I expected to be blown away by the Costa Esmerelda counters after they were installed in my kitchen Thursday afternoon. I should have swooned, because the counters are graceful and lovely, with just the right depth of color and veining. But instead of swooning,
I gasped in horror at the sight of a narrow gap between the island leg posts and countertop. While invisible to some, this gap is so obvious to me it's as if flashing arrows are pointing at it.
"What is that GAP?" I asked Edgar, the counter installation guy who is about the age I was when I graduated from college. "The countertop is too small!" Nervously, Edgar got out the order.
"Ma'am," he said politely, "These are the dimensions you signed off on when the counters were measured last week."
I looked at the order. The island counter was measured from the rail and not from the leg posts, which jut out a couple of centimeters beyond the rail. What this means is that while most of the counter has a one-inch overhang, the overhang at the two leg posts is only about one-half inch. The gap between the posts and the counter exaggerates this one-half-inch deficit.
Hysteria started lurching from my stomach. Or was that lunch?
I called Miguel.
"What is that GAP?" I asked Miguel.
He didn't seem too worried.
"Yea, I noticed that. We just have to push the leg posts up and it will be OK," he said.
"But what about the OVERHANG?" I asked, gripping the cellphone to my ear. "It's only one-half-inch at the leg posts!"
"It's supposed to be like that," Miguel said, trying to reassure me. "It's supposed to look like a farm table."
"It looks like a man who arrived at his wedding in tuxedo pants that are too short!" I cried.
Now Miguel was starting to get worried---not about the counter but about my state of mind. "It's not that bad!" he said. "I'll come by and take another look."
I called Husband.
"The counters are in and the island top looks like it shrunk in the dryer!" I wailed.
"It can't be that bad!" he said. "I'll get off early and take a look."
That day, Bert the GC, Carl the carpenter, Mark the kitchen designer, Miguel the architect and Husband the husband all came to the house to see the patient I mean the island counter top. None of them felt the overhang was an issue. They offered various solutions, ranging from using a scribe to fill the gaps to placing "buttons" at the foot of the posts so that the leg tops are flush with the bottom of the counter. They tried to assure me that once the gaps are filled, the overhang will not be an issue.
"But that's because you don't think it's even an issue with the gaps!" I said suspiciously. I calculated the height difference between Husband and me, which is about seven inches.
"You can't even see what I'm talking about!" I cried.
I demanded another solution. All reluctantly agreed that in addition to filling the gaps, we could adjust the island by pushing the legs in one-half inch at both sides. This sounds easy, but it's not without repercussions because the leg posts are already nailed into the floor boards, and if we move the leg posts forward a half inch, the holes in the floor might --- or might not--- be exposed. We also would have to cut and move the rails, exposing nail holes in the island that would have to be filled and stained. Plus, these adjustments would affect the symmetry of the overhang, making it deeper than one-inch at the rails.
I asked my brother-in-law Chip, who's a woodworking guy, to evaluate the island overhang, and he doesn't think it's a problem. My sister agrees, and my kids think I'm crazy to actually talk about something like: "The overhang? What's the overhang?"
Part of me worries that everyone secretly believes the overhang is a real issue, but that they don't want to say so because of all the work that's involved in fixing it. But then again, maybe it really is a non-event. Maybe I'm just too close to the situation. Maybe I'm just a little looney.
Either way: It's bugging me. Here are some more pictures:
from the left side:
from the right side, with a piece of wood shoved in the gap to show what it might look like when the gap is filled:
Recent Comments