, where it will be a herringbone pattern framed by this crown molding type tile.  The herringbone pattern, as well as the beveled edges on the field tile that are apparently not fun to grout, are the reasons why the tile guy from Tile Collection is installing this backsplash tile instead of Bernie.  Also, I want this backsplash installation to be absolutely flawless or it will drive me crazy as long as we live in this house, and I also enjoy being happily married to a man who is still speaking to me.  So, Tile Collection installs the tile this time. 

The beveled bricks are cut to fit and laid out flat on the countertop in the herringbone pattern ahead of installation.  Our tile guy cuts each tile individually to size.

...and now the tile goes up on the wall.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with tile installation, those little plastic tab things are temporary spacers to maintain 1/8" distance between tiles while the thinset (goopy glue stuff) dries.  Without the spacers, the weight of the tiles would cause them to slide down the wall. 

Ta-da!  Done for today.  The thinset adhering the tiles to the wall will dry overnight, and the tile guy will come back tomorrow morning to fill those 1/8" gaps with grout.  My grout color is nearly identical to the marble tile, which will minimize the business of the backsplash tile so that it will no longer "fight" the pattern of the granite the way it does right now.  Also, something weird with my camera and the flash are making the countertop look yellowish and the backsplash light look white.  In real life, the marble echoes the creamy ivory color found throughout all of the granite slabs.

Here is my cutie, test-driving the "new" kitchen.  Bernie made cioppino for dinner and spread out across the entire island countertop.  He is really enjoying having a kitchen again instead of feeling like he's trying to cook dinner behind the counter at a Starbucks.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow after the tile has been grouted.  Hopefully I'll figure out how to adjust the settings on my camera to fix the color distortion so you can see what everything really looks like, but don't hold your breath -- I have a lot of work piled up on my desk and the last thing I need to be doing is reading the instruction manual for my camera.  Or, um, blogging about my tile...

CD Volcano Kitchen Granite Installation: A Photo Essay

At 8:30 this morning, three trucks from Tile Collection pulled into my cul-de-sac laden with precious cargo...

Bye Bye, Baltic Barf!  Good riddance...

The first pieces that went in were the countertops on either side of my stove.  These pieces were cut immediately adjacent to one another on the slab so that the same swirling colors flow from one side to the other.

Next they installed this piece to the left of the wall ovens.  I love all these colors -- red, green, gold, orange, all streaked through with black and brown and smatterings of silver mica everywhere!  It reminds me of an amazing ice cream sundae melting in the bowl while you're eating it.

There was only one little annoying surprise today.  Look at all that wasted space between these two cabinets!  I'm always strapped for storage space.  If I had realized this was there early enough in this remodel, I could have had Bernie rebuild these cabinet boxes with angled side walls to utilize all that wasted space.  Naturally, Bernie is glad that I did not find out about this opportunity in time to add it to his Honey-Do list!

Here's an aerial shot from the second floor once the stoveside granite had been installed.  The reason Bernie looks so happy is that today, other people were doing the heavy labor and he was merely an observer.  You can also see my funky new Kohler Undertone Large/Medium sink in place on the island.

Here's that same shot a few hours later, with the island granite in place.  I love how the curves we added to the raised island bar soften the hockey stick look, and Tile Collection did a great job of cutting the island countertop and island bar from separate bookmarked slabs so that the movement in the granite seems to flow from one surface to the next.

By the time Anders got home from school, he was able to sit at the new island bar to do his homework.  Bernie is reconnecting the plumbing to the new Brizo Tresa single handle faucet.  This faucet is from the same collection as the bridge faucets I used in my master bathroom.  I was a little nervous about the sink choice, whether it might be too contemporary for my kitchen, but I looked at hundreds of sinks and kept coming back to this one.  The main basin is huge, deep enough for my biggest pots and pans, and I think the curved lines of the sink complement the flowing lines of the granite much better than a hard rectangular sink would have.  It was a tight fit, however, and the faucet, sprayer and soap dispenser are in the only possible positions where they would fit between the sink and the sink supports. 

