i think they look great together too. go for it . there is a designer on houzz who frequently used two complimenting stones in kitchens.

Linden Ave. home renovation · More Info

Ack indeed! Good luck with the logistics.

Regarding cleaning (what's said on GW stays on GW, right?) - I can't really reach the middle of my island, so swipe along the edges. And so what? Nobody's going to be eating off of that portion:)

You can adopt oldbat's laissez-faire attitude, or you could go all high tech.

Did you try Olive Mill in Anaheim Hills? They did an excellent job on out Corian. Nice family business.

I had a larger island in my other house and I cleaned by using a long dowel and cloth. I also climbed onto the island to scrub as well. The darn thing was huge.

@isabel thanks. I think they will be complementary. I haven't had time to go out and check with the zinc.

@1929 thank you for the recommendation. I just checked them out and they focus on Quartz. I'm doing a leather finish on the granite (hubby really loved other leathered slabs he saw). It's a very specialized ability. I'm looking at specific fabricators who will work with the specialty stone finisher that can leather my slab. They also need the right equipment to do a miter edge as well.

Bummer. It's been five years and I couldn't remember what they did.

Well the good news is that the full island will fit through the door and courtyard if we clear out the entire living room.

Another compromise today is to change the shape of the island. Hubby wanted miter edge with 2 1/2" edge so ..... I can't have a slightly rounded front edge for the island as designed. It will be full rectangular and won't have that softness.

The logistics for a deep edge plus leather makes it impossible to have a round shape.

It's funny. I've made so many changes and compromises to accommodate budget, mistakes, clearance purchases, family desires and the kitchen won't look anything like my original vision cosmetically but the bone/functionality is still intact.

I just hope all the patchwork changes will still come out with a cohesive, attractive looking kitchen. Knowing me, it will bother me for a week if its a mess then I stop seeing how the kitchen look.

Oh beachem, I feel for you! From what I've seen, your choices are cohesive, complementary and just fun! If it's a functional layout, you will be thrilled and (if you're like DH and me) patting yourselves on the back for a decade or two. I have a laundry list of cosmetic changes (if I'd only known now, what I didn't know then...) which will most probably never be applied, but the layout - oh, THAT will NEVER change in our kitchen. (I am so very grateful to this forum!)

So when WILL the full island be squeezing in through the door and courtyard...? (Inquiring minds want to know).

"Another compromise today is to change the shape of the island. Hubby wanted miter edge with 2 1/2" edge so ..... I can't have a slightly rounded front edge for the island as designed. It will be full rectangular and won't have that softness."

If I'm understanding you correctly, mitering has no inlfuence on edge profiling. Leaving a sharp 90 degree angled edge on a kitchen island is birthing a chipfest.

@oldbat with one fabricator, it's 4 weeks out. Still waiting for quotes and time back from two fabricators. I had to visit their sites and made sure they have equipment to handle the job.

@Joseph the corner edges are eased. I was talking about having the entire front of the island be curved about 20 degrees.

However, the curved area would have to be non mitered and have two to three seams. The edge would also not be leathered as they can't maintain that when it's being cut into pieces to fit a round shape.

It was fine as a 1 1/2 inch eased edge non leathered before hubby wanted the edge changes and the leathered finish.

Right now, my priority is to check whether I need to install more steel braces since it's now handling two plywood subtop and the granite.

My mom always tells me that a room will be what it wants to be, no matter what your vision. So many little decisions we make along the way change the outcome In ways we can't foresee. It seems like your room has a strong vision for itself, but I have no doubt that it will be beautiful and cohesive in the end.

4 weeks to granite on the island...we'll be counting down.

The curved top could be mitered if you switched to engineered stone and they thermoformed it.

Joseph, we already bought the granite so that's what we're working with.

i finally had time to get to the remnant place and check the zinc samples.

The hood will be faux painted dark or actual dark zinc so I placed that sample on the marble and the countertop sample on a horizontal plane.

I much prefer the slate gray as more muted. I left the untreated zinc sample out for 8 months and it's still shiny.

Slate gray

Untreated pure zinc

Irony oh irony!! After two months of haunting slab yards from LA to OC with no luck on an acceptable Fusion, we settled for Azurite. One week later ......

I picked the fabricator today and during our conversation, he suggested that we visit one of his vendor for the backsplash material. I've never heard of them before but it was close to my house so we went by.

I couldn't get hubby to focus on the Quartz. He immediately headed off into the bowels of this gigantic warehouse where all the pretty stones are at.

He came back to get me and plastered himself to this gorgeous fusion slab. It was more muted than our original one but still absolutely gorgeous.

I had to admit. My heart jumped several beats. I just avoided looking past the one look and took off as fast as I could.

