Question – I am thinking about purchasing granite countertops for our kitchen and bathrooms, but I have been reading some horror stories about granite and radon. Now I read your web site, and you say not to be concerned. How can I be sure that the granite I’m chosing doesn’t emit radon? I am honestly very worried after reading about it online, but then you say it’s not true at all.

My Answer – Thanks for the question. The real issue is not whether granite emits radon. It does. Some types emit more than others. The question is whether this is a problem or not. The amount of radon emitted by granite is very small compared to the radon that is emitted by the earth beneath your house. Just look at the size difference. Does the amount of stone in your countertops come close tot eh amount of stone in the ground beneath your house? It’s not even close.

Radon seeps from the ground and it can become a problem when it gets trapped by your house. Your house acts like a hat, preventing the radon from rising up into the atmosphere. If a house has a radon problem, the cure is to ventilate the space beneath the basement slab or the crawlspace with a small fan, thus “untrapping” it. It does not take much air movement to rid the house of radon. When houses have radon problems, it’s because the enclosed crawlspace or basement trap it and don’t let it dissipate. Your kitchen is certainly not an enclosed space. It would be very hard for radon to build up in there to harmful levels. The fact that a kitchen is open to other rooms, doors open and close, exhaust fans run, etc. means that any radon is vented out and never can build up to a level even close to being harmful.

The bottom line is this. For your granite countertops to present a radon health issue, you would need much more granite than a typical kitchen would have, it would have to be a high emitting granite, you would need to keep the kitchen tightly sealed for long periods of time, and you would have to live in there, sleeping on the countertop, for years before this would be a real health issue.

The detractors of granite are the producers of other countertop materials. Every few years they trot out their videos showing the radon meter indicating elevated radon on the surface of the granite. But they unfairly omit the full facts, leaving the viewer with the impression that granite is dangerous. You never see them give radon readings elsewhere in the rooms. They put the meters right on the granite. It makes me wonder how people have lived in stone houses for so many years. No one worries about stone floors or fireplaces. This issue is simply a competitor taking unfair pot shots at a rival based on partial information that plays on people’s fears.

I hope that explains it for you. But if you are stilled worried, there are other countertop materials to choose from. Granite is very nice and, in reality, is no heath problem. But worry is unhealthy. So choose the material that does not worry you.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

 Joyce L. asked:

Thank you for the wonderful site! I am about to “redo” my kitchen. We will be installing light coloured tiles in the kitchen and have new oak floors in the rest of the house. The cabinets are of course the original goldish coloured, raised panel oak cabinets from the 80′s. The problem is that the finish on some of the cabinets almost looks new while other cabinet doors, especially those around the sink and stove area, are in dire need of refinishing. I’m afraid that if I try to refinish some of the cabinets they will not match the existing 30 year old wood/stain of the others. And refinishing all of the cabinets seems like too daunting a task. I’m almost afraid to ask this question but…I have heard that a grain filler can be applied to all the cabinets and then they could be …primed and painted (maybe white, I’m thinking country blue). There seems to be alot of controversy over painting wood, especially oak due to the pores. I would appreciate your advice. 

Joyce – I so glad you like the site. Thank you for the compliment.

I’m not familiar with grain filler, but it sounds like a risky way to go. I would imagine it might be hard to control the outcome and potentially require a lot of sanding. You are correct that painting oak is not necessarily a great thing to do, since the “pores”, or open portions of the grain will show through strongly. But, believe it or not, there are actually new cabinets sold that are exactly that, painted oak. The texture of the oak is prominent and it’s part of the desired “look.” I personally do not like that look. But that is a matter of taste and you might feel differently. That’s why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors. We don’t all like the same thing.

A big problem with painting cabinets in a kitchen is that the painted surface will not be as durable as if it were painted in a cabinet shop or factory. The manufacturers of the better cabinets don’t actually use a paint. They use a conversion varnish which cures to a much tougher finish than regular paint. You can wipe it down many, many times with no damage. Regular paint will wear through on your most often used cabinets.

I have two suggestions for you. One is to take the doors and drawer fronts off and take them to a cabinet shop and have them paint them there using conversion varnish. You could then paint the cabinet frames with paint of the same color without removing them from the wall. That’s the part of the cabinet that gets the least wear, so regular paint should work just fine.

The second suggestion would be good if you really would prefer the natural wood look and don’t care to paint over the oak. You can not just refinish teh worn doors. They will look too different from the originals since the finish on the originals has probably yellowed over the years. You need to do all of them.