Last but not least, here's what my butler's pantry looks like at the end of the day.  The wine fridge is humming away, the granite and Belle Forêt hammered copper prep sink are installed, and the smaller bar/prep version of the Brizo Tresa faucet has been installed.  I chose a full granite backsplash for this area to dress it up a little bit more, since it's in full view from the front door and formal dining room.  The backsplashes in the main kitchen are getting tiled in beveled marble bricks starting tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, today we placed the orders for the cabinet doors and drawer front required by this new cabinet, since the ones we removed were too small to reuse.  Fortunately, I was able to research the original builder's supplier for the cabinet doors and drawer fronts last summer when we were working on our master bath, so I know the new ones will be exactly like those in the main kitchen.

We also reached a truce on the under cabinet lighting battle we'd been waging for the last few weeks.  Bernie ran wiring to all the cabinets and wanted line voltage xenon light bars.  I preferred the customized low-voltage strings of xenon festoon lamps that could be sized to fit each cabinet precisely, with bulbs spaced every 4-6", but this would require transformers and more hassles than Bernie wanted to deal with.

*LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT REBECCA GAVE IN AND ORDERED THE LIGHTS THAT BERNIE WANTED!  I DO NOT ALWAYS INSIST ON GETTING MY OWN WAY!*

Tomorrow, Bernie will be able to finish the plumbing connections so we can regain the use of the kitchen sink.  The backsplash tile will go up tomorrow and the next day, and hopefully within the next few days the new range hood will be delivered so that can be installed, too.  The under cabinet lights were in stock so we should have them here to install by early next week, too -- and somewhere in the middle of all this the new carpentry and trim will need to get glazed and top-coated.  But the end is in sight!



The Slippery, Sliding, Treacherous Slope of a Mini Kitchen Remodel

Can you believe this was an IMPULSE project?  It started with the innocent selection of wallpaper for the boys' bathrooms, then the realization that it was now-or-never if I wanted to change out their cultured marble vanities for scrap granite pieces...  Then I had to go to the granite fabrication facility to select my scraps, where my single-minded focus crumbled in the face of slab after slab of seductive stone, each one more beautiful than the next, and ALL of them more attractive than the Baltic Barf that is splattered throughout my own kitchen.  I got a quote on upgrading my kitchen countertops to a mid-range granite and decided it was worthwhile, but then when I went to the granite importer's warehouse to select my stone, I wandered in circles for hours and kept coming back to the same ultra rare, dramatic and risqué CD Volcano granite.  I know this stone is outrageous.  I know it has no place in my neighborhood, and that I'll never get the money back when I sell my home.  Blah, blah, blah!  It's unique, it's exquisite, I've never seen anything like it anywhere else, and my whole family is as excited about it as I am.


So, at that point, we were going to change out the countertops and backsplash tile, and that's it.  Ha ha ha ha ha (that's my Maniacal Laughter, by the way).

That's what the back of my boomerang-shaped kitchen island looked like up until New Year's Day.  It's just sheetrocked with a frame of white-painted 2x4 lumber holding up the Baltic Barf countertop.  That raised bar is only 12" deep, by the way, instead of the standard 18" depth, so it's not really enough space to actually sit and eat there.  I don't remember why there is a patched hole there, either -- it's one of those things that was all fixed except for painting it, but my darling husband forgot about the paint before he got around to doing it.  We won't be too hard on him, though, because he has been very busy over the past couple of weeks...

Bernie pried the first piece of Baltic Barf off and carried it out of the house on New Year's Day.  Normally, the granite company handles demolition of the old countertop and backsplash, but Bernie is going to be trimming out the back of the island in hardwood paneling with decorative corbels and staining it to match the rest of the cabinetry, so he took off that part of the countertop himself.  He's also going to remove all of the backsplash tile and replace the sheetrock himself, since I want undercabinet lighting and a pot filler installed and those will be easier to do with the sheetrock off, anyway.  I told you it's a slippery slope.

