The countertop finally

After numerous delays, we were supposed to finally get our countertop installed between Christmas and New Years, which would have worked great. John wanted to be there for the installation, and we spent that entire week in Tucson.

But of course they were delayed. Again. They rescheduled for early January. Only a weeks delay, but it required John to make a special trip out to Tucson from Albuquerque, and turn around and go back out to Albuquerque right after the installation. But it’s finally in. Thank goodness! We bought those countertop slabs back in August!

This is the hall bath.

The countertop matches the cabinets very well. But I’m concerned that the countertop/cabinet combo in the bathroom doesn’t match the white and blue tiles we chose. I’m not quite sure it all ties together. But John really liked those wall tiles. As we all know, John has trouble finding tiles he likes. And I wasn’t about to hunt all through town trying to match a sample tile that I PAINTED MYSELF, like I did for our floors.

So it’s just going to have to be good enough. I don’t think it clashes. It’s just that the dark blue accent tiles seem a bit random. It would have been better if they had pulled more directly from the colors in the quartzite countertop. I can try to tie in the blue accent tiles with my choices in soap dishes, towels, wall art, and other accessories. It’ll be ok. The tile is really cool. You can see how textured it is where the light shines on it in the top left corner of this picture.

I guess if we end up really bothered by the lack of coherence with the dark blue accent tiles, we can pull them out and redo those sections. It wouldn’t be very hard to pop those tiles out and just use the white ones. What would be difficult is finding a different tile to match the white ones because they are unusual. The blue tiles have the same smooth, raised pattern as the white ones, and that’s hard to find.

Here they’re bringing in a large cut slab on a special cart that can carry it on its edge and then raise it up flat.

This slab of quartzite weighs about 300 pounds and is brittle.

John was glad he was able to be there to watch it all. I was nervous and grumpy, afraid something would go wrong, but he was excited to have it finally being installed.

This next picture is of the double sinks in the master bathroom. We will eventually completely redo this bathroom too, but not yet. Probably not until this summer sometime. We have several sets of guests coming this spring, and don’t want to be in the middle of big projects during those visits. We need to save up our dollars anyway, so we’re going to take a break for a bit. We’re just going to install the faucets and call it good enough for now.

Later we will do the rest of the master bathroom, new solid wood doors for the bedrooms and bathrooms, tile the floor of the screened in porch, a gas insert and Mexican tile hearth for the fireplace, exterior stucco on the back of the house (just over the wood addition, not over the burnt adobe brick), some roof work including a foam roof and solar panels, some additional exterior garden walls, a garden shed, and other landscaping such as paths, lighting, and pergolas – also with solar panels. And lots more plants. So lots to do yet. That’ll be stage two.

Meanwhile, we’re pleased with how well the countertop matches the cabinets, and the kitchen will look even better once the backsplash is in. I’m not worried about the kitchen tying together – it will all coordinate well. We’re using thin-cut adobe brick for the backsplash. The brick will tie in well with the rust colored veins in the quartzite, as well as the terracotta floor tiles.

Here is the photo I have been using as inspiration for the kitchen colors:

And this is the photo I’ve been using as a touchstone for the house in general:

I find it helps to show a few photos to those helping us when we’re shopping for materials, or else they assume we want what’s in style right now.

Which, in case you’re wondering, looks like this (photo from the internet):

That is admittedly a nice photo. What’s in style is pretty and it works in many different types of architecture, but it’s so different from what we’re trying to do! You can see our challenge, when 95% of the materials available are to create spaces like in the photo above. And although it’s nice, it’s just not our goal. We’re trying to bring out the character in our particular house, and of the southwest desert in general.

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