WONDERING ROCKHOUND: Accretionary Wedge #33- geologic Feng Shui

John at Geological Musings in the Taconic Mountains.

Put out this call:

Open Call for Accretionary Wedge #33 - Geologic Feng Shui?

I've always wondered how crazy other geologists have gone with incorporating geology into their homes, offices, gardens, etc. I know we all have a mini rock collection on the shelf, or a rock holding open a door but I'm thinking bigger. For example, I haven't done it yet but when I build the next house, all the window sills will be made out of slate. Share your stories, descriptions, photos of your current or past geology-related embellishments and I'll summarize. So here.

The deadline for this is April 17th, I'll summarize on the 18th. Please post your contributions in the comment section, thanks!
Cross posted from Geological Musings in the Taconic Mountains.

Here's my AW-33.
I have two things that I have done to have geology in my home.
The first was with some coffee table tops. When my son was about two he wanted to show me how strong he was. He picked up the top to one of the coffee tables. I wasn't quick enough to catch him before he had dropped it on the other one. Both tops were shattered to pieces and ruined. We had inherited the furniture and they had sentimental value for us. We didn't want to get rid of them so the solution was to get new tops. I went to a monument place and found some scrap verde granite to made into the tops. I love them because I knew they were not verde green granite but really serpentine. I got both tops made to fit for only 75 dollars since I found the material in the scrap pile, and the pieces were so small (18" x18").

Serpentine coffee table top

In the back ground you can see the other thing I have done which was to put in a slate floor for one of my rooms. There is a story behind this slate too. We lived in another house. We were about to remodel a porch. We were still in the designing phase when a client of my husband offered him the slate. It was left over from a construction project that just had been completed and they just wanted to get it off the site. He knew I would be thrilled to death to get it and said yes to it if there was enough for our spot. He thought it would make a perfect porch floor. He hurried home and measured it. There was enough to do the porch and so we bought it. They practically gave it to us, because they just wanted it gone.
We were about to put a lot of money into that house, and we decided we better make sure this was the house we wanted to be in for the next 50 years. A couple of weeks later when we were driving down the street my husband had always dreamed about living on when we saw a house for sale by owner on the bayou. We asked to see it and it was everything we dreamed about. It was old and needed a lot of work which was great for us because we were able to negotiate them down to a price we could afford.
We got the house but then had the problem of what to do with the slate we had. We measured the rooms and there was only one room where it would fit and look good in. It was the room we were going to use as the dining room.
We hired an installer and he realized that there wasn't going to be enough to install since some of the slate had been damage in all of the shipping around of it. He knew the quarry from which it came from and ordered some more. When the new stuff arrived, it was a lot smoother and greener than the other stuff. I had the delima of where to put it. Should I have it all together, or should I have the new pieces randomly place through out the floor. Should I put it along the edges of the room where furniture may cover it? I chose to keep it together in the center of the room since I figured the dining room table would be over it. I liked the first stuff more since there was so much more texture and interesting features to it. I wanted to see as much of that as possible. At the time we were just going to have extra chairs along the wall so I thought the new stuff would be more noticeable there.
Here are a couple more pictures of the slate floor.

Slate floor where you can see the two tones in the slate.

From a distance the two tones are not that noticeable. They stand out more when the floor is wet, as in these two pictures. I seem to be the only one that is aware of the differences. Can you figure out where the six new pieces are? (in the first picture the right chair leg is on one of the new pieces.)

The room stayed the dinning room for a couple of years, but when I started to work out of the house I decided I needed an office a whole lot more than I did a dining room. The room was converted over to the office/computer room. It is now the one of the rooms I spend most of my time. I love being able to muse upon my slate floor and the view I have of the back yard from my desk.
Here's a spring view of the backyard.