Today was counter templating day. We've done a lot of renovations to our various homes and I've been privy to my parents building their last two homes so I've seen plenty of trades go in and out but this is a process I've never been a part of. We ordered our counter tops through Lowes and the first part of the process was to choose the stone, choose the edge style, and pay for the labor and materials based on the estimated square footage that I gave them. We choose a granite counter top after several trips to the store, some internet research, and being absolutely certain we were going to purchase quartz. This is becoming a theme in this kitchen. I hope this all turns out for the best and we never feel like we're settling for less than what we wanted! We had granite in our last house and loved it. The only reason we had decided against it was reading about how it should be sealed every year. We hadn't had problems with our old counter but I wanted something maintenance free. While we were discussing this choice with the sales woman, she told us that their granite has a 20 year warranty on the sealer. It took us approximately 12 seconds of looking at the prices difference and the sample stones and we were sold on granite once again.
We were super pumped to learn that the granite we liked, that she pulled out of a drawer like it was a super special secret option, was from a local counter place in the nearest city. Which means we get to go there and look at all the slabs and choose the actual one they will cut our counters from. Just like on HGTV! Have you ever gone to a stone warehouse? Did you just fall in love with every piece you saw?
This templating process was the second step in getting our counters. A guy from the counter company came out with special tools to take precise measurements, make a diagram, and take my preeeecious sink away with him. See, their company has templates for sinks from most of the larger companies and while they have them for Swan products, my sink is maybe from a new line they haven't seen yet. He said that normally they just say they can't cut out the sink in these cases (WHAT?! What do people do in that instance? I mean, I guess buy a new sink?) but that because they normally do Swan products, he was given permission to bring the whole kit and caboodle back with him. I tried just offering him the paper template they had sent but he took my new beautiful baby. He says they'll bring it back when they install the counters.
The whole thing took almost two hours and after he had left I realized that I had completely forgotten to ask him to include a new window sill. Ack! My brain raced as I tried to think what the best solution was. Maybe I should call him. Maybe when we go to choose the slab we could just give them the measurements. Thank goodness I had the sense to look out at my driveway to see him sitting in his car still. Whoop! I took a minute to screw up my little courage and ran out in the rain to beg him to come back in. He told me that he usually asks about sills so at least I'm not the only one who forgot. Thankfully he didn't have to adjust his template at all. He just wrote down the measurements and said it wouldn't be a problem. Whew!
Now we wait for them to figure out the actual size based on their measurements and then they'll reconcile that with the amount we paid and we either pay more or get a refund. I'm willing to bet that people almost never get a refund but I would love for that to be the case! We'll be digging in the couch cushions to find any additional sheckles to cover this project. But I'm so excited to have new counters. We chose a stone called Moon White. It's mostly gray with some white and some red spotted through it. Of course the stone sample was a 4x4in square so I'm terrified we'll see it in full and decide we hate it. I'll take pictures when we go to the stone yard.
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