Okay I was wondering if your quote included fabrication and installation. If it is just the slab price it is steep. I just got a bathroom remodeled and quotes I received for bath fixtures and glass enclosure before December 2020 weren’t good anymore because they said there has been a 20% price increase since Jan 2021. I’m not sure if that’s the case with CG but shouldn’t have doubled in any case.

I just had CG installed a few weeks ago, paid $ 2500, fabrication and installation included.

inge0808 - thank you for the info. I have no idea why my GC’s fabricator is quoting $3200 for just the product. Definitely going to be a conversation. This is so disappointing after I’ve spent all this time researching quartz and finally deciding on one just to find the price is crazy.

@HU-871087712 Yes, it's certain light that shows the marking. If you look at the counter straight on you can't see it. My fabricator also thinks it's very strange, he sees it and doesn't understand.

@Dan Cesario The marks aren't knife cuts, it's scuffing and scratches. I could see it happening if I put my Le Creuset or something overly heavy on the counter and dragging it across the counter, but again, we're super careful and I can't imagine the surface is that delicate. I wondered if it's just more obvious bc it's white.

send a picture if you can!

@Dan Cesario I finally got one. As I said you can't see these scratches easily, you have to look a certain way when the light hits. If you look from above, there are no scratches, these aren't deep at all.

Definitely looks like knife marks or something being dragged with a sharp bottom . It’s bound to happen with normal use over time . Is your countertop polished or Honed?

@Dan Cesario It's polished. This is an area where no cutting happens. I guess something could be on the bottom of a plate and be dragged then cause the scratching. I think I'm just very surprised I'm seeing this bc of how hard the surface is and it's not like I'm dragging a cast iron pot across the surface. The counter is only 7-8mos old. My stone guy came out and looked at it and was very surprised as well. I need to go look at some friends' counters and compare the wear and tear. There's nothing that can be done, I surely wouldn't have it replaced...but I can't imagine how it will look in 5 years.

@Ashley Lathrop @jlrogers @Melanie Marie

What's your slab thickness?

1/2 inch

Thanks @jlrogers !

They come standard. But I made my island edge taller so it gives the look that it’s thicker. But it’s all the same thickness.

Hi all--

Just providing some updated pricing in the event this is helpful for others. I'm in the middle of getting my Silestone Calacatta Gold installed now. I purchased my material November 2021 in SoCal.

For 52"x108" prefabs, I paid $1,400 each; effectively $36 per sqft.

I bought 6 pieces (do you call them "slabs" if they're prefabs?), which is 234 total sqft, since I'm doing two waterfalls and running it all the way to the ceiling in a rather large kitchen.

Open to any advices from those who have CG, and would love to know how everyones' counters are holding up so I know what to expect down the road. I already know some of these seams are going to drive me nuts since I've got such a large kitchen, but I'm sure I'll get over it in time.

That seems like a reasonable price. I think I was quoted around the same price for prefab. But I went with jumbo slabs. I did run the slab all the way up to the ceiling around my window, rest of the wall was covered with cabinets. I love the way it looks, very clean and crisp.

I’ve had mine for a little over a year, no complaints so far. It has endured some light scratches but nothing too noticeable. Just normal wear. They say quartz doesn’t stain but it does and I believe it’ll be permanent if left too long. So I clean up any spills immediately. Sometimes I have to use a little soap and water to get stains out and they’ve worked so far. Good luck with your installation.

Everything is holding up great! Any “stains” always come out with a little soft Scrub cleaner! Minor barely distinguishable scratches next to the sink where we normally cook but everything else is holding up great 🙏🏻

Awesome to hear! Out of curiosity, what did you pay for slabs?

I’m a little disappointed by a couple of the seams but I think its unavoidable given the size of my kitchen (approx 20x13) unless I were to have gone with slabs over prefabs (maybe). Attaching a few photos here. I suppose the only way to avoid it would have been to buy a few more pieces to match veins.

