If I learned nothing else traipsing with my digital camera through what seems like hundreds of granite yards, kitchen stores, and appliance stores with mocked-up kitchens, it's that granite is really hard to capture realistically in photos. Believe me, I know that sinking in your stomach anxiety after you finally make a choice. I happen to love crema bordeaux, although it wouldn't go in my Euro-kitchen design, but YOU have to love it. Any way you can delay its shipment to the fabricator so that you can go visit one more time to be sure?

Have you looked at images of installed crema bordeaux? Here's one with a maple kitchen.

Here is a link that might be useful: crema bordeaux kitchen

FWIW, I really like it -- it's got a lot of movement but it's not too wild -- more like a gently meandering river than a whitewater creek, if that makes any sense. I don't have any pix to show you but I do relate! I bought my granite weeks before the fabricator needed it and kept having nightmares -- even dragged a girlfriend to the granite yard to get a second opinion (like I could have returned it if she told me she hated it?) -- now that it's in, it's my pride and joy. HTH.

suzieca - your counters are beautiful.

I ditto what petlady said. If you liked it in the show room you will love it when it is in. Looking at pictures that do it no justice will only drive you crazy.

I think it is beautiful! I went back to the stone yard again today to take pictures of my templated granite. While we were there, we saw some Crema Bordeaux. It is gorgeous! It was very similar to the one in your picture. I think you will love it. It is a very pretty stone.

Suz--your stone is gorgeous as well. Congrats on a great kitchen.

Thank you all for the re assurance. Here is a picture of the cabs and floor color, you can also see the wall color.
petlady1 thanks for the link. Here is your message for all to see. That looks almost exactly like what I ordered. I was amazed at all the granite houses. It is almost impossible to compare due to the different lights. Some had daylight, some florescent, some halogen, some combination's.
They should have a portable light bar with florescent warm white, cool white, daylight, and halogen light battery powered that you could carry and hold it against the slabs to see it in the light you have. Like cosmetic stores have.
petlady1 wrote:
Tried to send another link on the forum, but I guess the forum doesn't allow 2 follow-ups in a row. Look at this gorgeous close-up...
http://www.heritagestonecraft.com/photos/gallery/Kitchens/Crema%20Bordeaux.JPG

Maybe say on the forum what color your cabinets are...
Sue

larrylwill

Are you aware that this stone type is the "culprit" that has stirred up all the radiation in granite debate?

Drhans, I thought they actually said it was typhoon bordeaux. I don't know if that's the same as crema. Also it was discussed that not all stones of a certain type will be "hot" if a particular piece is, or at least that was my understanding. I came away from the discussion thinking we all need radon and geiger detectors unless we go with absolute black...

And, Larrylwill, those cabinets are lovely and will certainly go beautifully with that granite.

I'll just say it appears it will go great with your cabinets (but I'm no expert) and more importantly, I have found that every slab I have photographed, including the ones I have chosen, appear way more "busy" on camera than I remember them in person. I think the reaction you had when looking at it in person is more reliable.

Go for it... it will match the cabinets, floor, and wall color just fine!

I did a full slab island right before xmas for a family and I must say that in slab form it looked as wild as your picture shows but it is drop dead gorgeous when cut into countertops and layed out well for the flow of the stone.

No pun intended on the drop dead part! Enjoy!

drhans: I saw it was one, I also saw it was one of the top granite choices. I didn't read the thread. Did you know that radon is easily removed with air changes. That's how they do it in basements. I don't want to get in that argument. However you can put some unexposed photo paper or film in a black wrapping on the granite and if it is radio active after several days it will show exposure when developed. I have giger counter. I will check it when its installed but I don't you can detect radeon with one, also being 62 I'm not worrying it will kill us before something else does. Radiated food anyone? Cloned meat, radio waves, pollution, and so it goes.

thanks for the comments, I will post pictures of the before and after kitchen gut when I finished. I'm doing it myself with a $15,000 budget. It's taking 59sf of granite.

Oh, for crying out loud...we had granite in the early 90's and we are still here and healthy.
Enjoy that beautiful granite and don't worry..even tomatoes can kill you, but the granite is gorgeous with very little risk.

beautiful granite!! If paying for it doesn't kill you, then you should be fine. LOL

Just for reference good or bad. 59sqft. Under mount sink hole, cook top hole, faucet holes, 1/4 round edges, extra charge for mileage from Atlanta, installation. $3900, total.

larrylwill, I just finished commenting on a finished kitchen for nightowlrn and my favorite part of her newly remodeled kitchen was her gorgeous crema bordeaux island. Check it out. I think it's a great choice!

The posting is titled, Nightowl's Kitchen.

I love your granite. Please don't change your mind and go with something boring We had second doubts with ours as well, but once it was installed, we both loved it. Our granite was also near an open loading bay, which made it hard to take accurately colored photos. Also keep in mind that right now you are looking at the slab vertically and not on a horizontal plane.

boysrus: I took a look, really nice, I saw many granites that I thought would look great if you had a kitchen with a large island to display it. Our problem is we have none. The original 60's kitchen was a long galley kit with a separate galley. See picts. I couldn't re arrange it to get the space for an island without removing the fireplace which is the main load bearing wall. So I moved and added some walls to get the door out of the kit and in the laundry room and to make an L. So there will be counters adjacent to each other now.

daki: This warehouse had florescent lights and was also near the bay doors.

