Remodel Day 134 - 6/16/2011

GRANITE, GRANITE, GRANITE!!!!! 

The days I've been awaiting (and partially dreading) have arrived.  I've begun shopping for granite.  The first outing was to Quality Stone and Tile in North Hollywood. I have to say the visit was a bust.  I had NO idea what to ask, NO idea what parameters I had and most importantly no tape measure.  From now on, I will never leave the house without a tape measure.  After wasting about an hour of a very nice sales lady's time, I went home with no more information than I started with.  Just alot of pictures but they were not meaningful.  I had not written down names or slab sizes. 


So this morning, I grabbed Rob and asked him some questions.  And here's the information I gathered before I headed out again.


1. The island will be 9' 8" so I should find a slab that is at least 120" (about 10').  Otherwise I will have a seam in the island and I don't want that.
2. I need 2 slabs.
3. I will have my own fabricator (guy that cuts the granite) come and pick up the slab after I choose one.
4. My budget is $2400.  More than enough.  Rob has budgeted for 3 slabs and we will only need 2.


And now we headed out to another yard that was alot bigger.  There was alot more to choose from but the customer service was not as good.  Also I just took Emily with me this time.  The younger 3 kids were at camp (amen) so it was easier to focus.  Last time I took them to the granite yard they all decided to play a game of imaginary paint ball while hiding behind and in between huge slabs of granite.  I was imagining them either having a granite slab fall on them or worse having them knock over a slab of granite and cracking it and then we'd have to pay for it.  OK - maybe the first scenario was worse, but the mayhem did not help me try to focus on choosing anything. 


Back to the fun part.  I am going to post pictures of the leading contenders.  I'd love to get your vote on which one you like.  I'm going to keep my pick a secret. 

Golden Persa.  This one was a heart breaker.  It was not long enough.



Typhoon Bordeaux



Venetian Gold

Colonial Gold

Nacarado



Fussion.  Before you vote on this one, know this picture is just for fun and it doesn't do it justice.  It has the most AMAZING blue/rose tones in it.  And it sells for $55/square foot!  Ouch!!  The others ranged from $12/square foot to $16/square foot.  We just liked looking at it.  It is amazing to think that nature created this.