Ill-fated Kitchen Countertop

Granite countertop came in heavy pieces. The 24-in by 8-or-9-ft slabs serve as countertop in the usual sense, the 36-in by 8ft piece is used as breakfast tabletop, and the 6-in by 8-or-9-ft boards go vertically along the wall (hence named back splash board). We picked a stone pattern called Emerald Pearl for our kitchen.


On the next day after the 3/4-in plywood were affixed on top of the kitchen cabinets we went into the kitchen to witness the first sign of failure for our remodeling project. The granite material was sanded into terrible raw shape along the line of slab connection on each side of the wall. The cabinet vendor was called in and the granite slabs deemed permanently damaged.



There were several problems with the installation. The first and the foremost problem was the cabinets were not sitting on level floor surface. The significance of some old hardwood floor boards sticking out from the bottom of one end of the cabinets while old linoleum tiles sitting underneath the rest of the section did not become clear to us until then, a couple of days too late. Failing to level the floor, the plywood on top of the cabinets could have been leveled before the countertop went on. The sequence for the granite pieces to go on also went wrong. The big piece serving as the breakfast tabletop went in last on the window side, leaving a wide opening between the end of the slab and the wall. The sanding at the joint lines was made necessary because 2 granite slabs joined into a ridge, or a valley, or a cliff, rather than flat surface. As it turned out, the countertop could be sanded down with special tools by a specialist from the cabinet shop. The result would be barely acceptable, far below the quality generally accepted in the trade. The alternative was to replace and reinstall the countertop all together, an expensive proposition, since the granite slabs tend to break when uninstalled after being glued down to the plywood.

With the help of our cabinet vendor, by then a sympathetic friend, we had the countertop repaired. The poorly assembled and installed cabinets were also strengthened and their defects hidden behind some properly installed mouldings.