10 Questions for . . . Andy Graves, Countertop Fabricator

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . ., Associate Editor Kimberly Janeway speaks with Andy Graves, owner of Olive Mill, a countertop fabricator/installer in Anaheim, California. Graves has been in the business for 22 years, and runs two Web sites about countertops, one for consumers and another for the trade. Here he offers his advice about buying, installing, and maintaining kitchen countertops.

What's hot in countertops?
Green materials, including product like Vetrazzo, IceStone, Paperstone, UrbanSlabs, EcoTop, Richlite, and many others. You can see the complete list of eco-friendly products at CountertopReview.com, my consumer Web site.

(Consumer Reports recently tested Richlite, a paper-composite countertop. Find out how it and other materials performed by researching our countertop Ratings, available to subscribers.)

What's crucial when choosing a counter?
Knowing your expectations. Many customers want the "perfect" material, and it doesn't exist. Customers need to find the material that fits their lifestyle. How much maintenance are you willing to do? Granite, concrete, tile, and wood all need sealers applied periodically. Can you afford this material? People need to find a great product that fits their budget.

What important detail do your customers ignore when selecting a material?
Seams. Because the samples never have seams in stores, customers just don't think about them and when they don't, they're usually disappointed when the counter is installed because the seams draw your attention. Solid surface, stainless steel, and wood have seams that can be finished to be virtually inconspicuous. And poured concrete can be one piece if done on site. But granite, quartz, laminate, glass, paper composite and marble have noticeable seams that can be seen and felt. And remember, the larger the top, the more seams.

Laminates are in wide use and did well in our recent tests. Why does this material remain so popular?
It's a great product and it's inexpensive. The newer ones come in a wider array of colors. The seams are minimal and there's no grout. Laminate is also very durable and can last a long time.

Undermount sinks are popular but not every material is suitable for such an installation. Which materials can be used with this type of sink?
A waterproof material is preferred—solid surface, stainless steel, and quartz are your best choices. Wood, granite, and concrete are also good choices, but make absolutely sure that they are thoroughly sealed. If the countertop material is sealed, you shouldn't have a problem with water damage.

Which materials can be used for seamless sinks, where you use the same material for the sink and counter?
Choose solid surface, stainless, or concrete when you want to use the same material for the sink and counter. (The photo right, courtesy of Olive Mill, shows a seamless solid-surface installation.)

Some countertop companies advertise prices in square feet, others in linear feet. What's the difference?
Not many companies charge based on linear feet. It has gone towards square feet, which is the basic length, or running feet, multiplied by the width. Linear feet and running feet are the same thing, a figure that represents the total length of countertops along the wall. But don't count the inside corner twice.

10 Questions for . . . Steve Feldman, President of Green Demolitions

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico talks to Steve Feldman (shown below), founder of Green Demolitions, a nonprofit organization that recycles and then sells appliances and materials from kitchens, raising money for a 12-step-program charity. Feldman discusses the origin of the operation and the many people it benefits.

Where did you get the idea for Green Demolitions?
I was fund-raising in Greenwich, Connecticut, in March 2001. One of my donors lived next door to Farah Pahlavi, the last empress of Iran. She had lived for 10 years in a beautiful 10,000-square-foot estate. I'd seen the home from the street in the past, but on this day a sign in the driveway said a demolition was in progress. I walked up the driveway and the house was a pile of rubble and brick. I stood there staring at the pile and thought to myself, Why not start a demolition donation program for the outreach projects I was fund-raising? I started talking to contractors and real-estate agents in the area, and they thought the idea had merit.

How does the process work?
A prospective donor contacts our office, where one of our coordinators gets the details of the job--what items are available, what condition they're in, etc. We'll often request pictures to get a sense of how much time would be required for the removal. We can't accept all donations. As an entrepreneurial charity, we have to operate like a business, meaning there has to be a resale value to the items or we won't make a profit. If we accept the project, an inspector visits the site, takes more photos, and fills out a detailed report. Then we issue a donation agreement, order the insurance, and send in a crew for the dismantling. Most jobs are done in a day. The items are inventoried and we leave behind a hand-written receipt, which is followed up with a typed receipt indicating the fair-market value of all contributions so that donors can claim the proper deduction.

What do people gain by donating their kitchens?
The biggest financial gain is definitely the deduction—we've sold a single kitchen for as much as $36,000. But another big incentive is the savings in labor costs. Our crew handles all the dismantling, and if they don't have the knowledge and skills required, we'll bring in a specialty crew. We did a Park Avenue apartment in New York City recently where I hired a marble specialist to remove the antique fireplaces. "Restoration removal" we call it. A third benefit for donors is reduced disposal cost. Each Dumpster on a job costs $600 or $700, even more in cities.