We're already committed and that's it. Hopefully, the leather treatment on the Azurite will help him forget the one that got away.

That's almost heartbreaking. But I think that your new isnland slab looks so lovely with the backsplash it will all be just gorgeous.

i also find myself wishing there was middle option on the zinc. I guess I was picturing something more like pewter. I do think that shiny one is just a it too bright.

The shiny is the raw zinc sheet with dust, air, water dripping on for two months. It hasn't mellowed out. I wanted a warm pewter look also.

I can practice aging the samples with various food products like tomato sauce etc and read up on the web. Aged zinc photos that I've seen are lovely.

If you don't go through the zinc plating, you'll be fine. I can't find my pictures of the retail store chain that's rubbed through their cashwrap plating and are now sliding recycled clothes over rust.

@Joe, solid zinc doesn't have plating so it shouldn't rust.

Update - counter still not in- was delayed for 3 weeks on measurement due to fabricator's brother dying of heart failure. I got them a new cardiologist and he was out yesterday to measure. Templating is this week.

On the bad side- I have no idea how the counter will look as the leathering process changed the color drastically to a muted brown. You can barely see the blues. Hubby was all blue when he saw it.

We were delayed several weeks because my fabricator's brother went into heart failure and he scaled down his production. But.... It's almost over.

They're here today for install.

8 guys to handle the one counter.

the poor guys have to cut down my counter since the new slab was too short after the apron. They had to cut out iron brackets too. Sigh.

How exciting! I lost track as to what you were doing where with the different materials. I think I need a spreadsheet... Lol Glad your back in business! What material is the island? And is that the workers materials all over your back counter and range?!

10 guys for the final transfer into the house and lifted onto the island plus the boss overseeing.

The stuff on the perimeter is my junk. I've been building everything myself.

The counter is in. It's the Azurite leathered. I'm trying to decide whether to add more color enhancer to pull out more of the blues for hubby.

Here are the guys drilling my holes. They've been here for 3 1/2 hrs snd we're almost finished.

The owner loved the Hercules system I bought and he's switching to it. It's more secured than the standard stuff used in the industry and is 1/4 less.

We were putting it on together.

Island counter DONE .... Except for faucets, etc...

Perimeter and backsplash decision next.

Wow beachem that's really pretty and that sink! I see they used plywood under? I've never done that. Is that how you achieve that thick edge? And Good for you building everything yourself!

edited to add: just read back through this thread so are you still planning zinc on perimeter? And backsplash is the marble remnant and the hood a faux painted dark zinc? ...wow am actually digging all those choices! Cabinet color?

That is spectacular! I love how different items look when you take them from vertical to horizontal.

@MawizZ, here in CA they always have a plywood subtop. I had my subtop installed with 1/2" X 6" thick metal bars running the length of the island between the cabinet and the plywood.

I wanted a thicker edge so they added another layer of plywood. The edge is mitered with a 2 3/8" apron and eased edge.

What a spectacular stone!

It's stunning. I'd be very excited to start using the kitchen.

Oh wow very cool. I love that thick edge and agree with cluelessincolorado about the difference in look from vertical to horizontal! I thought for sure I liked #1 but in hindsight that seems boring to thisone ....this one with the inclusion is way cool...a piece of art! So excited to see more progress pics!

Beachem!!! It looks great! And now you have a work space IN THE KITCHEN!!! How exciting. :)

Beachem it might not be your Fusion, but it's stunning in its own right. What a spectacular stone.

One little correction on the plywood sub-top thing: Plywood is placed over the cabs and under the countertop when the countertop material is 2 cm. When you do it this way, you also need to laminate on an edge piece so you're not looking at the plywood.

If the countertop material is 3 cm, it doesn't need a sub-top; the countertop goes directly on the cabinets. This arrangement doesn't need any addition to the edge.

The exception would be if, like you, you wanted an extra-deep edge. In that case you'd add a second piece of plywood to your 2cm top and one piece of plywood to your 3 cm piece + a laminated edge.

It's true that CA almost always does 2 cm tops and therefore a plywood sub-top. Just to be difficult, there are those of us in CA who prefer the 3 cm. Our stone yard in the north end of San Diego County carried only 3 cm, and we loved it. When we moved up near SF, we requested the piece we liked in 3 cm and they had some at their other yard. Yea!

Looking good, Beachem. I'm sure you're looking forward to all of this being finished!!

Thanks for that further explanation on the plywood thing beachem and Suzanne. I have not seen it done like that I've only bought 3cm and have just installed it right on the cabinets. Seems like 2cm is more work and in turn more fabrication cost? But then maybe the 2cm slab is less$?

