Halloweenie thoughts
Oct. 31st, 2004 11:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drscottHalf the clocks in the house are still on Daylight Savings Time, so I'm doin' the Time Warp again.
The week was mostly about remodeling. We signed the contract for replacement windows -- all the old aluminum sliders to be replaced with vinyl Milgard Z-Channel (which means the old window frames are left in place and the new windows inserted through them) and the exterior fixed panes that look out on the pool will be replaced with new dual-pane, much of it tempered as required by the building code. The living room is the only place where we're replacing with aluminum, since the color (dark bronze) and narrow profile of the aluminum windows better retains the Eichler design aesthetic which is so evident in that space. They will be here for almost a week starting Dec. 1st.
On Friday we went slab shopping to pick out the granite for the kitchen countertops. There are multiple warehouses in San Jose for examining these slabs (polished on one side, about 6'x12' usually), and you have to look at them because there is wide variation between slabs of a particular stone, and defects are common; a significant defect can be worked around, but doing that is an art and the price of such a defective slab should be reduced in consideration. We need two slabs for our counters and backsplashes; the raw slab prices vary from $10 to $60 or more per square foot. We went one place and discovered the slabs they'd set aside for us had unacceptable stain markings, then went to a second place and picked out two slabs of Kashmir Gold "granite." When we got home later, I did some research on it and discovered to my dismay that it is considered unsuitable for countertops because it readily stains, being much more porous than most granites; in fact, it is not even granite, but a metamorphic (created by high temperature and pressure acting on an existing stone) gneiss. One interesting thing about it: the red spots scattered throughout are small garnets. But no matter how visually striking and interesting, a countertop that needs twice-yearly sealing and still might be stained by a greasy pizza box, for example, is not exactly practical. The reason why no one mentions this at the stores is that there are no low-cost light-colored granites that don't have this problem, and so rather than explain to consumers all that they would need to know about the stones they sell, they take the easy way out and pretend sealing them solves all problems. By the time the staining problem is apparent, it's too late to do anything about it. Here is an excellent guide to common stones sold as granite; if you're considering material for countertops, pay attention to the numbers shown for water absorption in the tables.
We stopped on our way back from the stone places to pick up the Gaggenau cooktop; paying twice as much to shave 1" off the depth of the cooktop doesn't bother me at all (*cough, cough*). It's at least spiffy. The kitchen will be torn up starting Nov. 15th and take several weeks to complete.
Last night we went to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
excessor's small Halloween / house reopening party. excessor and his friend Jim (who's visiting from Connecticut) dressed as their respective ethnic stereotypes: Paul as an Italian cook (and later gangster, in which role he looked very handsome) and Jim as an exemplar of the Irish: cop's hat, priest's collar, giant crucifix, and bottle of booze in hand. The rest of the guests included some of Paul's work associates and their partners, who seemed very cool, and a couple of old friends. I dressed as some sort of bizarro Greek god in my black toga and sandals, and Mike came in his colorful orange-and-black biking outfit.
The week was mostly about remodeling. We signed the contract for replacement windows -- all the old aluminum sliders to be replaced with vinyl Milgard Z-Channel (which means the old window frames are left in place and the new windows inserted through them) and the exterior fixed panes that look out on the pool will be replaced with new dual-pane, much of it tempered as required by the building code. The living room is the only place where we're replacing with aluminum, since the color (dark bronze) and narrow profile of the aluminum windows better retains the Eichler design aesthetic which is so evident in that space. They will be here for almost a week starting Dec. 1st.
On Friday we went slab shopping to pick out the granite for the kitchen countertops. There are multiple warehouses in San Jose for examining these slabs (polished on one side, about 6'x12' usually), and you have to look at them because there is wide variation between slabs of a particular stone, and defects are common; a significant defect can be worked around, but doing that is an art and the price of such a defective slab should be reduced in consideration. We need two slabs for our counters and backsplashes; the raw slab prices vary from $10 to $60 or more per square foot. We went one place and discovered the slabs they'd set aside for us had unacceptable stain markings, then went to a second place and picked out two slabs of Kashmir Gold "granite." When we got home later, I did some research on it and discovered to my dismay that it is considered unsuitable for countertops because it readily stains, being much more porous than most granites; in fact, it is not even granite, but a metamorphic (created by high temperature and pressure acting on an existing stone) gneiss. One interesting thing about it: the red spots scattered throughout are small garnets. But no matter how visually striking and interesting, a countertop that needs twice-yearly sealing and still might be stained by a greasy pizza box, for example, is not exactly practical. The reason why no one mentions this at the stores is that there are no low-cost light-colored granites that don't have this problem, and so rather than explain to consumers all that they would need to know about the stones they sell, they take the easy way out and pretend sealing them solves all problems. By the time the staining problem is apparent, it's too late to do anything about it. Here is an excellent guide to common stones sold as granite; if you're considering material for countertops, pay attention to the numbers shown for water absorption in the tables.
We stopped on our way back from the stone places to pick up the Gaggenau cooktop; paying twice as much to shave 1" off the depth of the cooktop doesn't bother me at all (*cough, cough*). It's at least spiffy. The kitchen will be torn up starting Nov. 15th and take several weeks to complete.
Last night we went to
excessor's small Halloween / house reopening party. excessor and his friend Jim (who's visiting from Connecticut) dressed as their respective ethnic stereotypes: Paul as an Italian cook (and later gangster, in which role he looked very handsome) and Jim as an exemplar of the Irish: cop's hat, priest's collar, giant crucifix, and bottle of booze in hand. The rest of the guests included some of Paul's work associates and their partners, who seemed very cool, and a couple of old friends. I dressed as some sort of bizarro Greek god in my black toga and sandals, and Mike came in his colorful orange-and-black biking outfit.
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