Ta da!  The ledge and the funky framework supporting it are gone by the end of the day.


So far, we have ordered new granite countertops and beveled marble brick backsplash tile, a pot filler, a new sink and a new faucet (because who wants to install the scratched up old sink and old faucet into a lovely new countertop?), as well as a new disposal unit that is supposed to be quieter than the one we have now.  And we're done, right?  Wrong!

On January second, Bernie moved my car out to the driveway and transformed the garage into a woodworking palace.  See how happy he is to see the table saw again?  After lamenting the absence of even MORE large tools that are still in his parents' garage in New Jersey, and improbably claiming that if only those tools were here, he could complete the entire project in ten minutes without spending any money, Bernie rolled up his sleeves and went into carpenter mode.

This is what the back of that same island looked like by the end of the day on January 4th.  Quite a difference, don't you think?  In designing the back of the island, I wanted to kick things up a bit, but I was careful not to go overboard so that when all this is finished, hopefully all of the trimwork in the kitchen will make sense together and look like it was all done at the same time.  I could have just ordered more raised panels like the cabinet doors, but I wanted to be a little bit more custom, so we did flat panels with quarter-round maple rope molding along the inside edge instead. 

Bernie told me what the tape was for, but I've forgotten.  It was temporary.  Maybe it had something to do with wood glue drying or something.  The acanthus leaf corbels are bringing in a new decorative motif to the existing trimwork, but the acanthus leaf is repeated on the light fixtures so it's not totally out of left field.  Also, smaller versions of these corbels will be incorporated into the design of the new fireplace mantel in the keeping room just off the kitchen.  Shh; don't tell my husband!  He hates it when he's in the middle of one project and I start hatching additional grand schemes that involve his labor and ingenuity.

On January 7th we went to the Tile Collection's fabrication facility and spent FOUR hours moving templates around on my three granite slabs until I got the layout the way I wanted it.  The template you see above is for the raised island bar.  I've added some curves to the outer edge that are not reflected on the template.  See how I got a balance of light and dark areas, and incorporated as much of the cool multicolored swirls as I could without necessitating a seam?  When I got there, they had this template taped on upside down so that most of my countertop was going to be black and white and neutral and tame, and most of the cool stuff would have ended up as someone else's scrap treasure.  That's why it's so important to be involved in the layout process when your stone has this much variation.  The little square you see below is for a tiny cubby where my purse lives near the door to the garage.

This piece is for the lower portion of the island countertop.  It's getting cut from a separate slab that is bookmarked (mirror image of the first slab) so that the movement of the granite will be somewhat continuous from the countertop, up the backsplash, and across the raised bar.  The section with a notch at the top is where my sink will get cut out.  Isn't it a sin? Again, my objective was to have as much of the complex, multicolored portions of the stone as possible, yet retain enough of the lighter areas to have the contrast and dramatic impact that I loved so much in the larger slabs.  Also, with a stone like this, if you're not careful you could end up with some countertop pieces looking mostly gold/green/black, and others looking mostly black/white -- there is so much variation in the stone that it might look like you used completely different granite from one countertop to the next.  So I tried to keep things as balanced as possible.  There's a long stretch of countertop to the left of my wall ovens, adjacent to the island, that will be cut from the area beneath the template in the photo above.

There goes my granite, getting put away until it's time for cutting!  Granite installation is scheduled for January 24th, provided we (I use that "we" very loosely) get everything else done in the kitchen by then and we're ready for the countertops to go in.


Now, as much as I hated the Baltic Brown granite in my kitchen, I really thought it would look good in the little en suite bath off of Bernie's home office.  All the black in that stone gives off kind of a masculine vibe, the busy blotchy pattern would not be so overwhelming on a small vanity, and the brown and pinkish-brown tones complement the horrendous builder tile in the office bath shower that I have no intention of ever replacing (that shower is only used once a year).  I had originally arranged with the Tile Collection to recut one of my old countertops for this bathroom for $150 labor.  Maybe if I hadn't been calling it Baltic Barf for the past three years Bernie would have felt good about this plan, but alas...  He has been working so hard on the kitchen, and he looked so forlorn at the granite shop, looking at all of the other stone, so we selected this Madique granite remnant for his office bath instead:

Slip, sliding away... 