Besides homeowners, where else do the donations come from?
We also have retail donors, for example kitchen companies that have in-store displays of discontinued inventory. Another source is wholesale distributors. I recently worked out an arrangement with the exclusive American distributor of a major European appliance line. We'll be receiving a truckload of top-quality discontinued or display models. Donations also come straight from manufacturers, whether returns, discontinued models, or overstock. We're also the national charity of the National Kitchen & Bath Association's annual trade show, the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show. At the end of every show, exhibitors can load their wares straight from the floor onto our Green Demolition trucks. The companies save a bundle on warehouse space and disposal cost. I've heard of entire exhibits getting demolished and thrown in the Dumpster, product and all. Green Demolition is a cheaper way to go and keeps the product out of landfills.

Essential information: Learn how to properly dispose of household items when you're remodeling and read about Home Depot's new recycling program for compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

10 Questions for . . . Bruce Irving, Renovation Consultant

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Bruce Irving, a former TV producer who's now a renovation consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Irving (shown below) shares his thoughts on the remodeling process and talks about ways to save on a major renovation.

How did you become a renovation consultant?
After I left the PBS show This Old House, where I was the producer for 17 years, most people assumed I’d stay in television. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the TV was secondary. It was the projects themselves that turned me on, the process of transforming people’s houses into places they could really love. I saw how well that could go, and I wanted to offer my clients the same kind of experience.

Why is remodeling such a charged experience for so many homeowners?
From a strictly hard-nosed, economic point of view, your home is the most valuable thing you’ll ever own. And when you think about it, to be able to spend money on fixing it up is a great privilege. So it’s doubly tragic when something you should enjoy and take pride in goes horribly awry. On a psychological level, our homes are a reflection of who we are. They’re very near and dear to our hearts, so operating on them is like operating on one of your kids. You want it to turn out really, really well.

How do you differ from a general contractor on projects?
I’m not a builder, nor am I an architect. But for years and years I stood in the midst of builders and architects, as well as materials suppliers, building inspectors, town officials, and of course, homeowners. I got a very good education in the multiple dynamics at work on a renovation project. When I come to a job, like the renovation of the Georgian Revival home outside of Boston (shown above), I’m not carrying the perspective of a builder or an architect. I’m coming at it almost as a reporter, seeing it happen in many different ways. So what people buy when they hire me is a no-agenda opinion. I just call it like I see it, and I think people appreciate the objectivity. That third-person-in-the-room factor becomes very important during the project, as I make sure that everyone—homeowner, architect, builder—gets heard and heard fairly . . . kind of like a marriage counselor!

What’s the most important lesson your objectivity has taught you?
I’ve come to realize that there’s something unpleasantly contentious about many jobs. People are pitted against one another early on, and echoes of that persist throughout the project. It starts with the bidding process, when you have finished drawings that builders compete from, and it so often boils down to “the number.” It sends a sort of dehumanizing message. I’d rather get the drawings 50 percent there and then bring in a few potential builders. You can get to know them better, and they don’t have to spend hours and hours drawing up a bid for a project they may never get. Once you settle on the builder, you can finish drawings with the benefit of their input. Basically, I’m a big fan of team play on a project.

10 Questions for . . . Joan DesCombes, Certified Kitchen Designer

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Joan DesCombes, CKD, principal of Winter Park, Florida–based Architectural Artworks Incorporated. Here, DesCombes, who received the 2008 Pinnacle of Design award from the National Kitchen & Bath Association in April, talks about her winning project, where kitchen design stands today headed, and what her clients want in their new kitchens.

Q. Congratulations on winning the 2008 Pinnacle of Design award. What separates you from other designers?

A. I think I’m a little unique for a kitchen designer in that this isn’t my first career. I was trained as a designer but then I ended up working in the fashion industry for many years. So I approach a kitchen almost like I’m dressing somebody. I start by asking a lot of questions about the homeowners’ lifestyle. The more I know about them, the more I can create a room that suits their personality. Coming from the fashion industry, I strive to design rooms that are functional first but also that people look good in. If you’re a blue-eyed blond I’m going to design that room differently than if you have dark hair and dark eyes.

Q. How is that philosophy reflected in the award-winning kitchen?

A. This kitchen, in Winter Park, Florida (shown), is in keeping with who that homeowner is. He’s a creative person and he wanted a kitchen that’s innovative and uses rare materials. The combination of stainless steel and raw wood on the ceiling gives the space a loftlike feel that’s in keeping with the rest of the house. The stone floor is the same throughout, enhancing the Zen-inspired fluidity of the space. The same stone continues up the side of the island for a dramatic effect. The lighting is also very dramatic, combining cable lights with hanging pendants.

