Lend Kelly a hand

My great friend Kelly Morrisseau is researching a new book and a new website she's launching this summer and Kelly needs your help.

Yes, this is for my book, but also for my new website coming this summer. (Didn’t know I was going to have a new website? Now you do. *grin*)

For those of you contemplating a kitchen and bath, I’ve got a couple of questions:

• If you’re just starting out, what do you want to know? What's overwhelming?
• For those already into the process, what do you wish you’d known at the beginning?
• For those of you who've finished, what do you wish you could tell your beginning self?

I’ve got a core go-to group that I’ve asked, and  now I want to ask you.  Some of their responses have been:

• Where do I start?
• Where can I get the most bang for my buck (and how do I compromise without damage?)
• How do I get past looks and hype to the reality?
• How do I get the Taj Mahal on a suburban budget?

Okay, I condensed the last one from about 15 identical responses and gave it my own twist. I think that title’s going in my book, right along with a chapter called “Faucet Wedgies, and Other Plumbing Mistakes.”

Yeeeesss, I could have said something about how the restaurant-style sinks and faucets don’t always fit in a regular counter depth, but why? (If you think this is going to be a serious book, you might want to move along. I think we should have some amusement with our information, no?)

I’m finding my experience a hindrance: what I think everybody knows, they don’t. I’m too far along to see what you need.

I'm going to leave this at the top of my blog for the next few weeks. Help, please.

So please consider heading over to Kelly's blog, Kitchen Sync, and letting her know what you think. Thanks.

Brizo has a new ad campaign

Our friends at Brizo have a new ad campaign and I'm smitten. Tell me, who sells faucets this way? It's a brilliant campaign. It's beautiful, it invokes the feel of the brand and it makes me want to run out and buy a Brizo faucet. Kudos to the Young and Laramore Agency for another great campaign and kudos to Brizo for letting Young and Laramore do what they do best.

I'm back, almost

Sociologias

I am stranded in Orlando. Cars break sometimes and sometimes they do so at really inopportune times and places. This is one of those times. The mechanic will weigh in with his final determination in the morning so let's hope that I don't need to have a Kitchen and Residential Design Telethon to pay him. Ugh.

Is it granite, gabbro or basalt?

This post ran on 17 October 2008 originally
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This is Absolute Black. It is always labeled and sold as granite but it isn't granite. It's a mineral called gabbro.

When magma gets trapped in a single layer underneath the earth's crust, it will gradually cool and form gabbro. Now if the same material were to be pushed up from below under great pressure, it would form granite. But then again, if that magma were to come in contact with water it would turn instantly into basalt. Are you still following me here? Gabbro, granite and basalt are essentially the same material in different forms. In order to form granite, magma needs a good hard squeeze so its component materials can separate and form large crystals. If magma cools very quickly upon contact with air or water, it will form basalt. And if magma is left alone for a couple million years it will form gabbro.

Why is this important? Well, it's important because those three phases of former magma have different properties. Basalt is the most brittle of the three which is why it doesn't get used as counter top material. Most granites are strong enough to be sliced into 3cm sheets without too much trouble. But gabbro, due to its uniform crystal size and density is stronger than granite. This means that it can handle longer, unsupported overhangs --like on a bar. It can be carved into more ornate edge treatments and since it's so uniform, it is more water resistant. Absolute black is a great stone to make into a sink, whereas you wouldn't want to use most granites for that purpose.

The downside to it (if it's truly a downside) is that it's always black or very nearly black. Chances are good that if you're looking at a uniformly black or very dark grey granite, you're not looking at a piece of granite at all, but rather a piece of gabbro.

Now, due to that uniform crystal size and density, gabbro can be shined up to a mirror-like surface and that's where the problem with it is as it's ordinarily used comes in. It is impossible to keep clean if it's being used as a kitchen counter when it has that mirror finish. I have never heard of someone who had it and liked it. But the problem isn't the material, it's the finish. It will show every finger print, water spot, smear and smudge. It would drive me insane.

Here's a slab of absolute black with a honed finish. The honed finish tones down the black quite a bit, and in so doing, it eliminates the mirror effect.

Here's a whole kitchen done in honed Absolute Black. It's a much calmer counter than the shot at the top of this post, wouldn't you say?

Now, because true Absolute Black "Granite" is a premium, a lot of less-than-honorable stone suppliers will take a less-expensive predominantly black granite and call it Absolute Black because most people can't tell the difference.

Sometimes; similar, dishonorable suppliers will actually dye inexpensive granite with black pigments and sell it as more expensive Absolute Black.

Not that I'd know any of these less-than-honorable business people personally...

Anyhow, if you're in the market for absolute black, make sure that what you're buying is just that. If it looks like this, it ain't absolute black.

And as a completely unrelated yet completely cool side note, the paving stones on the streets of Pompeii are gabbro.

Sometimes I just love geology. Even if the only person I fascinate with this stuff is me.

Working up a lather with soapstone

This post ran on 16 October 2008 originally.
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Another metamorphic rock that makes its way into homes is steatite, commonly called soapstone. It's composed primarily of the mineral talc with a healthy does of magnesium for good measure. The magnesium is where it gets its grey color. Soapstone formation occurs in regions of tectonic subduction and in the presence of water. Let me whip out my rock phase illustration again.

By the time a slab of soapstone ends up in some one's home, it's between 400 and 500 million years old to give you some sense of the timeline involved in its formation.

Soapstone is soft. You can write your name in it with a fingernail is how soft. Due to its high talc content, it feels somewhat like a bar of soap to the touch, hence its name.

Even though it's very soft, it's an excellent material for kitchen and bath counters. Unlike a lot of stone, soapstone is neither alkaline nor acidic and is completely inert. That means that virtually nothing can make it react chemically. Vinegar and lemon juice, the great etchers of marble, have no effect on soapstone. It's virtually non-porous, so oils and dark-colored liquids can't stain it.

The stuff's used for table tops in chem labs for a reason.

Most people oil their soapstone with mineral oil but this doesn't do anything but enhance its color and minimize the appearance of the hairline scratches it will accumulate over time. In its un-oiled state, soapstone is grey. Add mineral oil and it turns black. With repeated applications, this oil-induced black color will become permanent, but that's due to the oil oxidizing on the surface of the stone.

Soapstone's an excellent heat diffuser and that's why it gets used to make fireboxes and wood stoves. It's also water proof and that's why it gets used to make sinks and cookware.

Soapstone is a great material to use in a kitchen. Its grey-black color is an achromatic neutral and that means it will go with anything. If you're considering a kitchen renovation and you want to try something different but still a natural stone, think about soapstone.