Thursday, June 08, 2006

Kitchen Countertop Confidential


My last post about some script hijacking a blog post of mine has two ironies I find amusing. The first is the obvious one that the bot creating the phony blog used a post about a television show called Kitchen Confidential in an attempt to get links for people looking for Granite Kitchen Countertops. The second irony is that I had long been considering a post of my own about Granite Kitchen Countertops.

We’ve lived in our townhome for about seven years and really haven’t done a lot of improvement projects. One my wife had always wanted was to replace the crappy contractor grade laminate countertops with something a little more sturdy, like Granite Kitchen Countertops. The old countertops had a lot of marks from when I was too lazy to use the cutting board and where also fairly easily stained and hard to keep clean.

When my new neighbors moved in next door, the embarked on a series of renovations that had us rolling our eyes at their zeal, but also slightly envying their determination. When a Granite Kitchen Countertop vendor showed up, my wife grabbed his card and dragged me to his Granite Kitchen Countertop shop deep in an industrial warehouse district.

The owner was a Turkish stone mason that spoke with a heavy accent. His cohort at the shop spoke no English at all. He had huge panels of granite ready for cutting. We thumbed through the 8 foot by 12 foot sheets of granite to find a color that would go with the Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne border I had put in our kitchen. We settled on an inch thick slab that had streaks of blue, black and tan. Since our kitchen isn’t very big, the cost was affordable and competitive with what Sillstone or Corian would have cost at a BigBoxOfLumber™. While the pictures don’t do it justice, the final installation really added a lot of zip to the kitchen. The most impressive feature is that the ell-shaped piece at the sink is a single piece of Granite Kitchen Countertop with no seam whatsoever.

Old Laminate Countertops

New Granite Kitchen Countertops

I am not particularly handy and I keep my home improvement projects to the easily correctible. I do try to fix plumbing problems where I can. I’m able to field strip a toilet in no time from years of practice. A while ago I had a coworker teach me enough soldering to be dangerous. When my kid was at camp, I replaced the shower valves in both bathrooms in less than a week of evenings. So once we had our new Granite Kitchen Countertops, I insisted on installing the new sink faucet and garbage disposal myself. I’m proud to say it came out fine with a minimum of foul language.

Cheap Pantry and Cupboard

New Pantry and Cabinets

We made the mistake of mentioning to the Granite Kitchen Countertop guy that we had always wanted to add a few cabinets and a pantry since our kitchen didn’t have a pantry and we had been using an old toy chest of mine for overflow storage. He said that we ought to do the cabinets as soon as possible since there would no way to match the granite color later if we delayed. That spurred a week of searching for cabinets customizable enough to fit into the space we had and still match the rather inferior grade of cabinet we already had. For a minute there I feared becoming a scene out of Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream Home. It all turned out ok as you can see. My wife finally got the broom closet she always wanted and we were able to eliminate a lot of clutter.


Old Sink


New Sink

With the new cabinets in, we thought we might like a granite ledge at the foyer pass-thru to match the one at the sink pass-thru. The Granite Kitchen Countertop guy said he might have one piece matching our granite left and he would come by to measure it up. He did and warned us it might be a few days before he could get back to install it. Then weeks passed by. I was beginning to get annoyed. I resolved to give the guy a call and force the issue.

One Friday I needed to sign a receipt and set it down on our new granite ledge that I hadn’t realized was there. I had no idea when it had been installed. I yelled up to my wife, who told me it had been there since Wednesday afternoon. She had sworn my son to secrecy and they had been snickering behind my back for two days. I’m never going to live down that testament to my absence of powers of observation.

Two more small ironies. My neighbor ended up not replacing his countertops and my wife now complains that the granite pattern hides dirt too well and it’s hard to keep the counter clean. No winning for losing.

Blatant Link Whoring™: I’ve managed to use the phrase “Granite Kitchen Countertop” nine times (now ten) in this post. Give me a little linky-love to this post and I’ll see if I can become the new center of the universe for Granite Kitchen Countertops. Just drop the following phrase inconspicuously into your blog and I’ll post an update if it results in anything amusing.

