A Kitchen made out of Wood

Right now the kitchen is in a holding pattern.

There are no workers streaming through the house.
There are no materials strewn about the floor.
There are no trucks parked in my driveway.

Right now everyone is waiting for the granite to be delivered and installed.

The men from the granite place showed up with 1/8 inch boards that they cut up with utility knives to measure out the areas for the new counter tops. This is precise work, if they screw it up it's not like they are going to take 1000 pounds of materials back to the office for a re-do. Not to mention that if they put a hole in the granite it's not like putting a hole into a wall or cabinet that is easily patched. You can't really patch stone.

So they measure and make a template. Then they go away for 2-3 weeks and cut it out with some kind of Kryptonite saw.

This Tuesday the countertops are due to be delivered. This leaves only a few items to go:

- hook up remaining appliances
- tile backsplash
- sand/finish hardwood floor (we are responsible for)
- touchup painting (I am responsible for)
- touchup cabinetry
- hook up range hood

Counter tops

In anticipation of getting the kitchen done we needed to go and pick granite for the counter top, so Saturday morning I was in a warehouse with about 60 different types or granite and marble arranged in large slabs that could crush you at any moment.

Apparently the way this works is you actually pick not only the type you want but the actual slab(s) they will use to craft into your counter. It reminds me somewhat of the 'pick your own cow' before they take it and slaughter it for you.

The only problem with all of this is that they don't actually move the slabs on Saturday (apparently there are only 2 sales people on Saturday) so what we ended up picking was the top pieces we saw. One for the island and a darker piece for the other counter.

My wife has had enough of this counter top stuff and has been subjected to a wide assortment of stone, so she would have gone with the pink polka dot marble had I insisted.

The sales guy who helped us said that you only pay for the part that they use, a fact that I don't really believe. One good tip I had heard was to ask for the extra pieces since you paid a premium for it. I figured I would use the extra for a cutting board. It would make a good contrast on the island with the darker cutting board.