Granite Nightmare! (pictures to prove it)

Published March 26, 2012 | By

Rick and I went through a terrible ordeal almost exactly 2 years ago to date.
This was supposed to be the final stage of our kitchen makeover.
You can read about that “here“.
We decided on granite to replace our old kitchen counter tops because
of it’s natural stone beauty, and because of it’s durability.
Granite is popular because it’s non-porous,
scratch resistant, and high heat resistant.
I love my Granite counters,
but if I could go back in time I would have researched installation.
Hopefully our story will help prevent this from happening to others.I was so excited the day the granite was being installed.
My appt. was at 4pm, which I knew was late,
but I figured they would be done by 8pm or so.
When they showed up late, I was still so set on having the granite that day,
I allowed them to begin.

I knew I may have another issue when the gentleman argued with me on how to get the granite inside the house, and that we may be charged extra because they had to go through the dining room.
Was I supposed to bring the kitchen out to the truck?
I made it clear that we were not paying extra.
By this time I was extremely annoyed.

Then I begin to slowly realize that the holes for our sink and cook top were not pre-cut in the granite pieces. I assumed this was ok because I had heard they cut on sight at times, and they knew what they were doing, right?

Next, I noticed them bring a saw into the kitchen.
So I asked, “Isn’t this going to be a little dusty?”
His exact response, “Ohhhh, it will be fine, just cover a few things up.”
I became very concerned, but hey, I’m getting my granite today-this guy is a professional. I can trust him, right?

So, my Dad (who happened to be here) and I, quickly began covering everything in our kitchen. Then, I waited in the next room with my girls.

Within 2 minutes of hearing the saw cutting the stone, I could see large swirls of stone dust circling in the air below my recessed lights that were on in the hall.
I knew immediately this was not good.

I grabbed the phone, called hubby.
He says, “Why are they cutting it in the house?”
I knew I had to take action.
I got the dog and my girls out of the house immediately because
the entire house was filling up with the dust fast.
Next, I sat on the front porch deciding what to do.
I was torn between “Is this the way they do it?” and
“Should I tell them to stop-the damage has been done?”

I called the kitchen company to speak to our “designer” and she was in shock. She asked to speak to the head honcho dude and they started ARGUING on the phone in front of me. It was awful. She apologized. I told her it’s getting dark, my kids are hungry, we have homework, and I am stuck on my porch while your guys ruin my house, so sorry isn’t going to cut it.

After my husband got home and him and I had a few choice words with the guys, we decided we needed to go to a hotel. There was no way I was going let my children or dog breathe that in. I’m still concerned to this day what damage we may have done to our lungs.

Here are photos of what we came home to the next day
(don’t forget we just finished painting our cabinets):

You can see there is granite dust EVERYWHERE.
The biggest issue is that it got in the air, got into the furnace/central air ducts,
thus spreading throughout the entire home.
It may seem like just some quick vacuuming and a mop would do it. Not the case. There was a fine coating on absolutely everything in the house
from the walls to inside our drawers.
We felt as though we lost everything (like a fire) we had worked so hard for.To sum it up. . .
Serv Pro, Rick and I spent days & days cleaning
(keep in mind this was time spent away from our girls).
We had to wash every dish, cup, shirt, rug, towel, pillow,
you name it-we had to wash it.
All of our opened food like cereal had to be thrown out.
I had to wash rugs I didn’t know could be washed by a dry cleaner.
We had to clean the walls through out the entire house.
The ducts had to be cleaned. Rick had to miss work.
I spent days at the kitchen sink washing things that I haven’t seen in years because they were in my cabinets.
I had to direct all of the Serve Pro people
(who were excellent by the way) where things went.
I wasn’t about to just let them re-organize my cabinets
the way they assumed it would go.
So in other words-we had to do all of this labor as well as the cleaners
because it was our personal stuff.
They even had to remove my screens and clean my windows.
At one point the dust wouldn’t stop coming out of our drawer when we pounded on it because it was stuck in the crevices.

All of this cost our insurance company $34,000.00 in damages.
That may seem like a lot, but to tell you the truth,
the toll it took on Rick & I cost way more than that.

My hair started falling out a couple weeks later.
It’s better now, but that shows how stressful something like this can be.
Especially when you put so much love into your home
(just painted the cabinets) and then have 2 guys come in and ruin it in
3 hours because they are tired and over worked.

Our marriage was strong before, but this made it rock solid. No pun intended. Here are some more pictures.

You can see the 2 different lights over the island. We were in the middle of switching those. Everything stopped for 2 weeks I think. You can see me and how happy I looked. I think I aged 5 years that week.So. . .this is why we decided not to have granite in our master bath (view master bath “here“). Just too many bad memories. Learn from our mistakes.
Get references from family and friends. Investigate companies.
The company that did this to us is still out there, and yes, they have been reported.

The granite is gorgeous,
but I would rather have my old counters and not these memories.
Lucky for us life goes on and we continue to grow and learn from our mistakes. We’ve moved on and have gotten over it. Here’s proof.