Lars's laser tag birthday party with his school friends was on Saturday the 8th, but we had snow days in Charlotte yesterday, today, and again tomorrow due to ice on the roads.  Bernie had to cancel a scheduled business trip, which was good news for the kitchen project!

Goodbye to the hated backsplash tile, once and for all!  Don't you love that hole in the wall behind the stove?  This part reminds me of the scene in The Money Pit when Tom Hanks comes home at the end of the day and says to his contractor, "They destroyed my house!" and the contractor smiles and says, "They sure did, didn't they?  I tell you, they're work ANIMALS!!"  We love that movie.

This is a very misleading picture that makes it seem as though I was actually helping with all of this.  Bernie left the last two tiles behind the range hood for me to remove, stuck his night time Harley Davidson glasses on me in case I sent shards of tile into my eyeball, and sent me up the step stool so I could feel involved.  Thanks, Lover!

Here we are at the end of today, with all of the tile and sheetrock removed and the range hood gone.  Apparently the range hood was installed by Dingaling the Previous Homeowner rather than by the builder, because he used the wrong screws and the hood that should have popped off fairly easily instead had to be wrestled with for quite some time.  We also found dangling live wires behind the range hood once the sheetrock was down.  Lovely!  We had originally planned to reinstall the same GE Monogram range hood we had before, but we ended up ordering a new one for several reasons.  First and foremost, Dingaling scratched the front of the range hood, either when he installed it or by cleaning it against the grain with something abrasive.  The scratch on the front of the hood has always bugged me.  Second, the thing was filthy through and through, and not just the parts that come out and that are easy to clean in the dishwasher.  But the main reason we ordered a new range hood is that the one we had before was so loud that even on the Low setting, you can't have a conversation with anyone in the kitchen when the fan is running.  The new fan is going to have in-line ventilation, which means the noisy fan part will be down in the crawlspace under my house where I don't have to listen to it.  Slippidy-doo-dah, slippidy-ay!

We also found some dangling live wires behind this wall, apparently for undercabinet lighting that never got installed.  This is so unbelievably dangerous!  Pardon what appears to be snow; I got sheetrock dust on my camera lens.

Also, yesterday Bernie was complaining that my commercial espresso machine and burr grinder duo are taking up too much of what little precious countertop workspace we have in the kitchen, and we had an epiphany.  We decided to move my in-house coffee bar to the butler's pantry area between the kitchen and dining room.  I am okay with this because right now we get in each other's way when he's trying to cook breakfast and I'm trying to make myself a latte.  Creating a separate beverage center outside of the main kitchen, yet adjacent to the fridge, is a perfect solution as long as we can make it look more elegant than utilitarian.  After all, you can see this butler's pantry through the dining room as soon as you walk in my front door.

This new twist to our plans requires running plumbing to the butler's pantry for the espresso machine, moving an outlet and a light switch, and adding a hammered copper bar sink and faucet.  Oh, and a refrigerated undercounter wine cellar, because I miss the one we put in our last house before we moved, and I won't be able to store my wine in racks on this countertop anymore now that the coffee machines and a sink are going in...

Here we have more sloppy electrical work.  A random hole and a bundle of exposed wires that we discovered at the back of the butler's pantry cabinet.  You have to get down on the floor to see it, and neither of us had any idea it was there as we're shoving metal cooling racks and baking pans into the cupboard.  It really makes me wonder what else is wrong with my house that I can't see!

What's next for this project?  Well, Bernie's still got to finish up with the plumbing and electrical, and then he'll put new sheetrock up in the backsplash areas.  The base cabinetry in the butler's pantry is going to have to be rebuilt to accommodate my 24" wine unit, and Bernie was able to find out exactly what brand and color of stain was used on our existing cabinetry so we're waiting on the stain to come in as well as the new bar sink and faucet, wine fridge, and range hood.  Oh, and did I mention that the in-line ventilation requires a 10" diameter duct, and what we have now is only 7"?  Yeah, the ductwork has got to be replaced now, too. 

