{the renovation} counter tops are in!

I know, I know, where are the renovation updates?!  If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know Husband and I have been spending A LOT of time at the house getting her move-in ready.  But we’re not even close to done.

Pretty much every minute outside of our day jobs until very late at night, we’ve been sanding 100 years of paint off window trim, spackling the walls, caulking, and priming.  There is so much prep work that has to be done before we can even pick up a paintbrush!  But I’m happy to say that color will finally be gracing the walls today (yay!)…at least in the kitchen and living room.  We’ll get done what we can get done right now, and just deal with the rest once we’re moved in.

Did I mention we have to be out of our apartment by midnight on Saturday?  And that we haven’t started packing up our apartment?  Or reserved a UHaul?  Or enlisted our friends to help move?  Yeah.  Panic mode.

But what’s making me feel a-ok is the fact that our counters were installed Monday morning and I AM IN LOVE.  Here’s a quick look…

I originally was thinking of going more gray/neutral, but then I remembered the beautiful kitchen from the movie Something’s Gotta Give and I was sold on a dark stone counter to go with our white cabinets:

Our kitchen is kind of similar, right? – only about 1/8th the size…    But regardless, it was a great jumping off point and it was just the inspiration I needed!

Here’s another view of the kitchen: the peninsula, with the big trough sink…

I made a few trips to Jackson to check out various stone companies, everything super expensive and me falling in love with the $80+/sq ft stones.  Mostly I stalked the local stone company (shout out to Vicksburg Stone & Plaster!) for several weeks, doing slow drive-bys of their slab/bone yard and measuring remnants to see if they would fit our little kitchen…

One day last week I spied this graphite gray/light black/almost dark brown stone in the stone bone yard and asked the owner of the store about it.  Apparently it was a leftover piece of marble (!!!) used in the local Ameristar Casino offices.  After some quick measurements, I realized it was the perfect size for our kitchen.

Because it was a remnant, he sold me the marble for LESS than builder grade granite!!!  Oh my goodnight I am in love with this stone!!!  (When we move can I work “counters do not convey” into the contract!?)

The marble is called Noir St. Laurent marble, mined once a year from a quarry in France.  This particular piece is honed, meaning that the surface has been sanded down so it’s an antiqued, or matte, finish.  It will get darker over time as oils are absorbed and it ages.  Other than sealing it, it doesn’t require much babying or special care like polished marble, since etching and oils make this look better.  I was really turned off by all the shiny granites I was previously looking at, so this is like heaven for me!  He told me this marble is basically the Rolls Royce of marbles and I got it cheaper than the cheapest granite!  I still can’t believe our luck.

COUNTER TOP SHOPPING LESSON LEARNED: be patient, get to know/stalk local stone companies, and if you have a small kitchen like ours, make sure to ask about remnants because they will make you a great deal to get the stone off their lots!

Many more pictures to come, including my faucet decision, paint on the walls, the final floors, etc etc etc.  Sorry again for being slow on the posts, so busy…….!

Tagged as: counter top, kitchen, marble, st laurent, {renovation}