So somebody tell me did we pay too much?

Before:

After:

larrylwill, I think the movement of the crema bordeaux will look equally great with perimeter countertops as with an island if that helps at all.

As far as price goes, I think you did well. Here's my tally for Aspen River. Total is $3,440.57 for 51.82 sf (broken out $33.50 sf for material, $30.00 labor). $150 for sink cut-out, 1/4 roundover edgework is standard/no charge. My total is for less sf that what you're getting, and I have no delivery cost to another city. That estimate also doesn't add in the 7% sales tax which I assume they'll add in when they install tomorrow.

boysrus:
Strange nobody wanted sales tax except the local place they wanted tax only for their labor. Since we are in the east coast, they all play games with the cost of the granite. I can't get the real costs. I got $59.95 sqft for the granite/labor, $3537, $200 for sink cut, $90 for stove, $78 for out of area. I was taken to 1 place where we found the granite, then we want to several other places and compared their slabs of the same thing. We found a bigger slab at one place that they hadn't dealt with before and she told me that they wanted $75 sqft her cost just for the slab, we liked the slab at the first place better so we went back. Most of the slabs looked like 2 different granites, like in nightowls. one half is flowing and one half is chunky pinkish. Ours has less of the chunky pink and is mostly flowing with more blacks. Its amazing the amount of variations within the same type. The more I look at my pict the more it looks like a slab of meat.

larrylwill, DH tells me we won't have to pay sales tax as it's considered a service. Not sure, but it wasn't included on our estimate. The price on your crema bordeaux bested my price regardless.

And guess what, my slab wasn't big enough to do my kitchen. I need 6 sf of stainless steel countertop now to flank my rangetop, and it's very pricey. My first estimate was $625, about $105 sf. Outrageous! I'm going to get other estimates, but buying another slab of Aspen River for only 6 sf didn't make sense.

Like you, I got an emailed picture of my slab. Didn't convey the real beauty of seeing it in person. I think you're experiencing that too. You're too funny with your joke about the "slab of meat". There's no truth to that though. I've seen this stone in person and it's beautiful!

I've haven't posted pics of my kitchen yet, but I'll try to get something up after the granite install tomorrow, and I look forward to seeing yours too.

Crema Bordeaux is one of the less radioactive granites, and I don't believe it has been mentioned as being causing any trouble.

To prevent another brawl over the issues, I made a post on the Blog page below. Hopefully this will prevent a long debate here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Report on Bordeaux granite, including Crema Bordeaux and the Houston Juparana Bordeux

Hi, I have it and I love it.

boysrus:
Well that's one advantage of the East coast. Since we cant buy the slab we only have to pay for what we need. So I get 2 slabs to do my job and only pay for 59sqft. The installer has to eat the leftovers, or I can use it to get a vanity for $35sqft installed.

thank you all it should be installed next week.

It's not an East Coast thing as I didn't get the same deal you did. My installer/fabricator won't eat the waste. I have to pay for full slabs, so that's why I didn't go with the second slab. He explained that because my stone is exotic and not a "builders favorite", he couldn't use the waste on another job. He'd only do that deal if I picked a more commonly used stone. Your stone is exotic too though, so you got a great arrangement.

I found one supplier that had that rule also. Maybe you can call the fabricators and ask if anyone has any reminate. I bet they do. According to the radio activate guys list it is one of the very popular granites.

Crema Bordeaux is in my kitchen. I love it to death, and have had so many compliments on it. The movement in the stone is what attracted my eye to the slab in the first place. No uniform patterns for me! You won't regret it.

It took me 4EVER to pick out my stone and I chose the Crema Bordeaux. The range in color from stone to stone is remarkable, but I don't think you'll go wrong either way. Pick the one with the colors that you like the most - agree with your color scheme and have fun with it. I've found that the ONLY color that didn't work well, and I mean VERY well, was a lime grean canister set that I absolutely love, that has fruit painted on it - it was just way too busy. Other than that, you can mix and match as you please. It a beautiful stone ane I'm sure you will love it - like everyone has said here. I'm adding a link to my pics. They pics are a little on the dark side - haven't taken pictures in years and I was using a borrowed camera. But I think you can get an idea of how it will look installed. I can't tell you how much it adds to the feel of my entire home. I LOVE it!

Best of luck,

gneegirl

Here is a link that might be useful: gneegirl's kitchen pics

Take a look at Knightowl's post - further down the Kitchen's pages (I think pg 3 for now). She has crema bordeau with better shots than mine. Hope this helps.

gneegirl

Larry, I love your new kitchen layout. I think you will too. Much more functional. Great job. Granite will be absolutely stunning in it. Can't wait to see the finished product.

