Our story so far: As we renovated the old Methodist church into our home, we chose stone for the fireplace and the counter tops, and we were pleased with the poured concrete for the garage.

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The easiest stone to install at the church was the decorative rock we purchased to border the exterior.

The gravel that was there was old, tired and indistinct. Tyler wanted to freshen up the look, so he took me to the nearby landscaping supply store (where we had ordered a fireplace hearth) to browse the options. In the past, we might have used fresh mulch next to the foundation of the church, but we did that with the first house we owned together, and it just invited bugs inside. So we left the mulch to insulate the roots of the bushes on the perimeter of the church property.

Until that morning, I had no idea there were so many different gravels, rocks and crushed stones with which to decorate a yard. Like to many things in my life, I just wasn’t paying attention. We could choose from every shade of gray and brown, plus a few blues and reds, in every size from pea gravel to boulders.

We were drawn to the grey slate with its rocks shaped to skip across a pond. It glittered in the sun with fifty shades of grey, mind you, not gray. I liked the cool blue hue which I didn’t know at the time but was very pleased to realize coordinated perfectly with the color the foundation was already painted.

We also chose some edge stones. Tyler and his hired man St. Johnny sweated it out to place the stones and spread the slate, and when they were done, it rocked.

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Tomorrow: Chapter 25 opens with the story of another construction project. Read about it here.

Our story so far: We were in the midst of the heavy lifting—it was all things stone—for the old Methodist church we were turning into a residence.

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The footings had been poured. Untold loads of gravel hauled in. The steps formed.

After a couple of rain delays, it was time to pour the foundation for the garage.

Tyler was so excited that day, he got up even earlier than normal. He couldn’t wait for me to provide breakfast. He left before I got out of bed and pressed McDonald’s into service.

Tyler had ordered 6-1/2 bag mix concrete, the importance of which, like nuances of 5/8-inch drywall versus half-inch drywall, escaped me. The higher the number of cement bags added to the mix, the stronger it is and the better it performs when exposed to freeze-thaw cycles, as our garage would be on the north side of a southern Wisconsin house. Something about how the finishers finished the edges of the concrete also pleased Tyler.

All I knew was that it looked mighty smooth and flat when the day was done, which is all you can ask for in a good floor.

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Tuesday: Chapter 24 concludes with a few chips off the old block. Read it here.

Our story so far: We saved some money by choosing quartz remnants, rather than a whole sheet, for the miscellaneous counter tops in the 126-year-old Methodist church we were converting into a home.

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The back lot of the nearby counter top store had a few distinctive gems—strange yet beautiful hunks of stone that would require display in a small, special place. I had just the place for one of these pieces.

Earlier in the year when we visited a nearby antique shop, a mirrored coat rack caught my eye. I thought I could create my own using a piece of stone and the ornate Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Tyler had purchased at an estate sale months right after we put an offer on the church. To support the shelf, I figured we could repurpose a corbel that had been used on the former decorative beams in the sanctuary. This would be both functional and beautiful in the front entryway of the church.

As I was shopping the back lot and describing this small half-circle piece I needed, the upbeat salesman directed me to a small piece of marble. It was mostly black with white veining and splashes of cinnamon and latte—stunning. Marble is porous, which means it’s susceptible to scratches and staining and therefore not the best choice as counter top for someone who actually cooks in their kitchen. It’s also expensive by the sheet. But a little bit of remnant would be just fine for my coat rack. I stared at it, squinting my eyes to imagine it in place.

Then the salesman told me the name of it: Michelangelo.

“Yeah, I need a piece of that,” I said.

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Tomorrow: A work of art of another sort. Read about it here.

Our story so far: As we renovated the old Methodist church into our home, stone played a role in the design of our fireplace and bathrooms.

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Our custom shower needed a curb, for which we wanted quartz. A shower curb is the threshold and door frame where the glass door hangs. Normally, homeowners choose the same material for the curb as they do for the vanity, but we didn’t have that luxury with our remnants. But in the midst of the back lot stacks, I found an oddly shaped remnant of Cambria quartz in Torquay, described in Cambria’s marketing materials as “an instant classic, Torquay offers a beautiful marble-like appearance that’s both posh and continental, much like this English Riviera town itself.” The copy writer had me at “marble-like.” Is posh transitional? I decided it was. The remnant I found would yield the pieces we needed to complement the tile in the shower.

