Stone Countertops

by Steve Nevry

If you are as passionate about stone countertops as most members of my family are, you will appreciate my gushing. Or maybe you will just go, “Awww” for my pitiful late evolution as an adult. First, I am the oldest of three children. I have a bachelor’s, a master’s, ten years of teaching, and thirty years of writing experience. So, yes, I chose another route. But my brother (second oldest) and my sister (the baby of the family) have by far surpassed me in the adulthood stages. My brother became an MIS for a major corporation on the east coast at least twenty years ago. In that time, he bought one house, built another, and bought and remodeled a third. I was living in garages, on friend’s couches in their alcoves, and in various one-room studios or other shared-living situations. My sister, an artist, has over the last fifteen years built two houses and run three businesses. (Hang on. I’m getting to the stone countertops.)

About three years ago, I went back home to visit, take care of an about-to-be-widowed grandmother, and see the new developments my sister and brother had accomplished. My brother had acquired the third house, one which had a huge barn, 300 acres, and many old colonial features—hidden closets, sunken living rooms, beamed ceilings. In his kitchen he had stone countertops. They were made of pure, unadulterated (save polished) marble. The marble covered about ten feet over countertop space and here’s the fascinating thing: the marble was one, uncut piece. Yes, the cuts were there to make openings for the sinks, for example, but the marble slab had not been separated into manageable installment chunks. My brother reported that it had taken five men to carry the single (heavy) unit into the house and install it. Though I was and still am proud of my brother, I was a bit cowed by the realization I was still living in a one room hovel I paid rent on, a place so nondescript and small I couldn’t do much more than read, watch TV and sleep in, lest I bang elbows or bump head on low and tight ceilings and walls.

On that same visit, I was introduced to my sister’s husband and to her newly built home—one she worked alongside the carpenters, masons, and electricians to erect. This home had a loft, stone shower stalls, stone fireplaces, and stone countertops and floors. In her case, she had used the stone my father used in his house: a blue-grey slate. The material was cool in summer, retained warmth in winter, and was all natural, featuring the edges and ridges that one finds in stone in the woods. Again, I was almost ashamed to have little in the way of structures to show for my years of living and growing. I had even less material results to reflect my years of growing up in the Granite State than those who were years younger.

But…. Finally, after 46 years of scrappy, hand-to-mouth struggling and barely surviving, and after one too many difficult if not absurd and impossible living arrangements, I looked in to buying a place of my own—one I could afford and one that had no roommates, neighbors on the other side of adjacent walls, etc.. I found a trailer. And though I had nothing to do with the installation or creation of stone countertops so respected and revered by many and so coveted by me, I found a trailer with stone countertops! I wasn’t even looking, consciously, for such unusual or unique features, but this baby has pink granite countertops in the “kitchen”. So not only do I get to reflect, by way of making a responsible, adult purchase, some values from my upbringing in the Granite State, I get to reveal/represent, by way of beautiful stone countertops, the very stone of choice for that state. Plus, my choice of homesteads allows me to write this to you and without getting up from the “desk”, reach over and touch, admire, and appreciate my new granite/stone countertops!

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