I don't think there's a big difference in the final cost of 2 & 3 cm. The 3 cm is less work to cut and heavier to transport, but the 2 cm is less material. There is so much variability in cost among dealers and fabricators and dealer-fabricators and cost per slab depending on who knows what + cost of fabrication, and cost to a GC if one is used, it might be impossible to pin that question down.

I am not a fan of plywood as underlayment generally. The plywood moves, the stone does not. Plywood should never contact a stone edge directly; there should always be a gap and a gap between plywood sheets.

I had to remake this 2cm bar seam sitting on plywood underlayment. After removing the adhesive from the seam, even a Gorilla Grip could not pull the seam back together. The original installers had put a plywood seam right below this one, the edges had swollen, preventing reunification. This would not have happened with a custom steel frame.

This was the best I could do:

There's a half to one inch gap in the plywood all around the edge. I only have one slab and no seams so movement shouldn't affect any seams.

By the way, for extra support along the edge of the sink due to its size of 45", the fabricator installed L shape metal brackets into the back of the slab at both corners reaching almost to the middle. This provided them with support during transport and ensure that the lip doesn't break.

@mawizz and eam44.

I held off on buying the marble remnant until the counter was in so I can reassess. So glad I did. My fabricator told me to check out a particular slab distributor since he didn't have remnants that worked for me.

I scored a full slab of Crystallize quartzite yesterday for $216 including tax. The wholesale price was $3500. Way better than the $400 for a half slab of marble.

I forgot to take pictures but it looks like Tak Majal but without the green undertone.

It's creamier than I want but it's not as colorful or veiny like the remnant marble I was looking at.

I'm waiting to hear from the manager to see if I can get another slab at the same price. I lucked out on the price because there's a crack running thru the middle of the slab and my measurements work with it.

With one slab, I can use it as backsplash but have to do zinc counter. If I get two, then the entire perimeter counter and backsplash will be the quartzite.

Wonderful beach! My fingers are crossed for you! Everything is looking amazingly beautiful.

Really pretty beachem I think that quartzite will be very complimentary with the fusion and won't take away from it at all. Any luck with getting another?

Simply love it!

Enjoy!

Oooooh!!! Pretty! I hope you can get another piece! :)

@mgmum thanks. I had it sewn down on the price last week. The manager already agreed then one of the sales people found out and freaked out. He insisted that he can sell the cracked slab for full price and made the admin stop the sale.

I checked today and she will approach the manager again. She forgot to ask.

Well long delay in my slabs because I fell down the stairs and wrecked my knee.

I finally was mobile yesterday and went out to talk to the slab yard. They managed to sell all three slabs at almost full price last Tuesday.

My options then was to make the perimeter counter myself with wood or zinc. I thought very hard about it but gave up the idea and decide to spend money on stone. It will cost me $1500 or so more but ... I can't take the chance of juggling slabs of wood that's 8' long. It only takes one fall to make my situation worse.

I already have to have surgery with an expected 3 months in a wheelchair plus months of PT. I just want to get the kitchen somewhat done.

I didn't want to spend the $3500 to match the quartzite so I got another clearance. Maximus granite for the perimeter countertop.

$200 and it's complimentary to the tone of the quartzite.

I would prefer a honed look but clearance buyers can't be picky. I'll have to figure out how to tone down the shine later as I don't want to shell out $750 for the side refinishing. I've got medical bills out the wazoo that's a higher priority.

Hopefully, things won't clash too much with three stones.

I also need to decide whether to blend in the hood by building a white one to match the upper or make it a statement dark zinc hood.

Terrible news about your knee, Beachem. I sure hope you're able to get the stone all finished soon and move on

So sorry for your troubles. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

I'm so sorry about your tumble and the knee, beachem. Your slabs are gorgeous and you have fantastic eye. It will all look great in the end. Don't rush your recovery. Take good care of yourself.

Wishing you a speedy recovery. Your slabs are beautiful

Satin Stoneguard will take the shine off that stone, no problem.

Awh sorry to hear your still struggling :( I assumed you were back 100% Wishing you a speedy recovery ...you need to rest and maybe ice! When you posted about your knee I had just gotten a knee injury too but nothing like yours! Holy Moly! Mine was self induced :( This kitchen stuff can be stressful and when drawn out worse! I was taking my stress and working out, everyday and sometimes twice until my knee couldn't run any more miles that week. Too much! After a week of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) I was good :) Take it easy Beachem and you'll be back feeling 100% before you know it and your kitchen ...well when it's done we are going to swoon :) So great to hear you got the rest of your counter top material ...very pretty and looks like they will all blend in nicely. Once again you got a great deal and your moving right along :)

Thank you everyone for your kind wishes.

@Joe thx for the tip. I was planning to DIY honing later on when I'm back to normal. I'll test that product.

Wishing you a speedy recovery, beachem!