For an idea of how much money we saved by using quartz remnants, we acquired a quote for a new piece of quartz on the beverage bar, a space of roughly eighteen square feet, that came to $2,353, measured, fabricated and installed. The remnant we chose for that space came to $928. And by shopping remnants, I took advantage of an opportunity to select a stone I would never be able to afford if I were buying entire sheets of it.

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Tomorrow: Have I lost my marbles? Read about it here.

Our story so far: When it came to shopping for counter tops in the old Methodist church we were turning into our home, we had one thing in mind: Remnants.

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Shopping the stacks of stone in the counter top shop’s back lot was a little like shopping in a high-end purse retailer—everything looked good. But choosing remnants for the bathrooms vanities was straightforward. I knew I wanted light and clean so I zeroed in on anything white. Because we chose to insert makeup nooks at a slightly lower elevation than the counters in both vanities, we didn’t require long remnants which were a rare commodity in the piles of odds and ends.

For the upstairs vanity—the repurposed dressers painted in light aqua and dark gray—I choose a white quartz with gray veining called Bianco Gioia.

The master vanity had dark wood lowers and cream-colored upper cabinets, so I found two similar looking white quartz pieces sprinkled with brown called Soprano and Clarino.

The kitchen beverage bar was tricky. The cabinets were a different color than the main kitchen so we wanted something light-colored but also something on which we could prepare coffee, which is known to stain countertops. I really would have loved something with blue in it, but none were to be found. None of the suitably colored remnants I saw in the back lot of our countertop shop were big enough. We resigned ourselves to getting a half sheet of quartz, or at least acquiring a quote on one. So we shopped the sample rack inside and found a quartz called Intermezzo, a creamy cross between beige and gray with threads of black to create a crackle effect. (Intermezzo, musically, is a short connecting instrumental piece in an opera, so the quartz—between dark and light—was aptly named.) I borrowed the sample to compare it to the cabinets in our rental unit and determined it was It. When I returned it to the countertop shop, the upbeat salesman (who had seen our display kitchen when his firm disassembled the granite) confirmed our choice.

“That’s perfect!” he confirmed. And then what he said thrilled me: “And we have a couple of remnants of that.”

Apparently, I had overlooked them when I was shopping the back lot. He just knew his inventory better than I did.

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Tomorrow: We choose stone for the curb in the shower. Check it out here.

Our story so far: We rocked on as we chose stone for the fireplace and various elements of the 126-year-old Methodist Church we were turning into our house .

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When it came to shopping for countertops, we had one thing in mind: Remnants.

Sure, I dreamed of quartz countertops early on when anything I could dream was valid and we knew laminate was out of the question. No one on HGTV installed laminate countertops.

Quartz, of course, doesn’t come cheap. But we lucked out when we bought the display kitchen that offered the granite countertop for “free,” noting we would be extricating it at our own risk. Free’s good, especially for granite, so we paid a pro to remove it and store for a tiny fraction of what it would have cost to buy new. Granite is not quartz but. Free.

That left us with a long list of other countertops to procure: The beverage bar off the kitchen, the master bathroom vanity and the upstairs bathroom vanity. We also decided to use quartz for the curbs on the master shower. And I had an idea for a mirror in the front entryway that would require a tiny shelf.

Do you see dollar signs yet?

We could have chosen a single sheet of granite or quartz and used it throughout the house, but in another bit of locational luck, a custom countertop dealer had a retail shop only four blocks from the church. Driving by the establishment revealed they had what looked like a lot leftovers in their back lot. Hundreds of really lovely leftovers.

I was determined to find remnants for all our stone needs which would save us a little money and, I believed, add some interest to our home. We weren’t doing a California flip house, after all, and we didn’t want a slick, matchy-matchy look.

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Today’s headline is a Japanese proverb.

Tomorrow: Some of the deals I scored. Check them out here.

Our story so far: We chose to clad the fireplace chase in the great room of the converted Methodist church with a manufactured stone, and we found an old barn-wood beam we could use for the mantel.

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Besides sweat equity, one last piece was required to complete the fireplace.

