This was her original post about the problem:

Kitchen granite disaster...Advice needed

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My kitchen remodelers just packed up all their granite and left my house. All this was over one seam, the only seam in the kitchen. My kitchen has 4 countertops surrounding an island. They told me they needed 3 slabs of granite for the job. I picked out the slabs, but this fabricator only had 2 slabs sent to him, claiming that the third was only for an emergency. They cut everything out of these two slabs, but the only seam in the whole kitchen was between two pieces that had each been cut from different slabs. One side had to be about the darkest part of the slab and the other was the lightest. It was VERY noticeble. One of the workers just said it's "luck of the draw" and "this was unlucky." Another said even if I ordered another slab now (the next in the sequence is still available), I will sitll not like it because it's from a different slab. Isn't that just admitting THEIR guilt? What should I do?

If you decide to try again make sure you are there when they lay out the template. Make them mark the part of t he template where the seam will be and have them turn the template and place it on the stone how ever it is possible to match the colors as closely as possible. Two consecutive slabs in a lot are not usually that different. However, if there is a lighter side and a darker side to the stone you don't want to place light next to dark. It is not "luck of the draw" it is paying attention to what you are doing and caring how it turns out. That said, I am sure some with a lot of color change and movement will never match perfectly. What is your granite? Do you have photos of the countertop as installed and the slabs you picked? If not, get them if at all possible and I am sure some of the stone people here will have suggestions for you. It is obviously hard to give concrete suggestions with so little information and no photos, that may be why none of them have responded with any yet. At least they could tell you what you can reasonably expect matching wise, and if what you got was unusual.

Sue

"luck of the draw"... pfhaw.

This is what gives fabricators a bad name.

You have a 2 slab kitchen that needs to be done out of 3 slabs. To get the flow done correctly. Or it is really a 2 slabber and these guys do not pay attention.

It will cost you more, and should. But these guys are too stupid to sell it to you correctly.

It takes effort, attention and skill to make everything flow right.

It sounds like it would be a good idea for you/her to be present when they template the new piece.

I had similar problems with my granite. The Kitchen place replaced the peninsula and beside the stove piece that ran opposite ways (at their expense). When the new peninsula came it was obviously different from all the other pieces (I actually liked the new colour/pattern better), but regardless, it didn't match, and was a different thickness to boot. My kitchen place is now replacing ALL the granite at their expense. Though I was disappointed each time the granite was installed and it obviously didn't match, they have stood up to the plate and are trying to rectify everything. I guess in my case, I am lucky I wasn't buying specific slabs, but paying by the square foot. But, really, why does the consumer have to be 'on top' of every aspect of the work- sort of seems like most people would take it for granted that they would try and make things match/flow as much as possible.

It seems like this granite industry is so hit and miss. For how much it costs the consumer, ( and I have to suppose that most of us are not doing this very often), I am appalled at how many fabricators do not seem to take personal ownership or pride in a job well done.

The fabricator squeezed every last piece out of 2 slabs. They only charged me on a per square foot basis. To get it to look right, it should have been a 3 slab job.

The granite is called Omega, which must be a "made-up" name, as I can't find any reference to it on the internet. It looks like Solarius, if you've seen that.

How would you match up a piece from one slab to a piece from another slab?

We have/had a similar situation. Templating was last Friday with the fabrication to take place Monday. Unfortunately, due to other issues surrounding the cabinets (ugh), both DH had I took a huge amount of time off work last week (really bad timing for both of us), and there was absolutely no WAY we were going to be able to take time on Monday to be at fabrication.

I will say that we had originally planned on being there. Cabinet guys are running really, really behind resulting in granite guy templating 3 days late. On the bright side, he WAS able to install on schedule so that everything else didn't fall behind.

Okay, so it went in yesterday. There were unfortunately more seams than I wanted, mostly because of the length of our counter runs and the size of the slabs. All but one seam were beautiful. That one seam, however, was in a rather prominent place. In addition, it was literally like night and day on either side of the seam. When the templater was here, I did specifically speak about what I wanted in terms of continuity. Well, uh, so yesterday I had one granite running all the way through the kitchen except for one very small 2-foot section on the end of a counter run. It didn't just look like it came from a different slab - it looked like it was a totally different granite! We're dealing with Uba Tuba, which is usually very consistent, but these two slabs were vastly different. So, I commented to the installer about it yesterday. He agreed with me and said he and the rest of the installers had been talking about it and what to do.

Well, lo and behold, before I even had a chance to call GC this morning, granite guys were in my kitchen at 8:15 a.m. pulling the odd-colored piece of granite out. His comment: "This is totally unacceptable."

So, I don't have a new piece in yet, maybe later this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning.

So, this is my lengthy way of saying that it can and should be fixed! I'm just so grateful that this crew knew it and there was no argument whatsoever from them. Made my day.

Waves to Toledo, glad you were able to sign up!

Toledo,

Can you take pictures of your counter and post them? Go to photobucket or some other free photo hosting site and open an account, if you don't have one already.

Once you download the pics there, you just copy the html code photobucket provides, and you can insert the pics into the text of your message here.

I would take several and at as high a resolution as possible, some with flash, some without, and hopefully you have a color printer and take those pics to granite yard and try and figure out how best to position replacement piece.

Sorry, you have to go through this, if they are charging you for the new slab, what are they going to do with your old piece? Could you use it somewhere else?

Hi Everyone My name is viviana and I in addition to your templating you will also need to seal your granite. I just wanted to share an incrediable sealing process that allows for your Granite to be permanently sealed, it called granite shield protection I love it and when granite is sealed permanently by Granite Shield its permanently sealed, you never have to seal it again. Granite Shield backs it up with a lifetime warranty, not a limited warranty limiting you to use special cleaners and follow special maintenance procedures like other companies. You can use Windex, Clorox spray cleaners, or simply clean it with warm water which I love because I have a three year old and a two year old.

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