Toluca Granite

Austin TX Granite Countertop Fabricator

Getting Ready for Granite

Austin Granite Yard Tours: Young Stone on Rutland – The Granite Biz Series

Getting Ready for Granite, Granite Biz Series

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Picking Stone for Your Custom Counters?

Young Stone Granite Yard Austin TexasYoung Stone Austin GraniteYoung Stone in Austin TexasWe can turn fabulous stone into fabulous counters, but first you need to find the right material.

And that means visiting one or more of the Austin Stone Yards to pick a slab, or two (or more).

(You should also read Austin Granite Yards: What to Expect – Getting Ready for Granite).

Young Stone

This morning I drove by Young Stone on the way to work and snapped a few photos to share with you. Young Stone is on Rutland, near a lot of tile stores and other businesses (big and small) that cater to general contractors, builders and remodelers.

Young Stone has the typical line-up of granite slabs: Santa Cecilia, Uba Tuba, Yellow River, etc. What it also has is an incredible selection of exotic stone, the kind you really might only see once in a lifetime, if at all. Stone that makes your head spin with the possibilities. Stone that evokes images of all sorts of fabulous kitchens or tables you’ve seen in Architectural Digest or House Beautiful, or other high-end design publications.

Here are a few teaser photos for you of the type of stone you can find at Young Stone. Look through our Granite Spotlight series for more articles featuring individual types of stone.
Genesis Granite in Austin TexasLouise Blue Granite Austin Texas

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Austin Granite Yards: What to Expect – Getting Ready for Granite

Austin Granite Girls, Getting Ready for Granite

Need to Pick Your Granite and Don’t Know What to Do?

When you get new granite or marble counters, you get to pick the stone you want!

Here are the basic steps:Austin granite slabs

  • Talk to us about your plans for new counters and look at some of our samples in the showroom.
  • Visit some Austin stone yards to look at material.
  • Talk to us again about the granite, marble or quartz that you saw that you liked.
  • We’ll get pricing and availability and share that with you.
  • Decide what you want, and we’ll get it installed in about a week.
  • You can start this process as early as when you realize you might want to re-do your counters, or as late as “Oh no! We ripped out the counters and now we need new ones fast!”

Sometimes you will need to make more than one trip and we’ll work with you to figure out which stone best fits your budget and your design.

What To Expect When You Visit a Stone Yard

After we’ve talked a bit about your job – to get a basic understanding of what you want with regards to size, style and scheduling – you will go visit one of the local stone yards. Fortunately, several of the Austin granite yards are within 10 minutes of our shop, which makes it easy to visit us and to visit several stone yards on the same day.

  • When you arrive at the stone yard, just park your car and walk on in.Austin Stone Yard Shenoy Granites SGM
  • Bundles of slabs are arranged in long rows so you can see all of the available material.
  • Sometimes someone might offer to help you, and sometimes you will have to flag someone down that works there. They will give you a selection sheet where you can write down your material choices, or sometimes they will walk around with you and write them down for you.
  • If you find something you absolutely adore, have them put it on hold. The hold can always be released if you change your mind.
  • Have them write both your name and Toluca Granite on the slab(s), that way we can be sure we’re pricing the right material for you.
  • If they ask who your fabricator is, tell them Toluca Granite.

If you want, you can also take some photos to help you remember the ones you liked the best.

What To Expect After You’ve Chosen Your Granite

We need a few things in order to put you on the schedule for installing your new countertops:

  • Your material selection.
  • Your measurements or templates (we will do this for you).
  • Your deposit.

After that, it takes about a week for your gorgeous new granite counters to be ready to enjoy in your home or business.

Fitting a Kitchen Faucet on a Granite Countertop: Getting Ready for Granite

Austin Granite Girls, Getting Ready for Granite

Replacing Older Counters with a Granite Countertop?

If your faucet is old, you might not be able to re-use it.

granite-counter-faucet-holes-5340Many older counters are thinner than the typical thickness of the granite installed in the Austin area. Most of the granite found in Austin is 3cm thick (3 centimeters, or about 1.18 inches). Many older faucets don’t have enough threading to clamp on properly to the thicker counters.

Confused? It’s not nearly as hard as it might sound to figure this out.

Here’s how it went: old counters were often made from thinner material, so faucets were made to fit them. Newer counters are often thicker and some (but not all) of the newer faucets are designed to fit onto thicker counters (while still fitting on thinner counters, too).

Your best bet is to put in a new faucet when you replace your old counters.

The old one will just get taken out still attached to the counters. If you want to save it for some other project, you can remove it before the counters are hauled away.

How Do You Figure Out if the Faucet Will Fit on New Granite Counters?

