Cool, sustainable countertop materials and where to buy them

I was combing through my blog list over the weekend and shaking my head at all of the hoo-hah being made about granite lately. I specify granite all the time and whatever reservations I have about it, they are not based on bogus health claims. My only reservations about granite are a) it's pretty much everywhere any more and b) comes out of the ground in some less-than-ideal conditions. So what's out there that's unusual, resilient AND sustainable?

Well I came across a mention of Squak Mountain Stone on Apartment Therapy. Squak Mountain Stone is made by made by Tiger Mountain Innovations and is a counter top material that looks like a cross between limestone or soapstone and concrete. Squak Mountain Stone is a fibrous, cast material made from recycled glass, recycled paper, coal fly ash and concrete. Coal fly ash is what's left over after a power plant burns coal to make electricity. Squak Mountain Stone is an interesting alternative to other, non-sustainable counter top materials. Unlike the rest of its competitors, it's possible to buy this material and install it yourself in simpler applications. It's an interesting idea and the resulting counters look great!

The company behind Squak Mountain Stone also has a product called Trinity Glass, an alternative to quartz counters that's made with 75% recycled glass. Trinity Glass brings a whole different aesthetic to the table from its companion product, Squak Mountain Stone. Just as is the case with Squak Mountain, Trinity Glass is available with a do-it-yourself-er in mind.

Both of these products, and a slew of other sustainable building materials are available at Indigo, a green building products vendor in Gainesville. It's a bit of a haul, but worth the drive. Their website is extensive and you can buy samples and supplies through it.

Wanna know what's new in counter top land? You're looking at it.

Interesting, anecdotal evidence about radioactivity

Watch this video!

Never mind the counters, wear a lead apron when you peel potatoes!

More on the radiation NON-story

Last week, I wrote about the New York times article that claimed falsely that granite countertops were somehow dangerously radioactive. In a case of anecdotes trumping evidence, the Times article didn't enlighten, it alarmed. In the course of the last week, the story grew legs and now it seems that everywhere I look online, I see a reference to that article. The Marble Institute of America had this to say:

In the past few days, a television video has circulated online that has created widespread consumer confusion and concern about radiation levels occurring in
natural granites used for residential countertops. The report suggests some countertops may pose health risks, ignoring years of legitimate and independent scientific research that has concluded that natural stone is perfectly safe to use in homes.

It’s misleading to even hint that we would knowingly sell a product that might harm consumers! The report was prompted by a group that claims to be independent, but is actually funded by two companies that manufacture synthetic stone countertops made of quartz gravel, resins, coloring agents and other chemicals.

Unlike these competing synthetic products, granite is not manufactured in a plant by combining quartz gravel, resins, coloring agents and other chemicals. Throughout the years, consumers have been drawn to natural stone’s beauty, durability, cleanliness and safety.

It’s outrageous that manufacturers of synthetic stone countertops would use a front
group like this to scare consumers. It is also alarming that manufacturers of a
competing product feel they can only compete by groundlessly creating fear about
natural stone, which is safe, beautiful and superior.

In the last paragraph of their statement, the Institute mentions a "front group" used by the "manufacturers of synthetic stone countertops." The group they're talking about is something called the Solid Surface Alliance and their website is here. There are probably other groups such as that one, but I hope not. The Solid Surface Alliance claims that it exists "to provide consumers information on solid surface counter tops, as well as the other uses of solid surface." With that out of their system, the rest of their large website is dedicated solely to blowing smoke and spreading mis-information. It reads like something that Bill O'Reilly would come up with. The hysterical tone, the manipulated statistics and missing contexts are straight out of the Fox News guidebook. They beat the radon drum incessantly of course and even go so far as to link the purchase of natural stone to supporting the Taliban. It's sad, really.

If you have concerns about the radioactivity of household granite, please spend some time reading the Marble Institute of America's website. Rational thinking and facts ought to trump all, but unfortunately that doesn't always happen.

Exeunt omnes

Two years ago I aligned myself with a General Contractor named David Hyde. Over the course of two years, David and I did some great work together. We made a fantastic team and our clients loved us. I drew fantastical pictures and he turned them into real places. I can dream up great designs all day long, but they only count if someone buys them and someone else builds them. For the last two years the someone else who built them was David Hyde. David was a professional, conscientious contractor and he was also my friend.

