# Kitchen Renovation

We are renovating our kitchen. When we bought the house the
kitchen was by far the thing in the worst shape. It had tile
counters. Many of the tiles were broken, missing, chipped,
stained, or cracked. The grout between them was a dark dark gray
with age and lack of cleaning. The cupboards are nice: solid
wood (not plywood or fiberboard) with cool decorative features
in places and absolute simplicity in others. However, they were
dirty, stained, the hinges didn't allow the doors to close well.
The sink was old and cracked porcelain, yellow with age. Most of
it had likely been there since at least the 70s, but likely the
60s.

So we hired the guy that did my neighbor's kitchen (after a long
overpriced quote saga with home depot). He seems like a good guy
and did a good job on their kitchen. He came last week with a
separate guy to do the countertops. They took off all of the
tile that was on the counter/backsplash and removed the wood
subcounter. They replaced it with new wood and put on a new
quartz counter. We had done a little bit of research and had
landed on quartz. We are a week out and I deeply regred our
choice of quartz. It seems to be super finicky and sensitive.
It stains and streaks easy. You aren't supposed to use most
cleaners on it and a week in there are already marks on it that
seem permanent. Try as we might, we cannot get them off. It is
supposed to be heat resistant, but the resin used as a binder
is not... so you cannot put hot things on it like we thought
we would be able to (we haven't done so, and that is not where
the staining/streaking is coming from). I'm so frustrated with
the care this countertop needs that I half want to ask him to
take it out and just put in a cheap formica one we can beat up.
I'm not going to. What is done is done for the time being and I
will learn to live with it and let go. But I am frustrated.

He was supposed to come on saturday to do the backsplash (a
white arabesque tile), but had an emergency come up so asked if
he could do today (Monday) instead. We said sure. We texted him
on saturday to see how much we needed to send him for materials.
He said he'd let us know that night, that he would then go on
sunday to get all of the materials and be at our place early
on monday. We didnt hear from him. So we texted on sunday. He
was at church, can he let us know in a bit? Sure. We heard not
a word. Monday morning rolls around and he sends us to amount.
We zelle him the funds. He now has to go get all the materials
and then drive up the mountain to our place. He has to replace
some drywall and do the backsplash. It is raining outside, so
he will need to find a place to cut tile. Likely our basement,
though we have not talked to him about that yet.

Why is working with contractors and people who do this kind of
work always a flaky mess? If I take a job, we agree on a time,
place, and cost and I am there on time doing the job for the
agreed upon amount. I just don't get this business model. All
of the above complaining aside: the guy is a nice guy and has
done good work so far (punctuality and communication aside).
It is likely just stress around any renovation on my side making
me crabby.

Does anyone out there have advice for cleaning quartz and keeping
it in good shape? I've read a bunch of articles, but they seem
impractical and like so much work it would be a full time job
to cook in the kitchen and then manage to keep the quartz in
okay shape...    sloum AT rawtext.club