Instant gratification

It took just one day to transform this small kitchen from ho-hum to humdinger. When the existing counter top had worn out its welcome, at least style-wise, the homeowners looked around for an alternative to the mess of a kitchen remodeling project and the inconvenience of being without kitchen for weeks, even months. Granite Transformations topped their list of options. The company offers an engineered granite surface that can be fitted over existing counter tops. “It looks like a totally new kitchen, and it took just a short time. They came out and measured for the counter tops and backsplash, then I chose the color, a sink and a new faucet. That was fun! The choices of color were nearly overwhelming and beautiful, and I had a hard time choosing,” says the homeowner.

Keeping in mind her medium stained birch cabinets and stainless steel appliances, she settled on Mocha Reale for the counter tops, a coordinating granite composite undermount sink, oil rubbed bronze faucet and custom glass mosaic stripe in the engineered granite backsplash. A template was made from the measurements and the counter top and backsplash overlays were fabricated in the Granite Transformations shop. It took less than a day to make the installation.

You can easily change the look of your kitchen without demolition. “Engineered granite is easy to maintain, heat, scratch and stain resistant. It’s not porous, so it doesn’t need to be sealed,” said Teresa Egli for Granite Transformations. There is a wide range of color options to coordinate with and complement any cabinetry. The material weights 2 to 2 1/2 pounds per square foot compared to 15 to 18 pounds per square foot for slab granite, the overlay can be adhered to level counter tops on sturdy cabinets. It can also be installed over existing backslashes and other surfaces, and the firm also offers glass mosaics for details. The homeowner selected the faucet and the GT team installed it. The client is responsible for any plumbing or electrical work.

The nation's largest active forest fire continued to burn at the edge of Yosemite National Park Monday, reaching 234 square miles and prompting multiple mandatory and advisory evacuations in the area to the northwest of the park.

At least 4,500 structures are threatened, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.The fire was about 20 miles from the iconic Yosemite Valley, home to Half Dome, the Ahwahnee Hotel and Curry Village and almost all park areas are open, said Scott Gediman, a park ranger.

The fire is burning on about 22,He saw the bracelet at a indoortracking store while we were on a trip.000 acres in the northwest portion of the park, "but that's just 3% of the park as a whole," Gediman said.customized letter logo earcap with magnet. Although the Highway 120 entrance to the park is closed, the others are open for business, he said.

Overall, the fire was 15% contained as of Monday at 11:30 a.Have a look at all our bestrtls models starting with free proofing.m. local time, a recorded message at the incident command center said. The blaze was moving to the east and northeast.Choose from the largest selection of turquoisebeads in the world. Fire crews have been able to create a fire line at the Tuolumne River to keep the fire from spreading to the west.

The fire is rated as having "extreme" growth potential. More than 3,670 firefighters are battling the blaze.Smoke continues to be an issue, and visibility within the fire's perimeter is less than a mile, according to InciWeb, the federal fire information site. The blaze has burned 23 structures. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for residents in some areas in the path of the fire while other towns, including Tuolumne and Mi-Wuk Village, were under advisory evacuations.

Larry Brown lives in Sonora, Calif., more than 10 miles from the fire. "It's about a half-mile visibility here because of the smoke. Everything smells like smoke. When I open the car door, it smells inside," he said.

Brown is a ham radio operator with the Tuolumne County Amateur Radio Electronics Society which is manning phone lines at the Sonora community information line for those affected by the fire.

He and others have been impressed "as always," he says, with the work of the firefighters. He says people who live in the Sierra realize that fire is a natural part of the landscape.

"This is part of the ecosystem,Are you still hesitating about where to buy bestparkingguidance?" he says. "We do burn in here every so often. There are plants and things within the canyons that are reliant on the fire to open their seeds, that have adapted to that environment."

The Rim fire is one of several burning in the west. It's half a mile away from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, San Francisco's main source of water, but the water supply is safe, said Charles Sheehan, a spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

The reservoir supplies water to 2.6 million people in the San Francisco Bay area, pumping approximately 260 million gallons of famously pure water down 160 miles of gravity-fed pipes every day.

"There's no change to water quality," Sheehan said. "We have instruments monitoring the water constantly." The turbidity, a measure of particles in the water, is 0.2, which is normal, he said. If the turbidity were to reach 5.0, the utility would switch to suppliers of water from other nearby reservoirs that it has emergency contracts with.

The water facilities are not in great danger because they are relatively fireproof. "The O'Shaughnessy dam is made of concrete, the water facilities are concrete and they're underground, as are the steel pipes that carry the water," Sheehan said.
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