too many girls with "The look"? ^^

On the serious note: have you looked into online dating thread? I mean, I know you are grown-up and all like that, but OOT delivers sometimes surprisingly good life advice.

Just tell me to shut-up, if I am too annoying. ^^

No, you may post here any time!

I've browsed it, but I'm in a completely different demographic. I do see how they give profile tips and such and that's probably useful but I haven't really taken the time to go through everything there.

Most of the women on match appear to be high achieving career women who are looking for the same in a man. I make plenty of money and I'm good at what I do but I could really care less about my "career". Moving up the corporate ladder is nothing I aspire to. I don't value that aspect of life whatsoever, nor am I going to lie about it. I think that's a big negative on match. I sort of wonder why so many women think that is important in a man.

BB — Have you PMed BtM yet? It cannot hurt to do so, I imagine he will be more than happy to peruse your profile(s) and whatever, giving pointers. IIRC he did spend a lot of time on that trial and error before he started getting traction.

Discouraging: I know no one, who would have found his/her partner in online dating. Everyone with whom I spoke and who tried it, is frustrated, including me.

Encouraging: I am one of such high achievers and currently date a guy without college education or a big career and I like it a lot. I could write a long long essay, why I am feeling better with him than with my last BF, who was one of "high achievers". So not every career woman wants a career guy. But again we met not online but life and have been good friends previously for very long. Online is probably more difficult to show certain, highly appreciated by the opposite sex, character traits.

Online is a world for itself. Don't know also how high this project is on your priority list.

Yeah, online dating is a whole different dynamic. It's almost surreal.

I really wasn't expecting much but I thought I'd give it a shot.

It may just be I'm ****ing ugly

I met Drew to sign the letter of intent and give him a check.

We talked some more about costs. He had told me as soon as I picked a sample (cherry) that it was going to be considerably more than his base cost. I had just picked a sample out of all of them that happened to be cherry. I come to find out he can match the stain almost exactly with much cheaper wood (maple). That's fine with me. They looked the same. He said the grain is much better with cherry and I could see that but it just doesn't matter to me. Interestingly the door style I like is the cheapest as well. So that cost will be contained pretty well.

I think the countertops will be challenging. He bases his costs on a slab or half slab. He figures all the countertops (including bath) will be 2 slabs but trying to get different materials for each bathroom would mean buying additional slabs. I don't want this.

My other challenge is matching colors. You really can't do this properly without a sample tile held up to a sample cabinet door next to a sample piece of granite. He did give me a good bunch of sample cabinet pieces so I just need to buy a bunch of different tiles before I head to the granite place.

I think getting these things set is going to be fairly time consuming. I want to get it right and not regret it when after it is installed.

He must be steering you to soft maple, because hard maple is just as expensive as cherry.

That doesn't matter, I'm just being a wood nerd. Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Yeah, I dunno. He said you have to apply more coats of stain for the color to come out right.

I found some tile at Home Depot that I really like. Super cheap too. I asked the guy why and he said it is because it is ceramic, not porcelain. Geez, so many things to think about. I googled the difference and I can't really tell if getting ceramic is a bad idea.

I looked at the granite they had. I just don't think I can find granite in a color I want so I'm pretty sure I'll have to go quartzite.

The floor is going to be a big expense so I'm trying to save there and spend more on countertops.

I'm sure it will look good. "Soft" maple is just as hard as cherry. It's a distinction that only matters if you're being a wood nerd.

bigger,

what color of granite are you looking for?

Funny you should ask...........

Today I went granite shopping. Rob mentioned several places but highly recommended one. It wasn't open until later so I checked out one of his suggestions.

It was a big warehouse and I really couldn't get much help and it was difficult to tell what was what. Granite? Marble? Quartzite? Expensive? Cheap? too hard to tell.

Then I went to a place that he said might have scraps for the bathroom vanities. It turns out they are fabricators and they do have scraps but it was slim pickens.

By then the first place he suggested was open so I went there. It was granite nirvana! Everything was labeled well and the whole place was really laid out well. They had a whole area for their cheaper selections.

I started out in the main warehouse part and just picked out ones I liked. Most of them were in the "luxury" category. I picked a handful and wrote them down. Then I went out to the walmart area and didn't see anything that caught my eye. Last, I went to the smaller slab area (mostly for bathroom vanities) and found quite a few that I liked.

While I was looking a guy there started talking to me about marble. He said there is definitely more dense marble that would be fine in a kitchen. He pointed me to some and there were nice but I didn't see anything that really stood out for me. Plus, I'm still skeptical about the marble.

I went back in with my list and the lady said "you have good taste!", which basically meant I picked the most expensive. She said 3 of my selections would be over $200 sq. ft. YIKES!