Look at a product called Formby’s Paint & Poly Remover, or similar polyurethane removers. These products will easily strip away the polyurethane finish without too much effort. There is no need to sand through the original finish. This product dissolves it and you simply scrape it off or wipe it off with steel wool. It’s available in an aeresol to help strip the areas with curves, grooves, or tight corners that might be hard to get into with a brush. Next, you clean the surface with a Poly & Paint Remover Wash to remove any residue of finish. Once that is done, you can apply a new polyurethane finish and the cabinets should look like new. If you have any rough spots, you may need to do a bit of light sanding.

If you do the refinishing yourself, take the doors and drawer fronts off. That way you can spread them out in the garage and work more comfortably than if you tried working on them in place. You might even try refinishing the doors and drawer fronts only and see if you really need to do the cabinet frames or not. If you have full-overlay, Euro-style cabinets, not much of it will show when the doors are closed. You may have to do any exposed cabinet sides, though.

I hope this helps. Good luck and let me know how it turns out.

I always look forward to answering questions. Please send them along as a comment here or drop me a note at info@designingyourperfecthouse.com.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

It can cost a lot of money to sell a house and move. Realtor fees and moving expenses can cost as much as a total kitchen makeover. So why not save the real estate commissions and moving expenses which, once spent, are gone and can never be recovered. Instead, put the money into something you can use and enjoy, something tangible like a great new kitchen or a luxurious master bathroom.

Many people were saving money in their retirement accounts to use to build or buy their home retirement. Their current homes were good for raising children, but now that the children are gone, the upstairs master bedroom and other accessibility considerations make the house inappropriate for aging occupants. But retirement accounts have taken big hits. That loss of their assets combined with the decline in value of their current house has many people finding themselves unable to afford the retirement house they dreamed of. So instead of retiring to the house of their dreams, more and more people are remodeling their current houses to be the kind of house that works for them.

This can be done by adding a ground floor master bedroom suite to permit single level living, altering and enhancing master baths to allow handicapped access and added convenience, making alterations to remove other steps within the house or at the doors, and updating the house to include the conveniences and amenities people now want and need. Formal dining rooms can be converted into home offices or libraries and studies. Screened porches, patios, and outdoor kitchens can be added to change a home from a growing family type of house to a leisure living home. Even face-lift makeovers to change the appearance of the house and re-landscaping to reduce yard maintenance can be done.

There are other intangible benefits to remodeling beyond the financial and lifestyle benefits. Staying in the neighborhood where your doctors, banks, favorite stores, churches, clubs, and friends are can make staying put a lot more gratifying than pulling up stakes and relocating. If you don’t think your present house is good for your golden years, think again. You might have the nucleus of a wonderful leisure living house right beneath your feet.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

And just what’s so appealing about a Sub Zero? Obviously it is a very good product. They have great features such as two individual compressors, one for the freezer side and one for the refrigerator side. Many of their super deluxe models have specialty features you probably didn’t even know you needed until they told you. But I think the single most valuable feature of a Sub Zero is the fact that it is “cabinet depth.” This means the front of the refrigerator sits even with the face of the lower cabinets and front edge of the countertop. It doesn’t stick out several inches like standard refrigerators and look like a big bulky box in the kitchen. With a cabinet panel installed on the doors of the Sub Zero, the bulkiest object in the kitchen, the refrigerator, can take a less intrusive position in your kitchen and give the entire kitchen a more unitized and cleaner look.

Sub Zero isn’t the only manufacturer of cabinet depth refrigerators. GE Monogram, Liebherr, LG, and a few other manufacturers now offer cabinet depth refrigerators. However, cabinet depth refrigerators are usually fairly expensive and many people feel they lack enough depth inside to be as useful to them as they might prefer.

Is there another solution? Fortunately there is. If the layout of the kitchen and the rooms the kitchen adjoins will allow it, a recess can be created in the wall behind the refrigerator to allow a standard depth refrigerator to be pushed back further than normal. A six inch deep recess in the wall (only behind the refrigerator and not behind the other cabinets) should allow you to tuck the unit back and keep the refrigerator door approximately even with the base cabinets. Choose a refrigerator that allows you to put cabinet panels on the front and install vertical cabinet panels on each side of the space for the refrigerator to create an alcove for the refrigerator. When you slide the fridge into place, it will be nearly identical in appearance to the expensive cabinet depth variety. You can get the good look of a built in while keeping the interior depth of a standard refrigerator and save a few thousand dollars in the process.

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    Ordinary refrigerators are six or eight inches deeper than the lower cabinets and countertop causing them to stick out into the room, thus ruining the lines of the kitchen design and just plain getting in the way. A built-in type unit will sit back more, with its doors flush with the other cabinets so they become less obtrusive. Each manufacturer offers several models that have doors you can cover with panels that match your other cabinetry. This is what you see in showplace kitchens.

