Home Guru: Breaking a ‘No Argument’ Record Over a Kitchen Counter
My wife Margaret, Mrs. Home Guru, doesn’t much like it when I reveal anything too personal in this column, but I have a hard time with that. My writing style has always been much like journaling, so what choice do I have but to reveal myself?
I suspect my wife won’t mind if I share something about our marriage that may be considered somewhat extraordinary. In all our years together, we’ve never had a fight. What we sometimes have are spirited discussions, but they are usually about silly things, such as who appeared opposite Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet. In the past few years, however, Google has taken all the fun out of that.
But last week, we came close to crossing the line into a real argument. The issue at hand was not what most couples argue about, like money or the amount of time we spend together. But rather, we disagreed about which material, color and pattern we should choose for our new kitchen countertop.
That may sound trivial, and embarrassed as I am to admit it, after going back and forth endlessly, I said, “All right, we just won’t renovate the kitchen at all, because I don’t want to argue about it.” I know I lost my cool and shortly afterward was most apologetic.
The question was whether we should select marble, granite or the new quartz surface. Each has its drawbacks and benefits, and I had done some homework, but maybe not enough.
Margaret wanted pure white with no pattern, which I found uninteresting, while I preferred darker colors with a more complex pattern. At first I favored marble because of its veined fluidity, but when I researched it, I found that it is more porous, susceptible to staining and chipping, and not the best for a work surface.
That narrowed the field down to granite or quartz.
Granite is a harder stone with a more complex and mottled pattern that hides stains better, but it must be protected with sealer periodically. However, I like the irregularity of its patterns, which are more natural. I feel that engineered quartz, while harder and maintenance free, was too predictable in its patterns and too unnatural looking for my taste.
Our widely divergent preferences had us deadlocked.
Recommended by a supplier, stone expert Anthony Carraturo of Westwood Tile & Stone came to the rescue to help us sort things out and, indeed, his work with us must have seemed like marriage counseling.
We stormed into his stone yard in Cortlandt like a SWAT team on a mission. When he told us that Margaret’s choice of pure white doesn’t exist in nature, that narrowed our choice to returning to granite or going with engineered quartz. Among the latter samples, I found a pattern that looked somewhat like white marble, but not quite. When Anthony said that his showroom in Ossining had samples of other white patterns, we were off, descending on that showroom with even greater urgency.
I’m sure that the nice fellows there, Tom and Victor, must have felt that they should get out of our way, but they were patient as we plucked sample pieces of quartz from their displays, discarding one after another. I kept thanking Victor for his patience with indecision while he replied, “That’s okay, it makes the day go faster.” I’m sure it does.
Finally we decided to forego my preference for pattern and, to please Margaret, or just because I was worn down, I settled on the pure white quartz. It was then that Tom said that he had something to share with us. He took in hand some kind of metal utensil — I don’t know which kind it was because I had double vision by this time — and swiped it across the white quartz, leaving a black streak on the surface. “It’s called metal transfer,” he said, and is hard to get off. Solid white was then out for both of us.
But then, almost like an unexpected answer to a prayer, Tom produced a different product from Silestone called Lyra that actually looked like white marble with slight black veins and, he assured us, it didn’t have the metal transfer problem. We rejoiced that both our preferences were met in one product and left the showroom content, albeit exhausted.
But, the job isn’t over. We have yet to select the backsplash material. Margaret is set on a pure white opaque glass tile, and I want something with more color. We’ve taken samples home to come to a decision before the installation of the countertop.
I suspect it may come down to arm wrestling.
For anyone on a quest to learn more about stone surfaces, the Westwood showroom in Ossining can be reached at (914) 762-5600.
Bill Primavera is a residential and commercial Realtor® associated with Coldwell Banker, as well as a marketer and journalist who writes regularly as The Home Guru. For questions about home maintenance or to buy or sell a home, he can be emailed at Bill@PrimaveraRealEstate.com or called directly at 914-522-2076.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
