Hi Tom -

I’ve just discovered your blog and want to thank you immediately for sharing your knowledge and experience. I am also happy to make the requested donation and have done so!

My husband and I are renovating our kitchen and would appreciate your help on a granite color selection. The kitchen is 20′x12′. We’ve decided to go with a traditional L shaped layout with a center island measuring 94″ x 38″. The top of the island will be flat, withoput a cooktop or sink. It will be used for eating, food prep, homework(!), etc. We have stainless appliances, including a stainless chimney hood, and a stainless sink. Our cabinets are maple wth a coffee glaze, making them a bit darker than natural, but no where near a medium brown. Our floor is an 18×18 tile called Ceramica Magica Red. The color in the tiles is varied, from a sand to a brick/terra cotta red with some very minimal sreaks of slate gray. It’s a tuscan feel and they go well with the cabinets. The 18″ backsplash will be the same, varied tiles, set on the diagonal, with a greater concentration of the Ceramica Magica Sand tiles in a “frame” over the range.

We have 48″ pass trough over the sink, into the family room. We are planning a granite slab there, as well, 48″ wide and curving to 12″ at its maximum depth.
We have added 8 recessed lights and a light over the sink. There will be 2 pendants over the island, so lighting is not an issue. The north wall has 2 large windows and an exterior door with no cabinetry.
This is opposite the pass through to the family room. We’ve chosen Burnished Mahogany (a deep brick color) for the walls. One final note, all of the floors in the rest of the house are hard wood and have been stained a dark brown (50/50 ebony and mahogany). The floors in the family room and dining room can be seen from the kitchen.
We took cabinet and tile samples to the granite yard and narrowed our search down to three colors: Vyara Juparana, Juparana Sand and Yellow River. We like the long “streaks” of the Juparanas and prefer a granite with that kind of movement rather than a tight pattern.

Sorry for the exhaustive detail, but we’d love your opinion on a granite color selection. We are open to anything. If you think our color palete is completely wacky please say so! We haven’t painted the walls yet but are in love with the tile and cabinets.

Finally, there is no formal eating area in the kitchen. We will be using the island for casual meals. We will have a 12″ overhang on the far end and a 12″ overhang running the the 94″ length.

We’ve consulted with several contractors and have built a knee wall backing up the cabinets making up the island. This reduced the overhang to about 8″ on the long side.

I’ve reviewed your site about overhangs but have not come across anything on kneewalls. Do you think the kneewall is adequate support for the long side of the island? I assume we will need corbels for the short side of the island and the overhang into the family room. Have you worked with granite corbels or are we limited to those fashioned from wood?

Pat

Hello Pat,Thank you for giving me a very detailed description of your kitchen and adjacent room finishes. The tricky part here is to use granite that is dark enough to compliment the stainless and has movement that will not clash with the movement in your tile. Still a very dark granite would not be very homey here with such a big island.

The big island without any penetrations is sure to be a piece of art. By the way, it is much easier to do homework on medium colors because they reflect the least amount of glare. But which one? Well, Juparana Vyara definitely matches the colors temperature of your cabinets and glaze and even has the gray streaks to go with the floor streaks. However, stepping back and looking at your kitchen without the granite, adding Vyara just doesn’t do anything more. Again, is blends well, but you need to introduce more light terracotta and less brown/tan to complete this kitchen. A couple colors that I want to suggest are Verde Fire and Sunset Delicatus. Both of these vary so you might hate or love the first slabs that you look at, but a light Verde Fire or a dark Sunset Delicatus would be perfect with the tile, cabinets, stainless and the adjacent dark wood floors..

Again, Juparana Vyara is a good blend so if you really feel strong about that, then that is a good safe choice. I don’t like the crystal structure in Yellow River and Juparana Sand is not as good of a choice as Vyara.

Regarding corbels, just put a few short small wood corbels between the knee walls to support the bending forces if someone ever sits on it. Knee walls are the great support but I would not rely on knee walls alone with over a 36″ span between them. Put corbels at 24″ apart between them.

In conclusion, I hope you evaluate adding light terracotta (avoid pink), mixed with other natural color inclusions in the granite countertops. Try to avoid washing the room out with more brown and tan shades.

I hope this helped and thank you very much for supporting the Rock Blog’s World Vision kids!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Answers to Granite Questions..., Granite Choice Advice, Granite Color Help, Installation Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.