I've had crema bordeaux for two years now in both my kitchen and bathroom and still love looking at it. My cabs are about the same tone as yours but my floor is natural oak and it all works great. I really doubt you'd regret your decision.

Well, I have to retract my statement about Crema Bordeaux being known as a low level granite. We found a fairly hot sample this weekend, 120 uR/hr Gamma and total radiation measured with a LENi Geiger counter was around 8.5 mR/hr. Since the experts say the additional radiation limit is 100 mR per year, you could be over that limit in a week or so with this particular granite.

The link below is to a Data log, where the laptop reads the data from the Geiger counter, counts it more accurately than the needle and dial meter, then averages the counts per minute into mR/hr.

No need to worry too much if you have Crema Bordeaux, much of it is low level, just get it checked just in case. Ask for a copy of the results, keep them in case you ever sell your home.

Here is a link that might be useful:

No need to worry too much if you have Crema Bordeaux, much of it is low level, just get it checked just in case. Ask for a copy of the results, keep them in case you ever sell your home.

Larry, why don't you just check in once a week so we know you're still alive? (Just kidding...and hotgranitekills, who asked you?)

I have been feeling to good lately. I'm starting to glow a bit and can't get any sleep because the bedroom is so bright.

No offense hotgranitekills, However I think if it was a much of a problem it would be on the insurance questionnaires. Where as mold, and radon is recognized as a problem I haven't found any class action law suits over granite yet and I am SURE if there was something there it would be.

neesie,
be nice. New info turned up on the Crema Bordeaux and people need to know of it. You got a problem with a potential problem being discussed? Ever think that others might want to know? As to checking weekly, the harm caused by low dose radiation might take years to show up.

Larrylwill,
You have to admit that the mold issue caught the insurance industry flat footed and their reaction was to eliminate coverage for mold related problems, or at least that was what I was last told. The Radon researchers still has to fight a fringe group of people that refuse to believe it is a problem. And at one point, we still sold lead paint here in the US, despite the Europen countries banning it decades before.

So just because they aren't aware of the potential risk doesn't mean they know about it. Mark my words, once they hear of it, it will be excluded from policies.

As to the potential risk of future lawsuits over granite and radiation/Radon, I emailed one of the most respected lawyers in the toxic law field, Dr. Chiodo from Chicago. He called me the next day, and warned of a storm of future lawsuits over sterility, cancer, and even birth defects caused by the levels of radiation we were finding. He mentioned that standing at a granite countertop subjected the wrong area of your body to a lot of radiation if you have a hotter than normal granite top.

Dr. Chiodo warned us to hire the best enviromental lawyer in our state and get a disclosure/consent form drawn up. But, he warned that even if the homeowners both signed, it would not be binding for their kids or any visitors. We aren't too worried since we test before purchasing slabs.

Note that I called him Dr. Chiodo. He is a doctor, lawyer, an industrial hygenist anda biomedical engineer among other credintials. Said he was an over acheiver. LOL

There is a link below with more info on Dr. Chiodo. Look down a ways to the section on "What the Experts say about Radiation in Granite Countertops"

I didn't post this to start another debate. I posted it because new info disproved what we previously thought, that most Crema Bordeaux was likely safe. Now we aren't as sure. It won't cost $10 to check it, or send me a sample if you have one left and I'll check it then send it for professional testing if needed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dr. Chiodo, more info.

I don't have a sample but I do have a Russian Gigar counter, I can't read. However I'm 63 and I don't think it will kill me before old age. When I was in my 20's I stood about 6" from a 500 Watt rf transmitter coax output aimed at my crotch working on the inside of it. Due to the exposure I was told that I probably wouldn't be able to have kids. I did.

I think it's pretty normal to pick out the granite you "love" and then have cold feet. We picked out 2 slabs of Madura Gold that we loved and sure enough I started critiqing the pictures and having second thoughts. It's just such a chuck of money to pay it's normal to think there must be something better out there. It's beautiful!

The more I'm reading about granite potential problems, I'm thinking that laminate is a better choice.
Radiation, chipping, cracking, pitting, staining, etching, sealing. We never worried about laminate.

Larry,
but you just can't find another material that is that pretty. I am agreeing with you on the damage thing, but darn it is pretty and makes my cabinets look great.

What is the problem with the Russian geiger counter? Is it digital or does it have a meter and needle like a speedometer? PM me an email, and if you can send me pictures I might be able to help you understand the meter. If not, I have a bunch of buddies that can bore you to tears with geiger counter talk. Some of these guys build their own meters from scratch.

I've been deciding on crema bordeaux and Juparana India Gold. thanks for the great discussion Larry and hotgranitekills.

nessie- I appreciate hotgranitekills. I don't appreciate your disregard for knowledge.

I will go with Juparana India Gold and hope for the best.

show a picture when you get it. If my cabinet maker ever installs the last piece of molding and the cabinet inside the old oven hole I can finish the back splash and post pictures.
I just have about 1 ft of tiling and grouting to finish.
hotgranetkills I haven't found the geiger counter yet, but getting close.

Hotgranitekills AKA Al, was banned from Garden Web last week.