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Distress White

April 30th, 2010 admin No comments

Distress White

Distressing The Stone

My wife and I had reached a crisis.

Experts shook their heads in bewilderment at our self-inflicted wounds but could offer little practical help.

Unhinged by my constant complaining and the sting of her own remorse, my wife took a piece of sandpaper to our granite countertops. She rubbed and rubbed, frenzied by the shame in knowing that our granite slabs looked like everyone else's granite slabs: plain old Ubatuba from Brazil. Instead of being special, certain granite has become plentiful and therefore common, a commodity like our kids' white bread strewn about its once-coveted surface. Not only is it a commodity impervious to being handily tossed at a yard sale, it's also become a cliché of middle class "lifestyle" hawked incessantly by realtors: "Featuring granite countertops and fully finished basement!" At 40 per square foot at Home Depot installed, you can't get Formica for much less.

Finally after much toil, my wife managed to extinguish a few of the starry lights kindled in the stone four hundred million years or so ago for the express purpose of beautifying our kitchen. With a thousand more hours of hard labor we would have surely arrived at the design world's remedy for clichéd, commodity granite: distressed, honed, antiqued or otherwise beaten up granite – dull, but way ahead of the neighbors.

"Honed granite has definitely helped revive our industry," says ‘rock star' Dawn Carroll of giant Gerrity Stone here in Woburn, MA. "But all the honing and distressing takes a lot more than sandpaper – you need high-powered industrial equipment: steel brushes for a leathery surface, or water-jets to make it look velvety or sueded.

"Oh, I see, " I say, chastised and at the same time marveling at Dawn's "Platinum Collection" – an airplane hangar of glorious slabs in outrageous palettes: one in particular of swirling violet, rose, orange and cinnamon polished like a Maserati GranTurismo.

"What designers are doing now," explains Dawn, "is picking one focal point – like the Kitchen Island – where they want that amazing piece of stone – the "Wow" granite that no one else in the universe has – earth at its most violent inception – a snapshot of rocks the size of cars tumbling and hurling themselves through primordial space, finally coming to rest as these masterpieces of nature.

Dawn could see that we were awestruck: Obviously there's granite and then there's granite.
"But here's where honed, textured granite becomes so important," says Dawn.
----"You know the Rodeo Drive Babe – the gal wearing every kind of status symbol all at once: the Monolo Blahnik pumps, the Harry Winston necklace, the Fendi bag? Wouldn't she look a lot better with just the necklace or just the pumps and a little black dress?"
"Well, honed granite is the little black dress. You frame your $200 dollars per square foot stone with something more understated – like honed the honed granite -- with something more understated. The contrast will make really stand out. You don't want to be too flashy. After all, less is more, no?"

My wife and I nod in agreement and leave for home, with a pit stop at ACE to price power sanders.

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About the Author

Louis Postel is the author of many articles on design and the recipient of the "Unsung Hero" award of the Design Industry Foundation for Aids.