already ahead

I’ve been thinking a lot about surplus. Not in the abstract. In a real way: materials, space, and what it means when you think there won’t be enough of something you need.

For the upstairs bathrooms, I knew I wanted travertine but I had fallen for a very specific cut: beige at the base, with thick taupe and caramel veining that ran across. I had this idea of wrapping both bathrooms in the same stone so they would feel connected, part of one continuous language in the house.

The more I looked, the more I wasn’t sure I would find what I wanted in the quantity I needed. I found myself thinking in terms of limitation. Not enough slabs. Not the right tone. Not the right consistency.

After making calls to a few stone warehouses, I mentioned it to the vendor I work with on fabrication, the same contact who helped me install the brown onyx in the kitchen. She told me to come by her office before I started driving out to slab yards and chasing down inventory. One stop before going down that list.

When I got there, she had something already pulled aside. A travertine from a commercial project she had just completed in meatpacking. A surplus. Leftover from a job where the client had over ordered. She had been sitting on it, figuring out where it might go next. The exact stone from the exact restaurant that I had saved on my inspiration board months earlier. Not similar. Not adjacent. The same. Beige base. Taupe movement. Caramel veining that shifts depending on the light.

What I had been worried I would not find enough of, she had more than enough of, sitting quietly and waiting.

It made me think about how often we move through decisions assuming a baseline of scarcity. That there will not be enough options. Enough material. Enough time. Enough alignment. But sometimes what you are looking for is already in motion somewhere else, waiting for you to arrive at the right moment.

I left with the stone chosen and a reminder. Not everything needs to be on the list. Some times (most times), the universe is already ahead of you.

More soon,

L