Q. What are your favorite features about the kitchen?

A. When you look at most kitchens, they tend to be traditional in look and layout. This one wasn’t traditional from any standpoint. We reused a lot of existing materials, so while it isn’t green in the conventional sense, it’s largely recycled. The purple-concrete countertop was left over from a project we worked on with designer Fu-Tung Cheng, from Berkeley, California. We also used some leftover cabinetry for the pantries that flank the refrigerator, a Sub-Zero with a paneled front that matches the cabinetry. The fully integrated refrigerator is something we do all the time. It goes along with my kitchen-as-furniture philosophy. Homeowners need to understand that furnishing a kitchen is no different than furnishing a living room. Except that they’re going to spend a lot more time in the kitchen.

Q. In general, how are people today interacting with their kitchens differently?

A. Everybody’s lifestyle is different, and so every kitchen needs to be different too. Take someone who’s big in the organic-food movement. They’re going to need more refrigerator than freezer space, and they’re going to need that refrigeration in several different places throughout the kitchen. For a recent client who’s vegetarian, we added a set of refrigerator drawers to her food prep island. That’s where she keeps the fresh vegetables for the salads she often makes. This split configuration is also popular with parents with small children. It means they can keep the juice and milk next to where the kids eat breakfast in the morning.

10 Questions for . . . Don Ferrier, Green Builder

In this first installment of a new feature on the Home & Garden blog, we put 10 questions to Don Ferrier, president of Ferrier Custom Homes in Fort Worth, Texas. Ferrier (shown below) is at the forefront of the green-building movement in this country.

Q. You’ve been called one of the godfathers of green building. When did you first become interested in energy-efficient practices?

A. In 1881 my Scottish grandfather immigrated to the U.S. because the state of Texas needed masons to build its new capital. He settled in north Texas and had 12 kids, one of whom started a structural concrete business building bridges. I eventually joined the family business and in 1982 a couple approached us about building an earth-sheltered, underground home.
    Imagine a bunker with concrete on three sides and the fourth, which typically faces south for passive solar orientation, made of glass. The result was an extremely energy-efficient structure that’s also storm-resistant and easy to maintain. That’s how I got started in green construction, although we didn’t call it that at the time.

Q. Nowadays you’re building more-conventional homes, although the emphasis is still on energy efficiency. What major developments have taken place in the ensuing quarter century?

A. There’s been a tidal wave of change. To give you just one example, in 1985 I built my first home out of structural insulated panels, or SIPs. Today, 95 percent of the homes we build are made of the material. (Editor's note: Only 0.5 percent of U.S. homes built in 2005 were made with SIPs,
according to the Structural Insulation Panel Association; 70 percent were built with conventional framing techniques.) The amount of knowledge about this sort of construction is no longer obscure. Public education is the other development. I’m a big fan of the LEED for Homes and the NAHB Green Building programs. Both organizations do a phenomenal amount of good and are tremendous resources for builders as well as homeowners.

Q. Can you describe the greenest house you’ve ever built?

A. That would be Heather’s Home (shown above) a prototype home that we started in September 2005 for LEED and the NAHB near Fort Worth. It’s named after Heather, my then 25-year old daughter, who came to me saying she wanted to build a very green home and wanted to do it on a tight budget. That was more a less our mission statement. It’s not the cheapest house out there but it’s far from the most expensive.

Q. What are some energy-efficient features of Heather’s home?

A. It starts with orientation. In our climate, that means controlling the sun to keep the house from getting too hot. A combination of trees, porches, and overhangs shields the glass portions of the house. They’re angled in such a way that during the summer, when the sun is high in the sky, solar heat gain isn’t an issue. But come winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, it warms the house. The house is built with SIPs, which make for an extremely tight, well-insulated house. Then there’s a high-efficiency air-conditioner unit and water heater. The lighting and appliances all have Energy Star ratings. And the outside of the house is a combination of stucco and low-maintenance fiber cement.

Q. What about indoor air quality? How does this relate to green building?

A. Here’s the dilemma. The average home is leaky. That makes it inefficient, but it lets enough outdoor air into the home that you don’t have to worry about indoor air quality. An energy-efficient home is very tightly constructed. But if you’re not careful about what you put inside, you’ll be left with polluted indoor air. So you have to watch what products you introduce into the home. For example, you have to watch out for the VOCs that are in many materials, including cabinets, countertops, carpets, stains, and paints.