Before we started shopping, the fireplace was all one thing in my mind: The fireplace. I didn’t understand that a fireplace consisted of a firebox, the chase, the mantel and the hearth, and other parts, too, that I couldn’t describe, let alone name. All priced separately, of course. Building a fireplace was like choosing the upgrades of an SUV; long ago when I purchased a Dodge Durango, the salesman asked me if I wanted a back seat. A back seat? Of course I wanted a back seat! Durangos come without back seats?!

Of course, we wanted a hearth for our fireplace. Historically, hearths are associated with home and family because the hearth was the main source of heat in a home and where meals were cooked. We wouldn’t have embers popping out of the fire, but without a hearth, a modern fireplace looks unfinished.

I had no idea where one purchased hearths. Oh! The fireplace store. Of course. But Tyler led us to a landscaping store located on the fringe of our little village. Modern Pinterest-worthy backyard patios feature fireplaces, so our landscaping supply firm did indeed sell hearths. And they would deliver. Not just to the front door but inside to the back of the great room. Which was important because we chose a seven-foot long solid slab of Indiana limestone. Like every other construction material, it was heavy as, well, heck.

Limestone, for those interested in recalling ninth grade geology, is formed of calcium carbonate, deposited over millions of years as marine fossils decomposed at the bottom of a shallow Midwestern sea. Because of Chicago’s proximity to Indiana, limestone was used extensively in rebuilding the Windy City after the Great Chicago Fire, which occurred two decades before our little Methodist church was constructed. The Pentagon, the Empire State Building, the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and churches, university structures and courthouses across the country feature Indiana limestone in their exteriors.

And now we had a piece of it in our living room.

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Today’s headline is a quote from Blessed Teresa Maria of the Cross, Carmelite nun and founder of many Italian schools in the early 20th century.

Tomorrow: Stone for the countertops. Read about it here.

Our story so far: One can’t build one’s home solidly, as we aspired to do in the converted Methodist church, without stone. As we executed the interior design of Church Sweet Home, stone in some form or another played an important role. First decisions to make were about the fireplace.

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Once again, Tyler did not purchase the 40-inch-wide fireplace when a 48-inch-wide one was available. This was the centerpiece of the biggest room on the house after all. After shopping the options, he ordered his enormous gas fireplace online to be delivered directly to the church. Oh, just wait. We planned to put a TV above the mantel. We wouldn’t be stingy with the size of that either.

The fireplace will be where the altar once was.

Close-up view.

In full, the chase of the fireplace would be seven feet wide. As we pondered the design, we considered putting it in the corner of the great room or along the east wall but ultimately sided with symmetry; the fireplace would be located where the altar once was, appropriate perhaps, given that the Pagans used altars to burn sacrifices. Though we toyed with shorter options, our “go big or go home” philosophy drove us to build the chase to the ceiling even though it was actually vented to the exterior chimney. Which meant we would be investing in two-hundred square feet of stone.

While shopping for rigid polyurethane foam beams, Tyler found faux stone in the same material. We ordered a sample, hoping to be as impressed as we were with the polyeurethane beams. It would be fun to heft actual stone to the top of the chase. But the faux stone was horrible. The edges weren’t as crisp as real stone would be, and one could see bubbles in the material. And unlike the beams, people would be able to walk right up to it and inspect its faux-ness. Back to the drawing board.

Faux stone. No way.

Natural stone, though, was substantially more expensive and would require the skills of a bricklayer.

Hmm.

Maybe we could afford manufactured stone, which is made of pigmented cement baked in molds. Though certainly not as light as high-density polymer, veneer stone weighs about half of its natural stone counterpart. Tyler had experience installing this type of product so while he would need help, he wouldn’t need an artisan mortar man.

Our lead drywaller suggested a stone vendor a half-hour away. One day when we needed a break from the dust and noise of the church, we paid this vendor a visit. Thank goodness for Google maps, which led us through multiple intersections into the back of an industrial park filled with nondescript buildings. The store barely had a sign, but inside we found a small showroom and an upright display of the brand of manufactured stone we had in mind. I began pulling samples off the display (samples of stone, even manufactured stone, you probably aren’t surprised to learn, are heavy), and we were impressed with how it mimicked the look of natural stone.

We selected a sedate gray ledge stone and held our breaths while the salesman did the math on our square footage.

His number sealed the deal. We found our fireplace veneer.

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Tomorrow: The mantel comes with a story. Read it here.