Just as I’ve never run into a residential install that was exactly like a previous one, each multi-family install I’ve done presented itself to me as an experience where lessons can always be learned. This “never seeing the same river twice” phenomenon is, in part, what keeps countertop installation interesting and not some factory-belt, Pink Floyd-style drudgery.
When times get bad, someone wanting to inch towards the positive usually offers the old saw about seeing the glass half-full, not half-empty.
With U.S. dimensional-stone imports in 2009, maybe the best thing to say is that the glass is just, well, half.
By Tom McNall
One of the most-difficult floors to re-finish is the dreaded checkerboard. Now not all checkerboard floors are tough, but – for some reason – architects and designers continually insist on pairing one of the softest stones (Crema Marfil) with one of the hardest and densest stones on the market (Black Absolute) for the pattern.
MATERIALS
GRANITE
Marmi Bruno Zanet, Volargne de Dolce, Italy, introduces Ouro Brasil, a granite from Espirito Santo with a uniform light background with intense interplays of gold and brown. The company also introduces Crema Brasil granite, also originating from Espirito Santo, with a large grain and a cream white color.
Contact: Marmi Bruno Zanet, +39-45-6861706
All good things have a start somewhere or someplace, and I’d venture that they often start by accident or coincidence.
I ‘m a big Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup® guy. Maybe their first peanut butter cup was carefully designed in a laboratory, but I back the theory (for us old timers who watched television 20 years ago) that two people collided– one eating a chocolate bar and one carrying a jar of peanut butter.
LAS VEGAS – The Marble Institute of America (MIA) recently saluted a stone-industry “lifer” and one of the trade’s up-and-comers with a pair of awards here during the recent StonExpo/Marmomacc Americas event.
STANSTEAD, Quebec — Imperial Granite Inc., a monument supplier to the U.S. market for nearly three decades, will close in January.
MARBLE, Colo. – After four years of waiting in a Colorado mountain town, the designated replacement stone for Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknowns may finally hit the road soon.
LAS VEGAS – Randy Severson, general superintendent of Carrara Marble Co. in City of Industry, Calif., is the first Natural Stone Craftsman of the Year, as awarded by the Marble Institute of America (MIA).
FAIRFIELD, Ohio — Federal law-enforcement agents found something other than stone at a local shop yesterday — as in $1.5 million in marijuana.