Austin Granite Girls Archives

Surf Green Granite for a Kitchen Peninsula

Surf Green Granite Peninsula (all one piece - no joints)

Surf Green Countertops in a San Antonio Kitchen

Got a Raised Bar in Your Kitchen?

With a little carpentry work, and new counters, you can gain a single-level peninsula and have a really nice space for working and eating.

This kitchen in San Antonio had laminated counters and a raised bar. Now the kitchen has a single-level counter on one side.

Here is the trend we’re seeing:

Some people are adamant that the want to keep the raised bar, to block visibility into the kitchen from the family room and dining area.

Other folks are totally on the opposite end – they want it all opened up, to bring the two spaces together. This is especially the case for families with children because the kids can pull up the the single-level counter and work on homework, help with dinner, or have a snack.

Making a Single-Level Peninsula

Remove the old counters.
Cut down the 2×4 wall (pony wall) to the same height as the cabinets.
Add brackets or corbels to support the overhang.
Install the new countertops.

In practice, it’s a little more complicated than that, but if you keep your eye on the big picture, it helps makes the other steps more manageable.

Here are more details that might help:

The top of the “new” pony wall (the cut-down bar-height wall) should be a 2×4.
Sometimes you will need to move electrical plugs.
If your new counter will have an overhang that is deeper than 10″, you will need additional support (brackets or corbels) and it can take some shopping and planning to get the right ones and to get them installed correctly. (Note: 10″ of overhang is okay as long as at least 20″ of counter is over cabinets (call this the “1/3 and 2/3” rule), AND the granite is stable enough (some exotic stones are more prone to fracture and will need support even for shallower overhangs).
Most people hire a General Contractor to coordinate the trades to do this kind of work, but we’ve seen many homeowners with good DIY skills that have been able to do it all on their own.

Commercial Granite: Restaurant Counters Made Easy

Austin Granite Girls

Granite Bar Counter in a Pizza restaurant. — These eating counters run the full length of the front of this pizza restaurant.

Commercial Granite Countertops — Long Serving Counter in a Pizza Restaurant.

Opening a Restaurant in the Austin Area?

We can usually install the new counters a week after we make the templates.

Wow!

How to Order Commercial Granite Countertops

Here is how it works:

Call when you’re planning the space, and we’ll get you some estimated pricing to help you budget for the countertops. If you have a diagram, email it to TolucaGranite@gmail.com.
Call when the cabinets or supports are ready (we’ve seen some awesome metal frames lately), and we’ll come out and make templates.
We’ll come back about a week later to install the countertops.

Our granite comes from local suppliers, and if you need a lot of it, we can work with them to get better pricing for you.

We can do plain. We can do fancy. We can do funky. We can do almost anything that you, your designers or your architects dream up. Just make sure to call as early as you can in the project to talk about stuff like curves and under-counter support.

Granite Templates: Making Patterns for a Perfect Fit

Austin Granite Girls, Getting Ready for Granite

Got Wonky Walls?

Making Templates for a Granite Laundry Room Counter

Making Sure the Granite Layout is Perfect

Curved Granite Templates for a Huge Island — Curved granite templates for a huge island. Two entire slabs. Crazy, right? I had to badger the guys to get in the picture, to show the scale of this piece.

Granite Templates — Laying out templates on Kashmir Gold granite

You’re not alone.

Most homes are a little (or a lot) out of square on the inside walls. What this means is that if you put a perfect square into a corner, like the corner where a countertop goes, it’s not going to fit perfectly.

Maybe there is a little gap at the back or the side. Or, worse, at the back AND at the side.

Getting Granite Counters to Fit Right

Making counters that fit means first making a pattern. If the pattern fits, and the granite is cut with the pattern, then the finished counters will fit where they are supposed to.

We call these patterns granite templates.

Sometimes we need them, sometimes we don’t. When we come out to measure for your countertop job, we’ll see how square (or out of square) the walls are and then make the templates that we need.

Making a Granite Template the Old Fashioned Way

We’ve heard that there are snazzy ways to make templates.

We do ours the old fashioned way: by hand.

We do them this way because it works. It gives us a chance to understand the lay of the land, so to speak. It also gives us a few extra minutes to chat with our customers, to listen to what they really want out of their countertop job.

Later, when we’re laying out the counters, we can use the templates to make sure that the most attractive parts of the granite ends up on the finished counters. They help us spot areas that would look better if the templates were moved a little bit to capture something special in the stone on prime countertop areas.

This is all the more important when the counters will be made from a stone that has lots of movement – areas where the coloration changes over large areas, sometimes in big sweeping swirls or lines.

Oh Yes! The Counters Fit!

We love it when our clients are happy with the finished job. One thing they often mention is how well the countertops fit, even in an old house with uneven walls. Making them to fit makes the whole job easier on everyone, and makes the installation go much smoother.

One extra note – the templates in the top two photos got done twice. One set for us to cut the job, and another set that went to a custom iron guy – Lee with Heart of Texas Metalworks. Lee is making a “torsion box”, a rigid metal frame to go under the countertop to provide the necessary support across the front of the counter. Without that frame, the front edge of the counter would have had too long of a span, and would most likely break when my sons jump up on the front edge to get to stuff in the cabinets above the washer and dryer. (No, they shouldn’t jump up there, but they most certainly will!)

Hopefully, we’ll get some photos up in a few weeks with the counters, and you can see the job from templating-to-installation. Maybe that can help you plan for your own countertop project!

HanStone Aurora Snow Quartz Countertops

Austin Granite Girls, Granite for Bathrooms

Got Modern Home?

