Well things have slowed to a snail's pace, but this week's big news is that we got our first granite delivery. These are the two countertops that will be the eating bar in the kitchen and the buffet slab for the dining room cut from that one fancy slab.
Unfortunately, as usual for me, it did not go well the first time. On Monday they delivered they brought both pieces and installed the dining room piece first (photo below). When I saw it, I went ballistic. Instead of merely being slightly bevelled to reduce the risk of chipping, the edges were fairlky well rolled and the corners at each end fairly rounded. It was a 'traditional' version of a flat edge, not the tailored, contemporary square look I had asked for. But it was already in, and unfortunately, when they put it in (it goes onto an existing credenza-like buffet that we saved from the original house but refinished lamp black), they dinged the buffet in three places which I'll now have to have repaired/refinished AGAIN, making it clear that having them remove the piece and redo that edge would have have serious consequences.
The fabricator, by the way is duly remorseful and wants to remove/redo it. But heartsick as I am about it I think it would be making a bad situation even worse, since removal wouldn't be benign, so I'm choosing to live with it. But the other one went back to the shop.
The fabricator's excuse? He forgot. He simply forgot to instruct his finisher on exactly what this job was supposed to look like (or perhaps even, what I asked for, though that's hard to imagine since he adores contemporary design and wants to build his own contemporary home someday soon). And apparently the other guy was too stupid to ask, "What does our client want?" Pretty tough to take. I have looked forward to almost nothing more than seeing this particular piece of granite come in, and to see it all wrong was shattering. We can't even get another piece and try again--this was the last and only slab of this rare granite in the Pacific Northwest (in fact, it was shipped up from Portland).
The kitchen eating bar piece was delivered yesterday and it looks wonderful. The edgework is exactly what we asked for. Today they're bringing out and installing the pillars fabbed from the same granite that will hold up the nine inch wide, 10 foot long raised serving counter that will separate the working prep counter and its attendant messes on the kitchen side from the eating counter and entertainment/den side of the room. Once those are in, the glass guy can come measure for the narrow reed glass panels that will span the distance between each of the pillars. The glass will allow light to pass through but keep the dust and debris on the cook's side. The serving counter will also be cut from the fancy slab, but instead of having a matching edge to the bar top, it's been hand-chiselled to create what's called a 'live edge' on both sides.
Good thing is, the dining room buffet is separated from the kitchen by a rock wall--you can't see one from the other, so no one in the dining room will be wondering why the edgework is slightly different.