YIPPEEEEEEE!!

drbeanie

didn't I see someone use a piece like that for a b/s?

its almost a mural

I think just leaning it up against the wall to look at would make me happy.

Seriously, that's some beautiful stuff!

picked cabs out first, so didn't match but prob out of our budget.

enjoy it everyday, it is truly a work of art and so aptly named!!!!

congratulations on a fabulous choice!!!!

someone did use it as a backsplash, but i can't remember either, hopefully someone will. it was stunning!

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0716412419165.html

and

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg120215351700.html

It is because I have been reading this forum for so long before choosing anything, that I didn't have to match this stone to pre-existing choices for cabinets or anything else. We'll keep our wood floors, but I was waiting to see if I could get a slab of Van Gogh/Blue Louise that my husband and I loved first. Everything else will pretty much be designed around this.

I would LOVE to do a massive backsplash like that, to look at vertically. Yum! But it would probably look pretty silly, since our "perimeter" countertops will be a dark color...unless, I have them cut out a rectangle of the same slab to put over the range top and "frame" that with something else... not sure how that would work.

Oh, and FWIW, I'm now working with a prep sink for the first time. As much as I love my own counters, I wouldn't give up the function of my prep sink for anything. Makes kitchen life so much easier!

KristiR - We had a hard time finding one with vivid colors like these. We had seen several slabs that were splotchier, had no blue at all as far as we could tell, or were pretty but in a pastel kind of way. We were told that the quarry in Brazil had closed down 1-3 years ago (the story varied...hm.). However, while thinking the One True Slab would never come along, we did see lots of fun ideas on other colors. Blue Aurora, Normal Blue Fire (I think), Blue Wave, Botanic Green, Cactus, Dunas or Dunes, Azul do Mar, Blue Wave, Persa Blue, Fusion Blue, and Azul Macauba were some of them.

okay, now that I have finished fainting. I must say
congratualtions on your beautiful find.
~boxer

How big is your island? If it only uses a "fraction" of the slab it may not be big enough for prep and a sink. If you can't move the prep sink elsewhere, I'd ditch it. It is one more item to clean, it would take away from prep space and you would lose some of this beautiful stone.
It would also save money in the sink itself, faucet, cutout and installation, so you could then afford the piece for behind your range. If you frame it with the tile you use for your bs or with the matching wood (or painted wood) as your cabs, it would be fabulous! I'd want to use as much of this as I could manage. I'd even consider skipping a bs and only using this stone behind the range (properly framed). It is a work of art and will be a showstopper. Any tile would be a bit player and there is the risk being too much.

If you want some help with mockups, I'd be glad to try a few for you. I'd just need to know the dimensions of your island and the dimensions of the slab in your picture.

Congrats on finding a beauty!

Or, you could pick a sink that worked in shape with the "waves" in the granite and do it in a complimentary cast iron color like Kohler's Cobalt Blue. It would look like a lake in the river of the granite. (Waterfall faucet anyone?)

I would personally use it as a backsplash for the whole kitchen rather than use a "small" piece on the island. It would be more effective vertically than horizontally. At a minimum, I'd do the "frame" bit behind the entire cooktop, from counter to ceiling, with a glass chimney hood over it to not obscure it.

I wouldn't disrupt it with a prep sink, although I did like the "wave" sink above. We were going to get a prep sink--I had never had one--but decided to keep our island whole. I don't miss it. We could have put one in the bar, but decided we didn't really need it there, either. I have a really big single-bowl sink that works well and is near the island.

I'm happy to have only ONE sink where people leave dishes!

Can you make the island bigger? Ok, I'm sure you thought of that!

If you can use it as a bs that would be awesome.

Congrats! I'm sure that one made your heart sing!!!!!

Congratulations and enjoy!

We have Azul do Mar and love it. It is nice to have such a durable easy-to-clean surface for our kitchen. We have a prep sink in the island and wouldn't want to do with that for our multicook kitchen.

How big is your island? If that is the place where you will do most of your prep, perhaps you could do a smaller one like 13" x 18" to leave more of the quartzite intact.

Here is ours:

We used our remnants on the fireplace surround in the family room.

We still have a piece that we might use for the powder room vanity if we change that out.

KD agreed and now calls it “Jupiter,” adding yet another name to the Blue Louise/Louise Blue/Luisa Blue/Van Gogh/Van Goug/other names I can’t remember yet.

remodelfla and dianalo - I don’t know what our perimeter counters will be. I thought something subdued that would hide crumbs a bit - " DH likes Ebony Pearl silestone, I like Brown Antique (especially one that is closer to black). But we haven’t picked out cabinets yet either.

dianalo - we are thinking of doing just that, no backsplash really and just this stone behind the range, “properly framed” as you put it.

mtnrdredux - our range is a 48” Capital Culinarian and a hood coming down from fairly short ceilings, so there would be a wide, somewhat short expanse.

chicagoans - I don’t THINK we have the buy the whole slab. On the other hand, I think we might end up doing so. It is approx. 100” x 57” and our island is 66” x 40”. I will try to post some scans of our KD’s initial sketches, but we are slowly phasing in our move to our rental property, and the scanner wasn’t the highest priority!

cienza - thanks for the congrats! Sounds like you had a really great fabricator. I’m not sure I know what you mean about multiple temperatures of light. Did you do one bulb in one, the next in another, the next in yet another? Trying to picture it.

beekeeper’s wife - wish we could make the island bigger!

cloud_swift - thanks for the quartzite welcome! I drooled over your kitchen on the FKB. We’d need more slabs than we can get for the rest of our kitchen, but your lovely backsplash, perimeter counter tops, and island look great!

Everyone - we might just ditch the prep sink, and maybe with the enormous Blanco Silgranit II Super Single sink we may get for our main sink, it will be almost like 2 sinks!

Thanks everyone for the responses!!!

but, i do like it in nature - and that's nature!

I'd love to just have a pic of it - even if only an 8 x10 to hang up and look at!

if it were my option, I'd have it as a BS - so I could see it from all over the room - and even walking into the room.

It'll be a beautiful focal point in your kitchen. Congratulations and enjoy!

Here is a picture of our slab..

avidchef - We are going to do both the backsplash and the island from our one slab. We decided not to do the prep sink. We've never had one, so I'm hoping we won't be too sorry!

Update - We're now doing natural cherry cabinets and will have wood floors. DH and I are thinking "brushed" (or leathered or antiqued - they say they are the same thing...) Cambrian Black, which has cool coppery flecks in it. We don't want to compete with the Van Gogh but we don't want a single monotone color either.

This "slab camera" picture shows the real colors better - but not so much better that we don't gasp in awe and grin like idiots whenever we see it in person!

Will definitely keep you all posted, though!

bean

we are starting demo thursday (kitchen only), and hoping to have slab installed the end of May!

But yes, we are having an island AND using the leftover piece as a backsplash for the range top so that we can look at it even when not working at the island.

Good for you, Bon22!