Laminated-Edge on HanStone Aurora Snow Quartz

Laminated Edge on Quartz — Here is the same countertop, during fabrication. This is the side profile. Look how that seam disappears!

HanStone Quartz with Laminated Edge (Built-Up Edge)

HanStone Aurora Snow Quartz Countertop on new Cherry Cabinets

HanStone Aurora Snow quartz looks great for homes that lean towards a modern, or mid-century modern style when fabricated with straight lines and clean edges.

The clean, crisp edges on these two Aurora Snow quartz countertops are a double-thickness of the material. A single thickness is 3cm (1 and 3/16 inches), so a double-thickness is 6cm (2 and 3/8 inches). That makes for a super-thick edge, also called a laminated edge, on these quartz countertops.

The over-all edge style is called flat-polish, which means just a wee bit of material is taken off at the top and bottom edges of the counters – in part for looks and in part to keep within the manufacturer’s fabrication specs (to keep the warranty intact).

Making the Seam Disappear on Aurora Snow Quartz Countertops

One major thing that makes-or-breaks a modern countertop styled like this is whether or not the seam between the layers of material is visible. The first time we did one of these gave us all sorts of headaches – the seam was obvious and the edges of the counters looked terrible. Totally not something we’d install in a client’s home.

But you can see from this series of photos that these edges rock. Or, er, I mean, our guy that put it together rocks, so the counters looked just super when he was done. You need a picky fabricator if you want something that looks as good as the pages out of magazines.

To make the seam disappear on countertops made from a quartz like HanStone Aurora Snow, we use a special glue that comes in a special dispenser and needs sepcial handling. It sets up fast, so the work has to be carefully planned, carefully positioned for speedy work and kept super clean. The final step is to polish the edge with water-cooled tools, to seamlessless blend the two layers of material together.

HanStone Aurora Snow Quartz Buffet

So, the bathroom counter is a typical length (just under 70-inches) for a double-sink bathroom vanity countertop.

The buffet, though, is MUCH longer – a full 150-inches from left to right. This countertop fit precisely between two walls, so there is no room for error on the measurements. Even less so with the laminated edge, because cutting-to-fit on-site isn’t a good option. For spaces like this, we make a template, and then make certain the countertops match the template.

Want to Help Children in Need?

Austin Granite Girls, Recent Client Projects

Read About Family Link’s Legacy Ranch Project.

Family Link is an adoption and foster agency located in Gonzales Texas. They are opening Legacy Ranch in Gonzales to provide critical services to children, families and elderly people in need. Legacy Ranch is a

“Multi-generational Foster Family & Senior Citizen Community: a foster family community and retreat center where no child will be turned away and lives will be changed.”

We were asked to contribute to this project by Matt Bailey of Masters Touch Custom Homes here in Austin.

We also read about them in the Lockhart Grace Lutheran Church’s newletter:

“FamilyLink, a nonprofit Christian foster and adoption agency that specializes in keeping siblings together is opening Legacy Ranch Multi-Generational Community on Highway 183 in Gonzales County on the site of the former BCHM Youth Ranch.

The ranch’s 156 acres on the San Marcos River will be home to children, pregnant teens and even senior citizens who’ve experienced elder abuse or neglect. The agency seeks volunteers and potential foster parents to live at the ranch. Free training is provided for those who are interested. Please contact Stacy Palm at stacy@familylinkkids.com or visit familylinkkids.com for more information.”

We spent the day down in Gonzales on Tuesday putting in some countertops. We thought you might like to see some of the photos.

Please take a moment and give Stacy Palm a call and ask what your family, your business, or your organization can donate to the ranch, or do for the ranch, to help these children and families in need.

13326 Highway North 183
Gonzales TX 78629
Phone: (512) 233-6464
Fax: 512-532-6555
Cell: (512) 945-8953
Email: stacy@familylinkkids.com

Half-Bullnose Edge on Granite – Step by Step

Austin Granite Girls, Granite Biz Series

Considering Half-Bullnose for your granite counters?

The cut edge of the granite before adding a half-bullnose edge

Detail of Half Bullnose Edge during fabrication

Polished Half Bullnose Edge on Black Galaxy Granite

A half-bullnose edge is rounded on the top, and flat on the bottom. Well, the bottom isn’t completely flat – it has a subtle, very subtle rounding to it to keep the bottom edge from being sharp.

Here is a quick series of photos taken at our little granite shop off North Lamar in Austin, Texas.

You can see how the edge on the granite progresses through the fabrication steps, from raw-cut edge to finished, polished half-bullnose edge on the granite.

The granite in these photos is Black Galaxy, and is going in a house south of Austin down near New Braunfels for Taylor Designer Floors (who also does kitchens!).

The Steps for Putting a Half-Bullnose Edge on Granite

Here is the quick list of the steps a piece of granite goes through to become a countertop with a finished (polished) edge:

Basic shape (square, rectangle) cut to finished dimensions on the big saw
Edge shape fabricated – the rounded top is cut with a router bit
Fabricated edge polished with polishing goop and polishing pads
Countertop sealed with high-quality sealer to protect against staining

Here are some other basic granite edge profiles.

You can see from the illustrations on that page that the edge profiles range from flat-polish (minimal rounding) to a full bullnose (maximum rounding, top and bottom), with a lot of profiles in between. You can also see that the half-bullnose edge illustration is a little more rounded at the top than the actual finished edge.

Many customers choose the half-bullnose edge because it makes the counter look thicker than the full-bullnose edge, and it helps keep water off the face of the cabinets.