I swear I'm not ordering anything else for this kitchen!!

Three Days Until Christmas? Let's Rip Out All the Countertops and Start a Kitchen Remodel!

It all started so innocently.  I had ordered wallpaper for the boys' Jack-and-Jill bathroom, but before the paper was installed I wanted to remove the cultured marble vanities and replace them with granite remnants.  My granite fabricator sells leftover pieces from other jobs at a fraction of the regular price, and since the vanities are small I wasn't going to need much, anyway.  Once I was at the granite place, though, looking at all the gorgeous slabs of stone, I started thinking about my kitchen countertops again.  How can I have nicer granite in the boys' bathrooms than I have in my kitchen, after all?

My kitchen has granite countertops that I lovingly refer to as Baltic Barf -- you may be more familiar with the term Baltic Brown.  I have seen some Baltic Brown granite that actually does have brown in it, but alas, mine is decidedly mauve, and not in a good way.  As if the black-and-pink splotched counters weren't bad enough, the builder chose the nastiest, cheapest commercial bathroom type tile on the planet for a backsplash and used huge grout lines.  Yuck, yuck, yuck! 


Our Kitchen Before it was Ours: Home Inspection Day



We've done a lot in the kitchen since we bought the house already: Replaced all the light fixtures, painted, painted again, installed crown molding, custom draperies and shades (naturally), upgraded all of the appliances, recently replaced all the light fixtures again (one of the dangers of the design biz), and upgraded the gas fireplace logs in the sitting room area off the kitchen. 

Breakfast Room soon after we moved in, Lars at the table

Breakfast Room with Custom Draperies, Temporary Chandelier

Don't draperies make a HUGE difference?!  This Home Depot chandelier was recently replaced with a nicer, larger one with fabric shades from Nulco that has more of a French flair to it:

French Country Chandelier from Nulco Lighting

And yes, I know the pattern on my dining chair fabric fights with the drapery fabric, but these chairs were a bargain buy at a clearance outlet.  They will eventually be slipcovered, reupholstered, or replaced, once my kids learn to wipe their hands on their napkins instead of on my chairs.  The drapery fabric is from Vervain and I absolutely love it:

Monado from Vervain, Havana Colorway

But still, what continues to bug me most about the kitchen is the pink and black countertop and the wretched backsplash tile.

Previous Owners' Mauve Sofa Complements the Baltic Barf

I had fleeting hopes that I would find some perfect replacement backsplash tile that would make the existing Baltic Barf counter look more terra cotta than pink, but that turned out to be a lost cause.  Although I'm sure Baltic Brown looks great in the right kitchen, mine ain't the right one -- I never in a million years would have selected that stone for my home.  It's just not me. 

So, what kind of stone does say Rebecca, you might ask?  Allow me to introduce you to CD Volcano, three slabs of which are scheduled to be installed in my kitchen next month:

Isn't that breathtaking?  The drawer box that the man is holding in the foreground gives you an idea of the scale.  This stuff is even more dramatic in person. 

Can you believe that's natural stone that just came out of the earth that way?  The owner of the granite import company flew to Brazil to selected CD Volcano himself and bought up the whole lot of it on sight.  If granite could be custom ordered, and I could select all the colors I wanted, I still couldn't come up with a slice of earth more perfect for my kitchen than this one.  Gush, gush, gush!

Since there's a lot going on in the granite, the backsplash is going to be a simple 3" x 5" polished creamy marble in a brick pattern, with a herringbone section inlaid above the stove.  The new faucet is from the Brizo Tresa collection:

http://www.brizo.com/

 So this year, when all the gifts are unwrapped and the debris has all been carted out to the curb and the kids head back to school, I'll have countertop demolition to look forward to!  There will be no post-Christmas blues in my house this year!