The call came in late on Thursday afternoon; I was headed back to Chicago from Madison, Wis. I was doing solid surface repairs for a couple of major manufactures, when Becky, our operations manager, received a call from Kitchen Crashers, a television show that specializes in gutting your entire kitchen and handing you a new one in just four days.  The question they had was did I want to do a countertop for one of their up and coming episodes. The catch…the show was being recorded the following week, and it was with a material I had never heard of before. AND since I had never heard of it, I had no idea how to fabricate this new material. 

So I got all the information I could get from Becky and called the manufacturer, Shetka Stone. Now some of you may actually have heard of this product, but needless to say, I had not. So with several hours of drive time ahead of me I spent it on the phone with anybody and everybody from Shetka Stone getting an education on how to fabricate and install this product. BIG hats off to John Sarbacker from Shetka Stone; he is the fabrication manager at Shetka Stone, located in Minnesota. Without him, the show would not have been able to go on, as they say. 

John from Shetka stone filled in all the blanks about his product and the tricks for fabricating the materials. Now I just had to make a decision to commit to Kitchen Crashers for this episode. It did not take long for me to call back Kitchen Crashers and commit to doing the counters for the episode. 

Some of you by now have raced over to Shetka Stones website to check out what materials they have that someone with 20-years experience fabricating and installing counters has never seen or touched before. 

One of my goals in life is to try and learn something new everyday. Believe me, I fall short of this on many days, but on the days when I succeed I am totally blown away. The material we were using for this episode was made out of 70 percent recycled currency, that’s right MONEY. Shetka Stone purchases shredded currency from the Federal Reserve and turns it into a counter top material! I was floored when the product arrived at our shop, I was about to turn millions of dollars into a counter for a television show. 

Now I am a huge fan of going green, but this might just be the top dog on the going green movement. All of Shetka Stones products are made from 100 percent post consumer and post industrial stuff. That means you and I have probably touched it in some way. And to turn up the green thought process even further, if you ever get tired of you Shetka Stone product you can send it back to them and they will recycle it and incorporate it back into a product. 

So needless to say, just when I thought I had seen it all…I strongly encourage you to go visit the Shetka Stone web site at www.shetkastone.com.  I really love learning about some new product that I had not idea about; it re-sparks the creative side of me to think about what else can we use this product for? It also makes me look for other products that I had no idea existed, and the countertop adventure just keeps getting better and better… So just when I thought I had seen it all…what’s next…