When searching for a new house in a new location, chances are you look at a gabillion properties and at the end of the two or three days you have found the perfect house - only it doesn't exist. Your mind has taken the best pieces of the 30 houses you have looked at and created the greatest house that ever existed. All of the required storage, huge garage, prime location, incredible views, automatic everything, low utility bills, etc. etc. Then when you go to purchase the house, reality sets in and you take the one that comes closest with the intention of making a few changes. Normally, I never get around to making those few changes.
THIS time however, we go for broke. We sign the contract on the house in August and know we have a good 6 weeks before our stuff will be here. What perfect timing to replace all of the Formica countertops with granite (except the laundry room). What optimists we turned out to be.
We go to a local granite store (I honestly didn't know these even existed) to look at granite. There it is...moss green...it will be perfect for our house. But being the prudent shoppers we are, we go to the second place to look at their selection. Granite Shop #2 has an entirely different set of stone - I mean granite, none of which is moss green. However, their supplier/fabrication shop is just down the road and we should actually go look at the slabs. Some people will completely change their color scheme based on one slab. In the mean time, Granite Shop #2 two will come out and do an estimate for us. Unfortunately, we must head back to Houston before we can get to Granite Supplier.
Flash forward to the weekend we arrive....we take time out of shopping to go visit Granite Supplier. These people are so busy right now an appointment is required but Granite Shop #2 helped us out, got us in and they have a lot of slabs. It is a beautiful sunny day and we walk up and down the selection and by the time we are done, instead of narrowing it down, we now have 12 to choose from. Granite Supplier is great to work with and gives us samples of all of the slabs we are interested in.
In case you didn't know, granite is heavy - even in small chunks. We (OK - Robert) lugs the box up the stairs and check the different stones in light, dark, sun night, etc. After narrowing it down to three stones (none of which are moss green because they don't have that one in 3cm) we ask for bids. WOW - is granite expensive. Another week goes by and back to Granite Shop #2 with our decision. Since we can't get moss green, we will go with the one that looks a lot like it.
Hold the phone....moss green comes in 3cm they just don't have it in stock??? Let's do it. Great - that decision is made - now the easy part. Scheduling. We can't schedule until they order the rock from somewhere not in Alaska and receive it. As the weeks pass, our stuff arrives, we unpack, get most everything in order (except the office) and then finally the call comes. "Your sample is in." Ut-oh. There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Oh well - we go to Granite Shop #2 and confirm moss green is the rock we want. Order away and here's a check to cover half of it.
Finally - the rock is here (note it is now two and 1/2 months after we initially picked moss green). Here comes the really fun part. Today they ripped out every counter top we have in the house except in the laundry room on the third floor. This normally wouldn't seem like a big deal except there are no sinks (ok - the laundry room sink on the third floor is working) and the dishwasher is not operational. We have dust in every drawer (I unloaded most of them so once again it looks like we just moved in) and little tiny pieces of Styrofoam from when they made the counter template to shape the rock. Robert however saved part of the counters from the tear out and has hooked up a sink on each floor. We must be careful not to move them. There still isn't anywhere to set items as all available space off of the floor is covered by stuff that came out of the cabinets under the counters they ripped out. Only 18 days until they can install it. This'll be fun!!!
On a side note....another very bright and sunny day. I didn't check but there should have been about 7 hours and 20 minutes of daylight today. We had a 10 degree temperature span at the house, -5 to +5 and they closed some entrances to downtown locations when they clocked 60 mph winds and people were having trouble opening the doors and standing up on the icier parts of the streets. It is hard to get used to having such bright sunshine and yet feel no heat from it.
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