If you haven't read or don't remember my blog concerning our granite saga, you may want to give yourself a bit of backstory by reading this post.
Things have been moving along really well the past couple of weeks. All of our countertops have been cut, and Ben actually stopped by and saw the kitchen island top and told me it was AMAZING. We were scheduled to have our countertops installed this coming Wednesday, and our builder had all his subs ready to "circle the wagons" and get in here and finish up plumbing, electrical, appliance installation, etc., once the countertops were in. He told Ben he planned on having the house finished the last week in August, and we'd just be waiting on final inspections. We were on Cloud 9!
Then Friday afternoon I got "The Call." Brett, our countertop guy, called and, when I asked him how he was doing, he said, "I've been better. I'm about to ruin your weekend." I'm thinking, "Oh, great. They're going to push off our installation another week, but I guess that's not a huge deal." THEN he tells me they were moving the countertop for our kitchen island, their lift thingy failed somehow, and they DROPPED the countertop from about 10 feet high. Naturally, it broke into about 3,000 pieces.
I'm sorry. Could you repeat that, because I'm CERTAIN that's not really what you said.
As this nightmare unfolded in my head (OMG, we can't get another slab like that; we've already looked everywhere. OMG, we can't even get another slab that will match the colors in the perimeter countertops; we're going to have to start completely over and find TWO slabs. OMG, this house isn't going to be finished in a couple of weeks like we thought. On and on and on...), I honestly thought I might pass out. I cried on the phone with Brett (I'm sure that was one phone call he hopes he never has to make again). I ugly cried for a good hour in my office. I texted Ben and my Mom because I was crying too hard to talk on the phone. Ben tried to call me anyway and couldn't understand a word I was saying through my ugly cries, so I texted him Brett's phone number. Mom knew better than to call. I threw up my lunch and ice cream sandwiches (yes, sandwicheS - do NOT judge me) that I had gotten at PFJ's "Food Truck Friday" an hour or so earlier. I had to meet with my builder that afternoon to pay him for this month's invoice (talk about adding insult to injury). Ben had informed him of the tragedy earlier, and when he started talking about it when I showed up to meet him, I cried some more. I cried again when I got home that evening and looked at our kitchen cabinets with no countertops. And again when we went to the countertop place the next morning to pick up a broken piece of granite to take with us to see if we could, by some miracle, find a slab to match. And again when we walked into the granite place. I kept trying to calm myself by saying, "No one has died; and this will eventually be okay." But I honestly felt like someone had died. I have grieved over this granite.
After vising the granite place yesterday morning, I have some hope that we can find a slab that will color-match the slab used for our perimeter countertops, but I have no hope that we'll find one with the beautiful vein we so wanted on our island. We looked at a couple of slabs yesterday morning, but then it started pouring rain, and this particular lot of granite was located in their outdoor yard, so we had to suspend our search, and I'll have to go back Monday.
The countertop guys (who are wonderful, by the way - I'm not mad at them; I'm just sad and upset at the whole situation) are going to install our other tops on Wednesday as planned so we can continue with last-minute plumbing and other stuff to keep us as much on schedule as possible. So things are looking not completely bleak, but there is definitely a cloud hanging over my head. I hope I can be happy with a different granite slab and not mourn for "what could've been" every time I look at the kitchen island.
To make me (and you, if I've managed to make you feel my depression) feel better, here are some of the good things that have been happening the past couple of weeks:
All of the exterior painting is done, including the rear garage door.
My laundry room is functional! No countertops yet, so folding is still a little difficult, but at least I don't have to cart all our laundry to my Mom's every weekend.
About half of our light fixtures have been installed.
A few of our appliances have been installed.
AND my awesome living room fan is installed, except for the paddle blades (we don't want to get those dusty as we finish stuff up). I absolutely love this fan. I'm so glad we designed the entire house around it. :-)
We've also been on a mad dash of furniture shopping and, after much effort, have ordered seating and a couple of tables for the living room. So that's it. We'll see what the next couple of weeks bring. Hopefully much less heartache and a certificate of occupancy.
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