Salvaged marble I have looked at for possible DIY kitchen countertops/altar/personal empire.
Most of the marble at the salvage yard that is large enough for kitchen counters or an islandĀ is reclaimed from bathroom walls… Public bathroom walls.
Is this repulsive? It is.
Could I somehow block that out of my mind and prepare food on it? Yes. I could.
This makes no sense to Paul, seeing as how I will not let people wear their shoes in our house.
But contamination issues don’t matter anyway because the marble isĀ no bargain. It’s beautiful and subtle and the perfect shade of grey and out of a historic building… butĀ Philadelphia’s salvage yards have becomeĀ a mecca for every designer-spending-someone-else’s-money/restaurateur/people who could afford to do everything new, but instead decide to pay EVEN MORE to have everything be old.Ā Basically peopleĀ just like meā¦ butĀ with money.
So everything is expensiveĀ and people buyĀ it anyway. Which I understand completely for a GFT… but even the dime-a-dozen-on-Craigslist-nothing-special-other-than-being-old pedestal sinks are pricey.
And it makes me sad thatĀ IĀ will not be the one to have my kitchen counters sanctified by the Catholic Church.
Not only are these slabsĀ CRAZY thick and SUPER white… you ALSO getĀ the cachet of being associated with The Holy Roman Empire– dubious social mores, but plenty of flair.
If these were my countertops, when Paul and I got in an argument I could say things like ā bring me the flaming cannonballs. The ones with chains.
Or possibly just have him beheaded.
Plus. There isĀ a special spot to store snacks for Elvis.
Keeping with the religious theme, I also tried to convince Paul that we should buy the entire marble altar from a church, (on Craigslist).
But I could not get him to engage with me except to say ā that would be a LOT of marble.
Which, obviously is the entire point– if we bought this, we would have ALL the marble we would ever need… NoĀ matter what, we would NEVERĀ RUN OUT OF MARBLE.
Another thing I took a picture of at the salvage yard were these steel casement windows. Ā At the time I thought they would be interesting upper-cabinet doors.
But Paul said ā not everything needs to be interesting, Victoria.
I am pretty sure he is wrong about that. But I do agree that the cabinet-idea didnāt stand up to scrutiny.
All right, that’s it for this week. I have this huge, boring, anxiety-inducing thing hanging over my headā¦ Which I can no longer procrastinate.
I have even looked on New York Craigslistāmy favorite way to waste time and dig myself a bigger hole… There is no way I want to drive five hours to upstate New York for anything. But my brain would RATHER do that than sit down and finish something.
I suffer from some bizarre form of self-loathing. Where I choose toĀ distract myself by digging a random, pointless, giant pit in the desert. Even though the entire time I am asking myself ā WHY AM I DIGGING THIS HOLE IN THE DESERT?
IT IS SO HOT.
THERE IS NOTHING HERE BUT SAND.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:12 am
I think making your base cabinets entirely out of marble could be the best thing ever. In a completely impractical way, of course. But having cabinet doors that you have to crank open sounds too annoying even for imagination land.
I guess this means the vestibule wainscot marble isn’t gonna work?
June 18, 2014 @ 10:14 am
Victoria,
Some day you should come to Louisville, KY and visit Joe Ley Antiques. You will loose your F’in mind in there!
http://www.joeley.com/
June 18, 2014 @ 12:54 pm
Yes, I second the Joe Ley vote! It is a heavenly place and there are deals to be found and a basement full of old hardware and so many other goodies.
June 18, 2014 @ 6:35 pm
Holy Mother of Pearl those prices!!! I’m WAY too cheap! lol
Once upon a time I lived in Portland, Oregon… Hippo Hardware was a little known resource. Loved that place. I hope to visit again sometime soon. Give UPS something to do in shipping cool finds back to Cleveland. š
June 20, 2014 @ 9:09 pm
Oh Christina how times have changed! I live in the Portland, OR area and just about fainted at the prices at Hippo Hardware. Not the bargain mecca that it once was. I guess they felt they needed to be in competition with Rejuvenation Lights (now owned by Pottery Barn) who also used to be a wonderful affordable place to rummage through. Alas, no more! : (
We do however have a great Craigslist here but I have not seen the level of amazement that Victoria has in the Philadelphia area! More than slightly bitter and jealous.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:23 am
i also loose myself in the bottomless pit of CL …where i live and in different cities. i sit and think of cities where i know people and then search there. if i find something perfect ..MAYBE i could aske them to get it for me…ha! i complain to my husband that i have no time to get things done, but yet, i waste the time i have on CL. UGH! good luck with your search..you WILL find what you are looking for…it always shows up eventually
June 18, 2014 @ 10:25 am
Oh my god, you really HAVE found the ultimate fancy. The church. I am impressed VEB.