If you are absolutely determined to re-use your old faucet, you need to do some research and planning ahead of time:

  • You can take off the old faucet and see if it has enough threads for a thicker granite counter (1.18″ or more).
  • You might have the technical specifications sheet that came with the faucet and it will show the maximum counter thickness the faucet can handle. The line-drawing on the left gives you an idea of what to look for.
  • You might look up the faucet model number on the manufacturer’s web site and look at the diagrams they have on-line, or you may want to call their customer service number and ask.

What To Do If You Don’t Know What To Do

If you are not certain your old faucet will fit, you might want to buy a back-up from a local big box store and have it on-site on the day your counters are installed.  That way if your old faucet won’t work, you have another one.  If you don’t need it, you can take it back.

We need the faucet on-site before we drill the holes (one to four of them) so you don’t have to arrange for a service call later for us to come back and drill the holes.  (Plus, you will probably want your plumber to hook up your sink and faucet as soon as possible so you can start using your kitchen (or bathroom) again!!

 

 

 

 

Leveling Cabinets for Granite Countertops: Getting Ready for Granite

Austin Granite Girls, Getting Ready for Granite

Level Granite Needs Level Cabinets.

leveling-cabinets-for-granitePlanning to have granite installed?

If your cabinets are new, they should be level before your granite counters are installed.

If your cabinets are old, they should be level before your granite counters are installed.

Oh, goodness, that sounds almost the same!

The reason is simple: you want your granite counters to be level, so they need to be sitting on level cabinets. By level we mean: the cabinets aren’t all wonky, going downhill with the sloping floor in an old kitchen, or installed all crookedy.

You’d be amazed at how many cabinets rise and fall like a ship on a sea, particularly in some of the great older homes in Austin – you know the ones that are oozing with character and charm, but need a little TLC.

Of course, old houses and their cabinets can settle over time. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the cabinets or the house, but they do need to be as level as possible before your granite counters are installed.

Leveling New Cabinets for Granite Counters

If the cabinets are new, and they aren’t even and level, then they weren’t installed right. Your cabinet installers should have checked and re-checked while they were installing the cabinets. That means putting a level across the top, and checking to make sure the cabinets are even from side to side AND from back to front.

If they didn’t make sure the new cabinets were level before leaving, they should come back and fix them. If they don’t want to do this part of their job, you should insist. There is NO good reason for new cabinets to be installed without lining up right. The installers should shim and trim until everything lines up just right.

Leveling Old Cabinets for Granite Counters

Older cabinets are frequently uneven. Sometimes the house has settled, particularly if the house has a pier-and-beam foundation. The area of East Austin that is east of 35 and north of 51st has a lot of darling older homes built in the 50s and 60s with wonky foundations. When these come on the market, they often need to be fixed up.

Some people put in new cabinets, and others just gussy up the old ones with new counters, new hardware and fresh paint.

Sometimes the cabinets can be unscrewed, shimmed, the re-screwed back into place.

But more likely, they’re stuck in tight, and shims will need to be used between the tops of the cabinets and the underside of your new granite counters.

If this is the case – that shims are necessary – you might want to plan to trim the gap at the front (and sides) with a little strip of wood, and then paint or stain it to match. Often, you can’t even see the shims unless you’re down on the floor and looking up at the underside of the counter.

If you’re going to paint or re-finish the cabinets anyhow, then this isn’t even much of an extra step, and will help give it that nice, clean and finished look to your updated kitchen and your new granite counters.

Getting Ready For Granite: Accurate Granite Templating (Clear Your Counters)

Austin Granite Girls, Getting Ready for Granite, Granite Kitchens

Granite counters that fit require accurate measurements

Measure twice, cut once.  

That is true for granite countertops as well as a lot of other things.

Before we cut your counters, we will measure them very carefully. Many counters also require a template so we have a pattern to use when we cut the granite for your counters, so we can make sure they fit just right.

To make sure the measurements are right, we need clear access to the space, and that means the counters need to be clear.

Clear of small appliances, dish racks, knick knacks and all of that other stuff we all collect on our kitchen (or bathroom) counters.

We wanted to share a dramatic pair of photos to show you what we mean:

measuring-for-granite-countersmeasuring-for-granite-counters-2

(Now, before you get all cranky that we showed someone’s cluttered counters, let us share that those counters were in one of our own family homes, when it was about to be updated.)

All that stuff was out on the counters because the cabinets were getting painted. We did not just sneak in a shot for your viewing pleasure (although we certainly did for our own, at the time!). If you look closely, you can see that the granite is already installed in this kitchen – and had been for years (and yes, we did that work, too).

For the most accurate granite templating, make sure your counters look like the decluttered counters in the second photo. Your templates will be accurate and ready for cutting your new granite countertops so your own before-and-after remodeling photos can be just as spectacular.