Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Light at the End of the Tunnel

There may be an end to the kitchen renovation. At least a big hurdle has been cleared. It has been a month since I last wrote about the kitchen and that has been because nothing was happening.

I took three weeks for the vendor/fabricator to get a new slab of granite in. When she called to say that the new piece had arrived she said that she thought the color was a little off. So I started figuring how we could use the previous piece that had the fissure in it. More seams than I had wanted to deal with but at this point, let's just get a functioning kitchen. We have been without a kitchen for four months.

Sure enough when we got over to Queretaro, the color of the granite had shifted to a much more yellow color, the pattern had become more wavey and there were more imperfections in it. So we shifted to Plan B and the piece of granite with the fissure. I was willing to put up with two extra seams just to be able to move on but they figured out a way to only have one extra seam so it didn't turn out too badly.

We had hoped to have the granite installed on Wednesday or Thursday of last week but they called and said that the helper wasn't available until Monday so they would be here on Monday. Okay, we could wait but then we remembered that Monday was Constitution Day and we thought, Huh oh, no installation on Monday. La Architecta called them back and they said that they would be here on Monday at 9:30 AM regardless of Constitution Day. Ned and I joked that meant that they would leave Queretaro about 9:30 AM on Monday. It was almost noon when they finally showed up. We had almost given up.

By 6:00 PM we had granite countertops...............and we had granite dust everywhere.............and I do mean everywhere. Today we spent the day cleaning out the drawers and trying to sweep up the dust and tiny granite pebbles. Tomorrow the plumber is coming to hook up the sink and reverse the refrigerator door. And tomorrow we will start mopping and mopping and mopping trying to get the dust off the floor. It takes mopping, dumping the water and doing it again and again until you finally get this fine dust up.

Now, on to getting the tiles up behind the stove, the upper cabinets installed in the kitchen and the cabinets in the dining room installed. Then painting and finishing the floors. But I am seeing some light in this tunnel.

7 comments:

Jonna said...

You know, as I'm thinking about what I want in this new kitchen in Mérida, I start to think about granite just a little bit and then...wham! I remember you and think No! No! It will crack! I think I'll pick concrete.

I'm glad there is a light in your kitchen tunnel, I've been wondering but was kind of afraid to ask.

Billie Mercer said...

Jonna, I'd like to give you some more info on the granite and the concrete as well as tile....at least from my experience. My email address is in the blog.

Anonymous said...

Hola Billie -

Please cc me on any of that info. So where are the pictures of that counter???

Juan

Billie Mercer said...

Juan, I was waiting until today and we have the faucet in before I took pics. But you'll see it soon.

Anonymous said...

Billie - I would like to "weigh in" on the concrete countertops because I designed a zillion restaurants in my "other" life and concrete colored is a wonderful work surface and indestructable, unlike granite and marble which scratch and cost much much more! The key on the concrete is sealing it over and over and over before using it the first time. But 20 years later, bar tops and counter tops in restaurants look the same as the day the restaurant opened. Just a FYI!
Barb

Billie Mercer said...

Barbara, I agree, I've seen some wonderful concrete countertops in the USA but so far I haven't seen any that hold up as well here in Mexico.

Anonymous said...

Aaah, I have - there are several wondeful concrete people here and in Pozos that do great colored concrete countertop work.......
B