    But there is one little potential pitfall you need to be aware of. The refrigerator manufacturers offer only a limited selection of handles for the doors. Chances are, the style and the finish of these door handles will not match or be compatible with your cabinet door handles. You might not like that look. 

   The solution is not as simple as merely putting the same cabinet door handles on the refrigerator and freezer as you have on the other cabinets. I’ve seen this done and it ends up looking rather silly. Cabinet door handles are much too small to look like the right thing to be pulling hard on to open the large doors of a refrigerator or freezer.  

    Here’s what you need to do. Make sure your cabinet handle selection has compatible, but larger, handles for your paneled refrigerator front before you finalize your cabinet door hardware choice. These are more and more available. I guess the hardware manufacturers are recognizing the problem.

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    I often discuss this issue with my clients. My feeling is that there needs to be some color distinction between the flooring and the cabinetry so that the cabinets don’t look like the floor is simply wrapping itself up the walls. After all, one is the floor and the other is essentially furniture and they should express themselves differently. I would suggest that there is no rule about which wood is the lighter or the darker.

    But I would also say that you need to consider the grain of both woods. This characteristic of the wood is often overlooked. If your flooring has a busy or strong grain, like oak, hickory, or even an antique pine, a smoother grained wood, like cherry or clear alder would be best for the cabinets. This will keep you from being overwhelmed with too much visual activity in the wood grain. I also think that the flooring is the place for the strong grained wood and not the cabinets.

    In my book, Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect, I discuss this very issue. Here’s a photo of a kitchen where I used cumaru teak for the flooring, with a fairly strong grain, and quarter-sawn oak for the cabinetry. Oak is normally a pronounced grain when plain sawn, but when rift or quarter sawn, the grain is smoother and much more refined. The combination worked out very nicely.

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    I have a client who recently moved in to her new home. While chatting with her today, one of the items she mentioned as being particularly thoughtful in the design were the shelves in her food pantry. I was happy to hear her other comments about the livability of the entire design of the house, but I was struck that even a small item like pantry shelves held a high value in how the house felt and the overall comfort of living in it.

    Her point was that the decision we made to make the pantry shelves shallow was ideal. The distance from the front edge to the back edge is only about twelve inches. Because cans and boxes of food are not very big, had we made the shelves deeper, small items would eventually get pushed to the back of the shelves and become hidden behind other items. Shallow shelves let the cans and boxes show as if “on display” and make it much easier to find what you want. A few deeper shelves are also a good idea since you will also be storing larger items, such as six packs of soda and that giant bag of chips for watching the ball game. But most of the shelves should be shallow to give you the most benefit.

    My client’s comment points out that the little things add up to be large in importance when you are Designing Your Perfect House.

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    It seems that this report surfaces every ten years, or so. It has been promoted by the makers of competing countertop materials, like quartz products like Cambria or Silestone and solid surfaces like Corian. You can read and listen to the reports for yourself, but it seems to me that this is a Chicken Little issue that grabs the media’s attention and the stone countertop industry then has to spend lots of time and money de-bunking it.

    Personally, I think that the threat presented by radon, in general, is way over-blown. I have never seen a positive, scientific, statistical link between radon levels and actual cases of lung cancer. All I’ve seen is pure speculation and panic prospering propaganda. The literature tells you all of the risks and dangers radon poses without actually showing that any of these dangerous consequences have ever occurred. None of the literature even acknowledges the effects simple ventilation has on dispersing the gas. Radon occurs naturally in the soil and rocks and it comes into a house through the ground. It can not be stopped. Ventilation is the remedy for houses that contain too much radon. The amount of radon that a stone countertop “might” emit is a small fraction of what occurs naturally and opening a door to the kitchen will remove any accumulated radon gas.

    I think this is another example of irresponsible journalism, if you can call it journalism at all.

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    I like to think of the kitchen not so much in terms of work triangles, but in terms of what the usual pieces look like and how much space they take up. There are the appliances, the countertops, the cabinets, etc. But each of the ”pieces” has unique characteristics. Two of the appliances, the refrigerator and the wall ovens, are what I call the “Big Boxes.” Sometimes a freezer might be included in this category, too.

    I call them the Big Boxes because they are taller than the countertop and just as deep or deeper than the countertop. Typical upper cabinets are 12″ deep, but even a refrigerator, like a Sub Zero, is 24″ deep. Wall ovens are also 24″ deep. Because of this bulky depth and their height of six feet or more, the Big Boxes interrupt any flow or continuity in the work area. Any work surfaces that are located on the opposite side of the big boxes from the primary work area will feel like thay are separated from the kitchen. So I like to lay out kitchens with the Big Boxes on the ends of the countertop and cabinet arrangements, making them sort of like bookends tot he entire layout.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Bill Hirsch

www.designingyourperfecthouse.com

www.williamhirsch.com