I do understand the procrastination pit. I am days away from having company come stay at my house and one of the guest rooms is in piles in the living room until I get off the couch and install 7 small pieces of baseboard. But I can’t seem to do it because I’ve been sucked into a TrueBlood binge and all I can do is hate myself and cheer on the vampires.
It’s an ugly hate cycle.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:25 am
I got nothing.
But Paul may be wrong – maybe everything is supposed to be interesting. Why not?
June 18, 2014 @ 10:26 am
Paul is right, you know. Everything doesn’t have to be interesting in itself. It’s the play of plain and fancy, light and dark, etc., that creates interest.
Our Craigslist doesn’t have nearly the sort of cool stuff that you have up there.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:28 am
I’m still in the “How can I make it awesome on a shoestring” mode. I’m placing my diswasher in the center and adding an 18″ wide cabinet on one side and a 24″ cabinet on the other. They are already finished on 3 sides. The back will be a bit of finished thin cabinet plywood, maybe some corner molding and the whole bit painted. It will be functional and hopefully attractive. The top is still up for grabs. Marble is heavy and it can chip if you accidentally hit it with a pot. Glass glasses can break it set down too hard on it. As cost is also a factor I’ll probably go with a tile top. I can use the grout that is waterproof to prevent it from going West. If I use the really large size tiles I can cut down on the amount of grout and edges etc. But the top is still something I’m thinking about.
Corian is great and the new quartzite is fab. We’ll see
June 18, 2014 @ 1:09 pm
Friends poured a beautiful (and super cheap) colored concrete kitchen countertop. They even buffed it up to shine and used fancy trim upside down in the pouring form to make a beautiful edge.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:36 pm
You’re MANY steps ahead of me. We have to re-configure the whole kitchen in order to install my “new” dishwasher, which is sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, still in it’s factory box, bought in April, 2010! I eventually had to add two boards to the top of the box, and cover it with a tablecloth, and this has become our semi-temporary š island!
June 18, 2014 @ 10:29 am
then again I’ve seen some great tops made of metal too. I wonder if I need to worry about poisoning myself if I use metal?
June 18, 2014 @ 10:29 am
Marble is porous, so even if you could block the thought from your mind that it’s from a public restroom, you might not be able to block out the scent… And yes, I do know of a lady who spent the money to reclaim marble which made her kitchen smell like pee! 0.O
June 18, 2014 @ 1:30 pm
Oh my! :-O This is awful! What did she do?
June 18, 2014 @ 4:21 pm
You’re right—it wouldn’t be a good idea to recycle any porous material from a restroom or other questionable source as a kitchen counter.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:48 pm
Have to wholeheartedly agree! Our downstairs bathroom has a 1 inch tile and grout floor, which saw many small boys in its early years, when the original owner/builder had the house. I have used EVERYTHING I can think of, even muriatic acid, to try to eliminate the odor. The smell is especially strong on rainy days. Saving up for new flooring, at which time I will be able to chip up the old tile, seal the concrete with something, and put in a new, odor free floor. Actually, I might do the first part this winter, and do the tile whenever. In the meantime, I constantly spray the room, plus, have bowls of potpourri, which I change often, and containers of fragrance beads sitting around! Don’t use that bathroom wall marble unless someone has invented a way to seal away the smell…after a thorough sanitizing, of course!
June 18, 2014 @ 10:32 am
Victoria,
How about this GFT?? It would look great with your other GFTs. Tried to getmy Paul to look, but no go.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=518629651528649&set=a.167661983292086.40342.156857487705869&type=1&fref=nf
June 18, 2014 @ 3:50 pm
That is beautiful and amazing.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:52 pm
WOW! I wish I had the ceiling height needed to house this, even if I didn’t actually have the alter!!!
June 19, 2014 @ 12:05 pm
The objections to the “pee-stained” marble make no sense to me. First of all, I don’t think public restroom stall walls get peed ON a lot. But let’s assume that they do. Y’all know where marble comes from, right? Ditto slate, granite, and soapstone – among others, naturally. We’re heading into “do you think bears poop in these woods?” territory here. (Hint: they do.) While we’re on the subject, do you know where your herbs and vegetables grow? Let’s not even get started on mushrooms and truffles. And none of those things can even be bleached!
It’s all going to be OK. Just don’t use peed-on grout in your food prep.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:39 am
If these were my countertops, when Paul and I got in an argument I could say things like ā bring me the flaming cannonballs. The ones with chains.
You are amazing. Crazy, but Amazing.
