The Great Granite Hunt - Part I

I was really excited about looking for granite.  Going through granite yards and becoming one with the granite.  At least, until I started looking for it.

I naively thought I would be trucking through actual yards outside, like we did in Colorado when we bought flagstone.  Yes I bought Colorado flagstone one year while we were on vacation for a pathway and hauled it home to Mansfield.  Hey it was a LOT less expensive than what I could have bought in Texas.    

HA!  Granite yards (or at least in Texas) are granite warehouses.  Big warehouses that are not air conditioned.  Now if you live in Texas, then you know that during the summer it is hotter than Hades here and humid.  That's probably why, most of these places open at 8:00 a.m. and close at noon on Saturday and provide bottled water while you look at stones.

And, since I wanted to look at stones, not samples, I had to go to a yard, rather than just a store.  Because samples although they are nice, don't necessarily reflect the actual stone.  Granite is a fossil, one stone slab can be completely different from another in the same family.

So after locating various granite yards in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Paul and I set out one Saturday morning on this quest.  I knew what I didn't want, St.Cecelia, Black, Gold, but I really didn't know what I wanted.   I knew I would know when I saw it. I wanted that "A Ha" moment.  If you ever watch "Say Yes to the Dress" or "I Found the Dress", those women have their "A Ha" moment when they find their wedding dress.  That's what I wanted with the granite, since I was probably going to pay as much as some of those women do for a wedding dress.

The first granite place we went to was a small shop in Richardson.  I went in with an open mind.  Although I liked their prices, I didn't see any granite that made my heart sing.  Then we went to IMC Granite over on Zodiac Lane.  You walk in, you have to sign a waiver that if a piece of granite falls on you, you won't sue the company (I am kidding, but you do have to sign a waiver).  Then they unleash you into their warehouse. And although they had many lovely granite selections to chose from, my A HA moment wasn't happening.

I learned another thing that day.  You can't get a price per square foot from the supplier.  You have to have a fabricator in order to get a price.  Now, that created a problem.  I didn't want to fall in love and find out I couldn't afford it - like trying on a wedding dress that is way over your budget. Nothing else would compare after that.

I went home grumpy, hot and discouraged. See Part II.