Married to a Madman: Pebbles in the Stream

My madman and his indoor "Great Outdoors" kitchen

With the arctic chill just beginning in Dubuque, our ability to work on our future home is minimized since we don't have heat. So off I go to the file of Scott's Brooklyn projects.

In maybe 2011, Scott and I decided to redo our kitchen and dining room. This is in the house in which I grew up, owned by my father. My father and I redid the kitchen around 1996, it was a great improvement over the ca. 1970 kitchen in which I first cooked as a child, but the place needed plastering and painting by 2011. Once we got through with the walls and ceiling and replaced the sink, it was clear that Scott had other ideas for the working area, the true kitchen. He did not explain his entire concept in advance, but rolled it out in stages. Scott believes we were out drinking when he first brought it up, which may have been why I agreed to everything. Scott's unshared concept was to bring the outdoors indoors, to create the feeling of washing one's dishes in a forest stream.

Not that crooked a kitchen, but my camerawork is

Scott's first step in this concept was to create a totally unique countertop using the existing countertop as a base. He would create oak molding with the plunge router I gave him and affix the molding to the entire edge of the wood laminate countertop, we would then set pebbles in mastic on the countertop, and then pour clear epoxy on it up to the edge of the molding (I've since learned this is "pouring in place." The end result would look like pebbles in a stream, surrounding the black sink we'd just installed.

My heart breaks for the person who tries to remove this.
Even the sink is epoxied in place.

Scott said the counter would be simple, but I figured it would be less simple than he envisioned - somehow, his ideas are always more complicated than he imagines. Did it matter to me? No, because I had no countertop desires, I had hated the wood laminate countertop from the moment my father selected it at Home Depot, and Scott and I had nothing but time.

While pouring the layers and layers of stinkingly noxious epoxy on the countertop over days, it became obvious that it was not going to be a smooth countertop. It would be smooth in places, but some of the rocks rose above the epoxy, creating a pebbled finish in places. Nothing in the house in level - it's about 150 years old and the house continues it's settling, after all. Plus, the laminate countertop base installed in the 1990s was definitely not level when installed. I was initially disappointed that the new counter was not going to be a completely smooth surface, but I got over that quickly. Once completed, I was sold as soon as I realized I could put an egg down on the counter and it would not roll. Plus, I loved occasionally running my hand along the pebbles as I worked in the kitchen.

Scott has said that after I agreed to that counter insanity and saw it through, he thought he might as well go for broke with his next idea: the photo mural for the wall behind the sink. He was sure I would shoot that down, but once again I did not and he was incredulous. He had already found the perfect photo mural of a forest stream, so went ahead with the purchase and we put it up with wallpaper paste.

I can't draw a straight line, so again forget about photos

The end result is a love-it-or-hate-it counter and kitchen. There are people who truly despise it, including my daughter. Like most countertops, one should not cut directly on it, nor should one rest hot pots on it - cutting boards and trivets rule. Cleaning is a snap, but cleaning tiny popped air bubbles can be a small challenge.

It's not perfect, but Scott and I love it. And, thankfully, there are people like Scott and me who take one look at the kitchen, understand the concept, and enjoy it fully.

Photos below show some of the details, including the pebbles rising above the "water."