your pictures didnt arrive (yet) but meanwhile, google 'coastal grey caesarstone' and see if the pictures IN GENERAL look like your counters. without the opportunity to give approval of your slab it would seem to me that your finished counter should resemble other images of the product you selected. if yours looks nothing like those images you have reason to expect an answer from the installer/contractor whomever.

https://www.google.com/search?q=coastal+grey+caesarstone&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=653&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiO7-eBgOTJAhVI1h4KHVb3CtkQsAQIIg#imgrc=_

Can you see the pics now? I looked at your link and I see nothing that would indicate this kind of veining.

ok i've seen the pictures. really they look mostly like whats at the caesarstone website. i'm sorry you are disappointed, and its frustrating working from a sample, but i can't see anyone would change them for free. while you didnt have the option to clear the slab, 'due diligence' could have been expected to look at more pictures at caesarstone's website.

btw for what its worth, your counters are very handsome. i understand its not what you expected but i don't think it looks 'bad' at all.

Really, you don't see that veining on the island that looks like a black skinny octopus? I don't see anything like that in any of the images you linked me to.

you are correct i do not see something that striking at the website. i see black veining but not that organized. my advice: color print out photos from caesarstone.com and along with your sample and photos of your counter, have a conversation with whomever will come over, and email photos and links if they won't.

Thank you. I have sent an email and included all of these photos, but the color printout is a good call.

I hate to be a party pooper but the vein is shown here in their product.
Can't trust small samples. Pictures are misleading. The web can bring some clarity but until you see a slab first hand, you don't know what you're getting.

I certainly recognize that there would be some veining (like I could certainly live with the middle pic of the three) in my place - but take a good look especially of the island with the tentacle-looking very pronounced veining. It's not granite or marble where massive variations are more to be expected; ever Caesarstone pic I've seen has a lot more uniformity to it so this level of variation was not expected. I truly hate it and am creeped out by that creature looking thing on my island.

Unlike granite or marble, previewing or selecting quartz slabs isn't typical in the industry. That's because the material is manmade with a standard, repeating pattern. All slabs of a certain pattern will look the same which eliminates the need for previewing.

no, quartz doesnt have repeating patterns.

All lines of quartz have uniform patterns at the very minimum. But that's not really the big point--that they are manmade--without natural imperfections which you want to identify in granite and marble slabs before you agree to buy them.

OK, so then Dawn are you saying I have a case here? Because I never ever would have chosen this slab.

Quartz has a completely random pattern(that is usually quite uniform). So it's not hard to imagine something could go wrong in the color application process(which I know nothing of). Based on pictures this dark veining is part of the design but here it looks like too much of the pigment was added. Looks like relaxed quality control to me.

I'm saying it's not typical for builders to preview quartz slabs. I imagine that half (or even less) of homeowners who select quartz don't ask to see the exact slabs ordered for their project after they've chosen the product they want.
The major decision time for quartz is when you are selecting the product you want and again before the countertops are glued down by the installers.
Unless you are at one of the major manufacturers' showrooms, it's rare for fabricators to have full slabs of many quartz products. Most fabricators will have, at most, their most popular quartz products on hand.
By and large, what happens is that you select your quartz and then your slabs are ordered. The fabricator will want your kitchen design to order the correct size of slabs to make sure that seams won't hit in the wrong spots. And some products offer superslabs which are really large. All of these ordering decisions are made after you choose your quartz product.
Once your slabs arrived at your fabricator, I imagine you could have viewed them. But it's just not something that the builder would have done. What you order is what you get unless it is defective for whatever reason. And even if he saw the slabs, how would the builder know that the slabs potentially didn't match the samples? Or even harder, how would the builder know that the slabs didn't meet your expectations?
It's almost an impossible thing for your builder to have controlled.
The best chance you have for correcting this is with no cost to you is to show the fabricator (source of your quartz) that the slabs do not match the samples they provided.

It's normal to have quite a variation when dealing with the man made stones with movement. You have normal. It's not defective. You are not going to get them to replace normal tops without paying for the changeout.

I am so frustrated. Shouldn't the design center have told me what to expect? People who are designers on here, what if I were your client? Would you just try to convince me that it's fine and normal and I will get used to the several thousand dollar eyesore in the center of my new kitchen??? I am new to all of this but damn it this is not the way I wanted to learn. I am really disillusioned (and $pent) by this process. :(

That octopus arm is clearly a result of a color spraying machine(or whatever) going on for too long and making an unfortunate turn in the process. They would never put this variation in an ad which effectively makes it defective.

I don't why so many people are defending this manufactures shoddy quality control. The quartz is supposed to be mostly uniform. That's why you buy it for!

Being a realist though I think you ultimately have to accept this as it's such a minor defect. To me your counters still look attractive(the middle picture looks completely normal to me)

I understand your frustration. BUT. Even with a man made selection, a trip to view your actual slabs well before scheduled template date is a very wise investment of time. The builder or contractor, and even the supplier of the slabs aren't bound to anything more than a major defect. Other variations are not up to them and most are judgement calls of things like this veining cluster. Folks.........go visit your slabs no matter what they are. Having said that, I think your tops look lovely and you will find the "flaw" absorbed into an equally lovely kitchen.....that's truth.: )

Stone slabs that have movement like that aren't ''sprayed''. It's done like marble cake, with different color ''batters'' getting poured out so that you get random designs and random color mixes in the stone, just like Mother Nature creates stones with lots of movement. It's fractal imaging, right there in your kitchen, and it's beautiful.

thats why they call it 'marble cake'.

seriously, if anyone thinks that the expensive quartzes (is that a word?) on the market are made from a preprinted pattern like laminates, untrue. i expect the goop is measured out per slab so much this color so much that, but then the fun begins.

Personally I think your counters are lovely with the veining. I also tho k that once you move into your kitchen and have accessories, small
appliances, etc on the counter top you won't notice any more.

I work first hand with a lot of customers, in the showroom or on the job. EVERY product, whether man made or nature made, needs to be viewed by the customer for approval.
Natural stone can be expected to have variation and movement. No 2 pcs are identical.
Man made products have batches, runs, dyelots etc. They make so much of one product before moving to another product. The next time they manufacturer the original product you have slightly different hues, veins and movement in the product. You CAN NOT trust a sample for an exact look.

Mount a removable (for cleaning purposes) stainless steel (or color of your choice)

cutting board over the spot and be done with it.

In my opinion yours has heavier black veining (and they're also not evenly "spread") than any of the full scale photos I've seen for Coastal Grey, but I also think that they are really pretty and nobody except you will notice, and even you won't notice it after a while. There have been times that I've been deathly unhappy about certain things, but without fail nobody else notices and I grow used to it and in the end I've never not loved any of the kitchens I designed. (Although now that I look back at some of the kitchens I've done in the 90s I marvel that I ever thought the materials were pretty, but at the time I was beyond chuffed, lol.)