Taking Nothing for Granite

OK, sorry, I couldn’t resist. It was either that or borrowing the lines or titles from one of these songs:

• Neil Diamond’s “Stones”
• Queen’s “We Will Rock You”
• Bob Dylan’s “Everybody must get stoned…”
• Of course, The Rolling Stones’ “Only Rock ‘n Roll”

I’m sure there were others I could have named too.

What’s this all about? You may remember sometime back I wrote that when Edith and I had selected granite slabs for counter tops in the house, we had NO idea it would take so long before the house was ready for them. As a result, we didn’t reserve them, and because of that, the suppliers sold the pieces we’d picked. D’oh!

So now that we’re finally ready for the slabs, we had to go back to the suppliers and see what they had. OK, no problem, right?

No. Problem.

One of the suppliers no longer had any of the Blue Storm we’d selected in stock. Not in Tucson, not at any of their other stores. Well, they did have one piece… but it was really orange. SIGH. All right, we’ll see what else they have.

Meanwhile, they didn’t have any of the Timbalada stone in stock, either, but there was another slab at one of their other stores. “Get it!” I said.

They did, and on Tuesday I drove down to Tucson. And the result was…. (Drum roll, please.)

That lower right corner looks kind of icky brown, doesn’t it? In person it’s A LOT more green. Perfect for the guest bath.

But no Blue Storm. Or…?

The salesman said that just for grins and giggles he’d checked their online catalog and what, to his wondering eyes, did appear, but this.

“Get it!” I said.

OK, those problems are solved. But there was one more to pick, at another store. We’d originally picked a stone called “Golden Crystal” for the master bath, with a back-up stone called “Golden Ridge.” The folks at Arizona Tile kindly pulled one of each from their stock, and a good thing they did. The Golden Crystal had more gray than gold, but the Golden Ridge?

Much better. And what gray there is will complement the gray in the slate floor tiles. We have a winnah!

There’s one thing these pictures can’t show–and it’s my fault for taking them the way I did–and that’s how big these slabs are. Each one is about 5 feet tall by 7 or 8 feet wide. That’s A LOT of stone, and while we won’t use all of it, we need to have that much to be sure that we have enough. Some of the Blue Storm will get used for the big desk that will go in my office. What will happen to the rest? Well, we’ll just have to see.

Stone work has been the major effort this week at the house too. More of the front landscaping has gone in.

That funny-looking guy and the one behind it, closer to the street, are cow-tongue prickly pear cacti.

The Texas Mountain Laurel that will (eventually) hide the utility boxes on the front of the house is in as well.

It (that’s really just one plant) will grow taller and fill out. Eventually it’ll look more like this.

Out back, another “river feature” has gone in to channel overflow from the rainwater harvesting tanks through the future lawn and toward the wash.

That slab of flagstone will make it easier to cross. (But who might be living under the bridge?)

And speaking of living, I have tenants.

I’m not sure who the “construction engineers”–or the real estate agents, especially–are but some feathery friends decided that the cover over this electrical outlet above the south patio looked like a good place for a nest. Uh, maybe not. We will be needing to get to that outlet soon.

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