In a phone call that seems never to have really happened, I found out on Wednesday morning that my friend David Hyde had died a couple of hours earlier. That news is still pounding with a dull throb inside of my skull, almost as if I'd been punched in the head.

David was a year older than I am. Who thinks that a 44-year-old man is going to die suddenly and without a warning? I spoke with him hours before he died and we talked about the work we had planned for the next couple of months. We laid plans in blissful ignorance that Damocles' sword was hanging over his head. I loved that man like a brother and now he's gone. My deepest sympathies go out to his wife and their daughter. Their loss towers over mine and I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a husband and father. It's a strange and overwhelming thing to run headlong into that Ultimate Reality like this.

Suddenly, making sure Mrs. Parker stays happy and that we get the Nicklaus lighting done by next week doesn't quite seem so important as it did a couple of days ago. Shocking though it is, having the Grim Reaper brush past me has had me putting things into perspective with a renewed rigor. In a lot of ways though, I'd have preferred to keep David around and my priorities skewed. But I guess that option's not on the table.

David was everything I'm not. By that I mean he was a suburban, mega-church attending, evangelical with a Jesus fish on his business card. I read the New York Times every day and give money to the ACLU. Forging a working relationship required that each of us put aside the rhetoric we heard from the talking heads on our respective sides of the supposed culture war that's going on in our country. With our ideological differences acknowledged and set aside, we could concentrate on what we had in common. What a concept! That we set aside that crap and saw one another as individuals rather than as our demographic profiles was an opportunity for me, and for him, to let go of the identity politics that is such an easy trap to fall into. Blue states and red states don't really exist you know, and political polarization is an all too effective tool used to win elections. However, it's a lousy way to live your life and shameful way to choose whom to trust. You can only believe that a dreaded Other is your enemy when you can't see his face. I believe that and I know it from first hand experience. I didn't think like that two years ago but I sure do now. So I got to become a better man while at the same time working on a better portfolio. Amazing.

I'm going to move forward, albeit slowly. Everybody will, it's what happens after somebody dies. But a part of me is going to stay right here for a while. So goodbye David my friend, and thanks. I'll take it from here.

Trends to avoid

I got a copy of the new Pottery Barn catalog in the mail today. It's the fall preview issue they've dubbed "Best Customer Edition," which is either a marketing ploy to flatter people like me who've never bought anything there or it's an attempt to win my favor. In either case, and I hope it's the latter, it ain't gonna work. That catalog should have been called the "How NOT to Buy Furniture and Accessories Edition." This $900 nightmare is on their cover.

As my old friend Patsy would say, "It looks like a trail of cat sick." And so it does Patsy, so it does. Nobody appreciates a blast of color and loud pattern as much as I do, BUT if you're going to draw undue attention to yourself, make sure you have your act together first. This thing isn't even made well, just look how the fabric pattern doesn't come close to lining up on the different sections of upholstery. There's no attempt to get the skirt to line up with the seat. The bad alignment alone should dissuade anyone from thinking about this chair. In their defense, big patterns like this are hard to pull off on a small chair. That's why they shouldn't have tried.

They get a little closer from a fabric perspective on this one:



This is their Madison chair in a pattern they call Green Ogee. It's an interesting pattern, but it suffers from the same alignment problems the rest of their offerings do. And this thing has a retail price of $1200. $1200 dollars should get a much better-made piece of furniture than this mid-market stuff. Ikea does a better job on their patterned upholstery and the average price of an armchair is $300. For $600 dollars, you can find better stuff at Crate and Barrel. But your best bet without a doubt is Room and Board. Room and Board sells well-made, middle-market furniture that's priced where it should be, in the middle of the market.

For whatever reason, Pottery Barn is insanely popular and is often mistaken for a purveyor of "good" furniture. I'll tell you right now that it isn't. Pottery Barn is a purveyor of popular "looks" and their brand exists to make you hate your life and aspire to the images conjured by their marketing materials. Lies! Cursed lies! You don't need a mass merchandiser to show you what your life should look like. That's what people like me are for.

There is a place for decent furniture and it's not found in chain stores at the mall. Decent furniture is expensive, but it's made well. Well enough to last a lifetime. One of the ways you can spot good furniture on sight is when an upholstery fabric does this:
Hey! Look how the stripes line up!

So if you want good stuff, go to a locally-owned furniture store. You'll get better service from people who make a living wage and who know what they're talking about. If you're looking for moderately-priced reproduction furniture, get thee to Room and Board.