Countertop Selection and Install
My absolute favorite part of a kitchen renovation is the installation of the countertops. I’m pretty sure it’s because it makes such an enormous impact in a very short amount of time, and with very little work from me! Call me lazy but I guarantee I’m not the only person out there that feels this way.
Since we had two different color cabinets (a light perimeter and a dark island) we were on a mission to find a countertop that coordinated with both. The goal with countertops is to find one that doesn’t just coordinate with the other elements of the kitchen but does so with a slight contrast to the cabinets. This is to prevent having your kitchen end up looking sterile and washed out in light colors but also prevent it from looking dark, depressing and small. The truth of the matter was that with this kitchen we really had a lot of flexibility with the countertops because of the different colored cabinetry. If the perimeter had been the darker stain and the island the lighter then we would have been limited to lighter color counters.
Early one Saturday morning, when the cabinets were in the final stages of install, my aunt and I headed to a marble and granite yard in search of the perfect stone. Early on it was decided that granite would be the type of countertop but the number of options for granite are numerous so we were just hoping and praying that the selection could be narrowed down quickly! Fortunately for us we had narrowed our choices down to just 4 in about 20 minutes. Another 20 minutes later we had our final decision, Santa Cecilia Light. A measurement date was scheduled and we were on our merry way!
Ooooh if only the entire granite process had really gone that smoothly. When the day of the measurement rolled around I found myself fighting battle after battle with this granite company (who we have actually worked with before and had good experiences with). They were insisting that the kitchen needed to have 5 seams in the granite…which is A LOT in my opinion! They gave several excuses as to why and what it came down to was that putting 5 seams in the granite was going to make installation for them a lot easier, even if it didn’t look quite as nice. I’m not sure if this particular employee was just having a bad day but he really didn’t want to hear my opinion on how I wanted the granite. I do have to say that this particular employee was only part of the problem, another complication was that the slab we chose was only 118″ long and we needed one that was at least 119″ due to the length of our shortest wall. If we could find a slab that was at least 119″ long then we would be able to eliminate at least one seam and the granite company was finally willing to work with us by making cuts on site to eliminate 2 more of the seams. Yes, we were back on track to having granite!
Not so fast. The next day I received a call from the granite company telling me they didn’t have any longer slabs. Since the turn around for granite is just over a week I knew I absolutely had to find the slab of granite soon or else I would be having my baby girl and my aunt would be without counters! I called several granite companies in the area and finally found one with a 120″ slab of Santa Cecilia. My aunt and I went to check it out for color and blemishes (ALWAYS check the entire slab you choose), loved it, set a date for measurement and begged to have it installed in less than a week. They were kind enough to expedite the cutting process and we finally had counters!
Now that we had counters Pavlo could complete the installation of appliances and my aunt and I could begin to design the backsplash.