<a href="http://livebythefoma.blogspot.com/2006/06/kitchen-countertop-confidential.html">Granite Kitchen Countertops</a>

37 comments:

Impetua said...

I'm laughing my ass off at your Granite Kitchen Countertop post... Who knew there could be such subterfuge in the world of Granite Kitchen Countertop internet marketing?

Oh, and your poor wife. Remind her how crappy your old counter looked the next time she's boo-hooing about how hard her life is. :)

We had WHITE laminate counters in our old house, and black ones in this house. They both have their issues, but I must say if I had to choose between them, and "neither" was not an option, I'd choose the black counter any day of the week. We are going to replace them eventually.... When money falls from the sky...

Aginoth said...

Granite is a great kitchen surface material...one on my to do list...

Michele sent me

rashbre said...

Great. I've just been doing something similar with the Official FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 Site, which is not, of course at rashbre central. Interestingly, I do seem to be getting a lot of hits from world cup searches at present. All in fun, you understand.

I will add something about GKC anytime soon.

rashbre said...

GKC mission accomplished.

rashbre said...

Doh, and Hiya - Michele sent me. Its been about 3 weeks since I was visiting Michele and I've forgotten the process!

Anonymous said...

You sound like my husband. I takes him weeks or months to notice a change in the house.

Those spammers will stop at nothing!

Via michele today.

Erica said...

So are you saying you DON'T actually provide Granite Kitchen Countertops at wholesale prices? Damn.

Michele sent me.

yellojkt said...

One splog has already taken the bait. Kitchen cabinets must be an awfully popular google search.

Prego said...

Wait. Cary Granite bought the Flintstones new kitchen appliances?

We replaced the old laminate countertop with a new laminate countertop. I'd have gone granite, if we didn't have to replace the floor and appliances, etc. to boot. That and I'm a cheap bastard. I suffer from Tightwadusitis.


Thanks for the visit yesterday.
p

OldLady Of The Hills said...

The countertops look wonderful though Id love to see a close-up of the pattern...I love that you didn't realize that THAT was there...LOL!

Here from Michele's today!

ribbiticus said...

whoa! you're becoming quite the handyman there...great job!

michele says hi! ;)

utenzi said...

Michele sent me to see your lovely new GRANITE countertops, Yellojkt. And they are lovely though I like the change in the Pantry most of all.

Well, maybe the old sink-to-new sink is even better. Regardless, the transition is quite noteworthy.

J.Po said...

Hey, yello! Nice Granite Kitchen Countertops.

Free to Be said...

Wow, those Granite Kitchen Countertops couldn't have turned out any better and I am in love with the sink!

Hello from Michele!

MsT said...

Love how you didn't notice the counter was finally installed! Here from Michele's.

Anonymous said...

I wish I had an army of internet slaves ready to do my bidding at the drop of a hat, just like this "Michele" person.

Your Mother said...

I am so in on this!

Yo Tambien Te Mando Besos said...

The countertops look great! Your wife must be very happy!

Here from Michele...

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

Counters look great! We're in the market ourselves but have forecasted an entire kitchen remodel if we put in new countertops. You know, the leg bone's connected to the ankle bone thing?

btw, what have you got on Michele?

Bobealia... said...

Helooo. Your kitchen looks much much better, but I just moved into a new apartment with granite kitchen countertops and they are not all that special. I don't see what the big deal is in the first place. Mind you, I kind of like retro ugly countertops. How many times can you use that in one post?
Here from Michele's!

Unknown said...

Great renovation job. I'll link you up in a future post. I dropped by here via Keb's link on her blog.

Anonymous said...

ohh how funny...i actually was looking for granite counter tops...what a hoot!

Anonymous said...

Why would you put such nice counter tops on such cheap looking cabinets?

Anonymous said...

No doubt granite countertop is best solid surface for kitchen countertop.

Anonymous said...

Replacing Granite kitchen countertop is a good decision.

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