June 18, 2014 @ 10:44 am
Properly recycled (by which I mean steam cleaned) marble walls that were once in a public bathroom would be fine for you to prepare food on.
Consider that with a finite amount of water on planet Earth, the odds of some of the water you drink having once been the waste by product of some other human (or non human) is really really high. But…. it’s been properly recycled, so no worries.
June 18, 2014 @ 12:47 pm
The Pee of Lions, Tigers, and Bears! Oh My! How come I’m not more brave? Oh, right…. it would also include a plethora of Chickens. Drat!
June 18, 2014 @ 11:09 am
Sigh. I hate to say this, but Paul is right. Not everything needs to be interesting. Imagine Mad Men only cast with clones of John Hamm … how would Don Draper stand out? Okay, I see I lost you with John Hamm clones … actually I’m busy imagining that right now too. Later.
June 18, 2014 @ 11:26 am
To be trite but true- life is in the journey and not the destination so- as you have said-a perfectly adequate kitchen is all we actually need-that is of course ignoring the human need for beauty-so anyhoo- enjoy this kitchen quest- the longer it takes the more fun postings we will enjoy and when you don’t post we can imagine you in trench coat , magnifying glass in hand-trolling through dangerous locations, enormous quantities of cash in hand(Are you nuts Girl?) finding the marvels of your TA DA -KITCHEN! Meanwhile we can enjoy the delicious suspense of what the reveal will be. I am getting the biggest kick out of your dedicated efforts. May the Gods of GFT thingy’s bless your efforts and do take your time-let “remodel in haste-repent at leisure” be your motto.
June 18, 2014 @ 11:37 am
Ok, so my dad’s marble “pastry” slab came from the marble bathroom stall dividers from an old courthouse. His whole family has slabs from this bathroom, and they use them every year to hand dip the most incredible chocolates you’ve ever experienced. Bathroom marble is not weird to me at all.
June 18, 2014 @ 11:40 am
Watching the ideas for your kitchen to unfold is an absolute hoot. Please keep up the crazy to keep me entertained. But, I get some of it, too. When we moved into our 1969 home 2 years ago, I wanted to gut the kitchen and open it up to the den. Lighten, brighten, streamline, uncluttered look would have been wonderful. As it is, kept the decent cabinets (all wood), repainted the brass unusual handles (Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze), Formica top in puke green is now becoming “granitized” with acrylic paint. My next big project is to finish the rest of the kitchen counters so they look like a wonderful slab of granite there by saving me $3000 +/- in the process. The good part about this is the old appliances are falling apart and I’m able to replace them one by one (thank you, Home Depot with your 0%,18 months deals). So I can’t have my kit/den look like Southern Living but I’m liking the way it’s going and I can be happy with that. Still would rather gut/redo those 2 rooms but not now and maybe never in this lifetime! Life is still good.
June 18, 2014 @ 11:43 am
I live with a procrastinator…there’s no cure.
On to more important things…I love the super thick marble and the potential for making cupboard doors with old windows is more than interesting, it’s genius. Maybe you don’t want too much “interest” in one room, but I think your idea is brilliant.
Good luck with the project.
xo,
Karen
June 18, 2014 @ 12:00 pm
Yanno, faux marbling was all the rage with the Victorians. Yah, I know. Just another project. But think of the hours you could spend researching the perfect paint technique while you wait for the perfect marble to manifest.
June 18, 2014 @ 12:15 pm
Our kitchen cabinets came out of the emergency room at a local hospital they were tearing down…it’s a GREAT conversations starter…not sure about the bathroom marble in the kitchen though; that is kind of gross
June 18, 2014 @ 12:28 pm
Oh, Victoria. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m pretty sure we’re twins that were separated at birth. Except you got the genes for tall and dark and lovely, and I got the genes for short and fair and flat feet. Anywho, I would love nothing more than to put a whole altar into my garage (so we would NEVER run out of marble, duh) but I also am married to a total pragmatist who favors “being able to move his commuter bicycle in and out” and “not crushing the overhead gears of the garage door opener” over having the world’s largest store of consecrated rock. Sheesh. So boring, amiright? As it is, my garage is full of less heavy (but no less bulky) half finished art projects/home improvement projects, so I suppose he might have a point about the whole “space” thing. Which is why I’ve brought the mid-century modern chair up into our living room to re-upholster . And now we have no room in the living room. Ironic, since there is a half finished chair, y’know, for sitting and making space, RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of it. Well, carry on with your bad-ass marble collecting self. I, for one, fully support you preparing your dinner on top of the ghosts of a million public pissers and under the watchful eyes of the heavenly father.