Tsering Sherpa

Tsering Sherpa is the daughter of Ngima Sherpa from Nepal. She's the pretty girl in the center of this family photo wearing a white satin shawl. She is my stonemason.

Photo from Sherpa Stone

I have a Nepalese stonemason because I have gone down the rabbit hole of remodeling the master bathroom and I needed a complete education on selecting, measuring, planning, and assessing quartz countertop remnants. Who knew it was this complicated?

I thought I'd go to a bath remodeler, pick out a color and style of quartz and have them measure and then install it. Nope. It doesn't work that way.

I have found that no remodeler will do a countertop removal and replacement. They'll do full gut and remodel with design services, but for a simple counter replacement they send you to a stone company to find what you want in the remnants yard and you arrange the installation with the stonemen directly.

None of these tiles or colors go together. And the tub and sink don't even match.

All I want to do is replace the tile countertop. I'm okay with the red Mexican floor tiles; I like them. I'm okay with the glossy taupe tub wall tiles, at least they are neutral. 

The knotty pine vanity cabinet suits the style of this house, it doesn't want white or anything trendy. And it's custom fit, not replaceable with anything standard sized. It's in good shape, with my life-altering mini hot water heater installed under the cabinet. I don't want to have to retrofit that.

But those yellowy countertop tiles with crumbling gray grout, ugh. The grout has detached from around the sinks in places, and it's hard to keep clean. The color is just awful with the taupe tiles around the tub.

The wood edging of the countertop stains, the tiles are uneven to set
a small pill bottle or water glass on . . .  I just don't like them.

I want a sleeker, solid surface material that goes with (doesn't have to match) the other tiles in the bathroom, and has undermount sinks. 

The general idea - quartz solid surface, undermount sinks

Our double sink countertop is 78 inches long so I can't get a standard quartz vanity top from Lowe's which only goes up to 72 inches. I need a custom size top, custom install.

So picture this counter with the smooth quartz and low profile sinks.

The way this works is that you have to go to a stonemason and see if they have a remnant from another job that you could use for your countertop replacement. You can't just order a new quartz slab of the color and style you want, that's way too expensive and no one will do that. You have to find a remnant for a job this small.

A remnant yard looks like this. You can't move the slabs to see them, they're too heavy.

That's how I ended up with Tsering at Sherpa Stone, scrambling over stacked slabs of granite and quartz, dodging the forklift right behind us, and wondering if I should have been wearing a hard hat. There was no way to see the color or finish or sheen of any remnant, they can't be shifted or moved or seen in natural light. You have to judge what you want from a corner peeking out from behind other slabs. Some were only visible by their edges.

Very few were the size I needed.

But Tsering went directly to a long slab in the color I had described and it was the right size. I got a tiny block of a color sample of it from the office, brought it home to see it at all times of day in all lights, and against all expectations, it goes. I can't believe this awkward, daunting process worked.

Different light and orientation changes the color.
It's a speckled cream, but picks up taupe tones, not the yellow brown.

In a city where almost all immigrants are Latino, the story of this Nepalese family was interesting. This news article tells how as a recent immigrant, Tsering's father met a helpful Santa Fe volunteer at a dance club and how her help, even though she was not his US sponsor, was personal and invaluable over the years as he built a stone fabrication business. 

His daughter, a fully Americanized young woman who grew up in Santa Fe, works in the family business. I commented about how quickly she had picked out the right remnant from a stack where it could barely be seen, and how she knew it would be big enough and just the right color.

She shrugged and smiled "I look at stone all day long" she said. 

I'll post when the job is done and you can see a reveal of the new master bath vanity top.