So, I went back through and tried to select some that weren't luxury. I only saw one in the walmart area that I would consider. Most were in the medium or high category.

I probably went through the warehouse 10 times picking ones I liked. Just in case one didn't catch my eye once, but maybe did the next time. I was pretty consistent about the ones I wanted so I narrowed it down to I think 6.

I spent about 3 hours there.

Then I drove to the floor place Rob suggested. Great place but definitely not home depot prices. But, they will let you take any selection in the store with you to match colors. This will be great since it is about 2 blocks from the granite place.

So, when I get some prices back I'll make one more pass and be able to pick floors and granite in one shot.

Pics coming.

Some of these pics came out better than others.

As you can see, I'm going for something fairly dark with grey/black in it. I'm going for an almost white floor to offset this.

The location in the light and my lack of ability taking pictures is making some of these not look so good. They are all really pretty granites, though.

This is the cheap one I think:



I love this but it is in the luxury category and I'm not sure when you cut it up it will look as impressive:



I'm on the fence with this one. The pic doesn't do it justice. It is much more vibrant than the pic shows. But the polkadot pattern is risky. I might go for it anyway.




Here are the rest:

Would be interested to find out what kind of $200+ granite you picked out. Probably some lighter colors im guessing? I love the last one on your list, we call it Titanium. The 'polka dot' one is Black Ma******. I really like that pattern for some reason. The fifth pic you posted looks like Arara Blue, not sure if it is more blue than black based on the glare. It is really hard to take a good pic of a polished granite slab! All of those are solid choices.

I don't know if you saw any of these but based on what you posted above I'd do a google search for these and see if you like them:

Black Fantasy
Black Forrest
Bianco Antico
Mercury Black
Silver Paradiso
Alaska White (mostly white but has cool patterns and some black)
White Piracema

edit:

I forgot to make a comment about this. A lot of granite wholesalers are open to the public, but do not sell to the public, only the fabricators. It is a big taboo in the industry for the wholesaler to discuss pricing at all with a homeowner, even in generality. The fabricators generally mark up the /sq ft price that the wholesaler charges. In the few instances that I have seen a homeowner find out the actual square foot price that their fabricator paid, they always flip out that they pay x amount more /sq ft, not knowing what goes into fabricating. If a wholesaler were to discuss price with a homeowner, it is a quick way to lose a customer forever.

There is no excuse for not having slabs sorted categorically though- marble in one section, granite in another, etc. I know that looking at that many slabs can be daunting.

The man knows his granite!

OK, I'm not quite sure what all those pics are because the list I have that I ended up giving them only had 5 on the list.

They are:

copacabana (or copacabama?) - I think that's the black one with the swirl.
snow white
black ma******
amadeus
bros blue

I think the cheap one is romanix?

Yeah, both places wouldn't give me a price. They just tell my builder and then he gives me a fabricated price. I get the reason but it would be nice to know some ranges before I choose something. It means a lot of back and forth if cost is a consideration. At least they rated them somewhat.

I'll get back to you on those expensive ones. I wrote them down but I think I tossed that piece of paper.

I'd like your take on what the guy said about dense marble. He told me that the marble from (Brazil maybe?) somewhere in south america is denser and is just as good as granite in the kitchen. But I read that marble is problematic with scratching and spilling red wine (which I do all the time). Thoughts?

I want to find the people who come up with these names and drop a granite slab on them.

one of the funny things about importing granite is you can name it whatever you damn well please. also a lot of fabricators will create their own names that they slap on their samples to make it tougher for you to compare apples to apples. The only name you listed up there that I know is black ma******, and we have hundreds of colors from all over the world.

As far as marble goes, staining really isn't an issue if you ask me, because every single stain you could possibly make on your marble (or granite, as lighter granites can have noticeable stains too) can be taken out relatively easily with a little bit of time and effort. See this video:



Regardless, if you are living alone and don't let the wine/grease/whatever sit for more than 24 hours you won't have a problem.

Scratching/pitting would be my main concern with marble. Some softer marble, Italian Cararras for instance, are extremely soft and pit easily. There are some harder Italian marbles, Calcutta Gold being one, which are much harder and more scratch/pitting resistant, but triple the price of softer ones. They are damn beautiful though.

There are so many different varieties its hard for me to think of one particular brazilian marble (if its from south america theres a 90% chance it came from brazil) that is "as hard as granite". There are granites as soft as a hard marble and hard marble as hard as a soft granite. I do know some harder ones out there but normally they don't look like classic white marbles that is all the rage now. As a rule of thumb we say the darker the marble the harder it is.

Anyway, I would read the Marble Institute of America's homeowner guide for all the info you need and more.

