Quartz and Marble. Happy and Sad.

At last! Our quartz kitchen counters are in! I was very happy to see this truck in front of our house yesterday morning.

When we arrived around 10, the crew had already made good progress:

The half wall between the dining room and kitchen.

Close up to show the recycled glass and mirror in our countertop. As well as an X marking the spot!

Baking row. Lowered baking center to the left, and Kitchen Aid home on the right.

Outer island. That's drywall by the outlets. That part will have the glass backsplash tile.

Close up of the outer island.

First look at our new Blanco single bowl sink

The quartz along the back wall had been set as we were leaving, and they were getting ready to cut out the hole for the cooktop.

My headache was really giving me grief, which greatly bummed me out because I was pretty excited about this installation. But, after Niels came home we came back to see the finished job. 

It was almost jarring to see all the white after seeing the dark cabinets for the last month. Our fears that our kitchen would be dark were unfounded.

Outer island, complete with sink.

Outer island Blanco single bowl sink.

The grid will protect the bottom from scratches, and also make thawing things in the sink easier.

Reverse view of outer island.

Aerial-ish view of the kitchen.

Inner island with prep sink. I didn't want a big sink, just big enough for cleaning veggies and handling food scraps.

Both sinks will have Delta Touch 2.0 faucets. They turn on and off by touching the faucet. This will be so nice when my hands are full of bread dough!

View of the islands from the corner.

Cooktop area.

Close up of the corner.

The command center looks really big with the counter on it. Joe will be back on Tuesday to put the cabinets and shelves up.

I was very happy to see the counters and how well they turned out. We had white Corian counters in our old house. They were there when we bought it, and weren't crazy about them, but over the years, we grew to really love them. So much so that we knew early on that we wanted white counters in the new house. We chose the Hanstone Specchio White because it uses recycled glass and mirror, so it's green, and quartz is easy to maintain (no sealing!) and anti-microbial.  I love these counters!

The day wasn't all joy, however. You may remember that we found a marble remnant for my baking center. Originally, we were going to do all quartz, and I was eyeing a marble slab from Williams-Sonoma for baking. The lowered baking center was orginally 32"x25" to accommodate a wheelchair. When we saw the 29"x25" remnant, I made the decision to make the baking center smaller, thinking that a guest using a chair could easily use the command center area.

Looks great from here.

This is what my baking center was supposed to look like.

Joe Yoder custom made the support to accommodate the size of the remnant.

Not big enough for a wheelchair, but it will fit a dining chair with toddler sous chef standing on it.

Unfortunately, this is what I got. 

The slab was cut wrong.

So, that was the downer of the day. I'm not sure how it happened. I remember talking to the fabricator and saying that the support was being made to the largest dimensions of the slab. It's such a beautiful piece of marble. Sigh... I know it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of important things in the world, but it's disappointing. 

I'm not sure yet what we're going to do. We used a remnant, because we sure wouldn't splurge on a slab. Stay tuned...

***update***
I am very happy to report that Canton Cut Stone is cutting us a new marble slab. I am very grateful.

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