Granite success!
Okay, Countertop decision has been made!! We've been to the stoneyard, seen what we wanted, signed some forms, and put down a deposit.
This is Steel Gray granite, scale length ~1-2ft. Inclusions are thumbprint-sized.
When the quarry pulls up a giant cube of granite, they slice it into slabs, and then make one side of the slab pretty. There are a lot of different finishes that one can put on granite, but a simple polished surface is by far the most common. It's also glarey and reflective and annoying. The installer we visited today gets stock from a quarry that polishes one side of the slab (as normal) and instead of leaving the other side rough-cut (as normal), does an "antiqued finish" also known as "leathered finish". Here are photos Dirk took, looking at an angle to the two slabs - leathered on the left, and polished on the right (you can see the granite if you concentrate)
I'm pretty pleased with the leathered finish.
Honed finish (more like a chalkboard) gets a lot of love and hate among homeowners - although it doesn't get permanent marks more easily than polished, it gets temporary marks like crazy. They showed us a honed slab, and I rubbed my finger on my nose, touched it, and left a big black oily fingerprint. Fortunately leathered is not like that.
And this is, while not a "discount granite" place, cheaper than the last one we talked to. $49/sf. Not quite the on-discount Corian of $42, but better than the off-discount Corian low-range colors of $57, and much better than the Corian prettypretty colors at $70+.
Whew! another decision checked off the list!
This is Steel Gray granite, scale length ~1-2ft. Inclusions are thumbprint-sized.
When the quarry pulls up a giant cube of granite, they slice it into slabs, and then make one side of the slab pretty. There are a lot of different finishes that one can put on granite, but a simple polished surface is by far the most common. It's also glarey and reflective and annoying. The installer we visited today gets stock from a quarry that polishes one side of the slab (as normal) and instead of leaving the other side rough-cut (as normal), does an "antiqued finish" also known as "leathered finish". Here are photos Dirk took, looking at an angle to the two slabs - leathered on the left, and polished on the right (you can see the granite if you concentrate)
I'm pretty pleased with the leathered finish.
Honed finish (more like a chalkboard) gets a lot of love and hate among homeowners - although it doesn't get permanent marks more easily than polished, it gets temporary marks like crazy. They showed us a honed slab, and I rubbed my finger on my nose, touched it, and left a big black oily fingerprint. Fortunately leathered is not like that.
And this is, while not a "discount granite" place, cheaper than the last one we talked to. $49/sf. Not quite the on-discount Corian of $42, but better than the off-discount Corian low-range colors of $57, and much better than the Corian prettypretty colors at $70+.
Whew! another decision checked off the list!