The last thing I have to say is that there is absolutely no benefit for you to get your granite through your contractor unless he actually has his own shop where he fabricates the granite. If he doesn't, he will just be using another company to fab and install which just adds another middleman.

Thanks.

I'm almost positive I heard him tell me they fabricate their own granite. This appears to me to be a pretty big operation. Rob, I think, is just an administrative guy. I think he draws up plans and talks to customers and such but he's not the contractor.

Rob texted me to tell me he had everything ready (plans, final pricing). We'll meet Tuesday.

In other news, today is my birthday and the only person to remember it was my ex-girlfriend.

Happy birthday!
What do you do to celebrate?

Thanks. It was awesome. Started with breakfast at McDonalds followed by grocery shopping at Walmart. Mixed in a little laundry. Took out the trash. Pretty exciting!

Man!
I have had very often the same birthday party. It is OK, If you want it like that. But if you want it to be different, then do it different.

I remember my 30-tieth birthday. I already knew that birthdays are complicated. So i decided beforehand it is gonna be good. I will have fun and it absolutely doesn't matter what anyone around me will do or not. So the day before I invited many colleagues, even whom I barely knew, at my job in the evening to a local bar. Rule was "your showing-up is my present". In the morning I bought myself 30 red roses and bottle of crazy expensive champagne. In the evening I went to this bar determined to have fun even if no one would show-up. six people came and it was good. Better than a birthday before, when I just expected people to remember and come over.

You can also celebrate a week later.

I met Rob today. He had plans and a "final" budget. He pretty much went with the plans I showed him that Richard drew up but he re-did them on his software. There were a few things I didn't like in Richard's plans that he modified. More on this later.

He brought me the prices on the granite choices I made. These are my costs, not his.

Whole Slabs-

Copacabana $3,600 @ 55 sq. ft.
Snow White $1,950 @ 59 sq. ft.
Black Ma****** $2,425 @ 64 sq. ft.
Amadeus $1,850 @ 51.5 sq. ft.
Bross Blue $1,975 @ 71.5 sq. ft.

Half Slabs-

Spectrus $900
Paradiso $600
Godiva $600

All @ 23 sq. ft.

There was one more slab he didn't include because it was on another page that I gave the granite place. It was the "walmart" slab so it is most certainly cheaper than any of the above.

The budget came out to $113,800. This includes the midrange granite costs above. It does not include tile, carpet, and plumbing fixtures. I'm thinking the total cost will probably come in around 125,000.

Although I might be able to get this done a little cheaper (more on this later), I seriously doubt that anyone will give me the customer service I'm getting. Rob and I have been in constant touch, tossing around options and going through everything. I'm certainly willing to pay some more for this customer service.

Richard called and left a message. He's definitely out but I will probably call him to tell him.

Doug called and wanted to meet to talk about his bid. He didn't send it to me but has it ready. I looked back and the last I talked to him was Sept 22. Seems like a long time. When I was talking to him I figured it wouldn't hurt to get another bid. However, after thinking about it I'm about 99% sure he won't come in lower than Rob and the fact that he's really unavailable kills any chance with him. I'll call him back to cancel because I'd be wasting his time.

Drew never got back to me about the references.

And..............John sent me a bid. It's been I think an entire month since I talked to him. I'm not really sure what to think of his bid other than I won't be using him. I can't decipher it at all. Is this labor only? Are there allowances? I have no clue.







Doesn't matter at this point. Rob is my guy.

Rob showed me his drawings and it was all fine. A couple of little tweaks. I asked him several times about the support wall in the kitchen. Richard's plans showed removing the current interior kitchen wall to move all of the appliances back (see below).



Rob didn't seem to understand what I was asking. He kept saying there won't be any problems since nothing is moving.

I'm having an issue trying to get Rob's pics up but what Rob did was leave the hall closets as is. This leaves the kitchen space pretty much the same as it is now. Something I wasn't happy with because it seems so cramped (see current pic)



I'm struggling with this a little. One one hand, the back wall (where the oven is now) will be gone and it will have a more open appearance. But it seems sort of cramped to me. Rob did mention that another 24" in width makes the kitchen less functional. I think he does have a point there. I need to ponder this a while. I know if I have him do what Richard suggested the cost will go up quite a bit. Structurally I just don't think they can do this without some re-engineering of the ceiling.

Rob and I talked through a few more details like door options. For some reason Richard really liked pocket doors. I'm not a fan really so I got Rob to make everything regular doors.

We discussed lighting options and other minor things. He'll take all of these and put in in his plans.

Rob is going to get me exact measurements to order floors and such and we still need to sign a finalized contract but we are pretty close.

I'm going to spend another day at the tile and granite store soon.

I'm ready to get this party started.