$1775/slab 128x63 each not including fabrication and installation. I chose slabs to minimize the seams. My kitchen is only half your size but seams are unavoidable even for this small kitchen. My installer did an amazing job. I have 2 seams and he matched the pattern at the one of the seams so it’s not so noticeable.

But in the grand scheme of things the seams don’t matter.

Thanks for sharing! Really nice to have that extra bit of validation. I’m definitely going to make it a point of emphasis when the crew is back here tomorrow that we try to make things as seamless as possible (pun intended). Really pleased with the look overall but wondering if I made a mistake using it as a full backsplash where the gas range is going to go. The material is already up on the wall so I need to start looking for a gas range backguard to avoid some of the issues some folks on Houzz have posted about RE cracking and discolored quartz in the stovetop area.

I have it as full backsplash behind the gas range. So far haven’t had any issues. What do you mean by RE cracking? Backguard sounds like a good idea. Please let me know if you find something.

I need to do some more reading later, but apparently it has been discussed ad nauseum here lately and I was totally unaware til today as well. Here are a few link where it is discussed:

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5649974/aurea-divine-quartz-cracked#n=30

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/5921418/quartz-backsplash-behind-gas-range#n=10

Basically quartz does not hold up well to heat behind the gas range and cracks or discolors over time with repeat exposure.

I’ve had my full backsplash since 2018 and no discoloration or issues… I prob don’t use the back 3 burners as much as the front 3 but so far so good

Good to know! I’ll have to keep an eye on it if I can’t find a backguard — they’re proving a bit difficult to source.

I have chosen Silestone Calacatta Gold after much research.
The stone supplier showed me one of my three slabs. I mentioned to her that the one slab seemed to have a lot more brown in it than I thought.
I knew it had some but thought the pattern was to mostly be white with light gray veining with hints of brown veining. But now that they are showing me the template to approve before cutting my counters one of the photos shows a significant brown “blotch” twice in the pattern.
Lady assured me that man made materials are pretty much copies implying they are duplicates of same pattern. But I’m left feeling as if maybe I was given a “second” or something for my project.
I don’t want to be overly picky but the reason I was choosing this one because of its beautiful white with light subtle veins. Anyone else experiencing this ? What did you end up doing?

I have chosen Silestone Calacatta Gold after much research.
The stone supplier showed me one of my three slabs. I mentioned to her that the one slab seemed to have a lot more brown in it than I thought.
I knew it had some but thought the pattern was to mostly be white with light gray veining with hints of brown veining. But now that they are showing me the template to approve before cutting my counters one of the photos shows a significant brown “blotch” twice in the pattern.
Lady assured me that man made materials are pretty much copies implying they are duplicates of same pattern. But I’m left feeling as if maybe I was given a “second” or something for my project.
I don’t want to be overly picky but the reason I was choosing this one because of its beautiful white with light subtle veins. Anyone else experiencing this ? What did you end up doing?

I also had Calcutta gold on my list of quartz to look at and saw thick veining in it so I turned it down. I went with Viaterra Lumina.

Stacy, I too wanted mostly white with the light gray veining. I was looking at CG lots of places and noticed some was all light with maybe a tiny touch of gold within a couple veins. I'm talking just a tiny line about an inch long and thinner than a toothpick.

But in some slabs I saw thicker lines of gold going over to almost a dark brown. And yes some bigger areas not just thin lines.

I was able to choose the two slabs I wanted at my fabricators shop and I would suggest you do the same. The two I picked have almost no gold as I described above. There are pictures of my counter earlier in this thread from around July 2018.

Every single piece should look like this with the same veining. https://www.cosentino.com/colors/silestone/et-calacatta-gold/

If it doesn't, then they are showing you something else. It's true it's manmade and it may have SLIGHT differences but if you look up photos of it all over the internet, you won't see large dark brown blotches.

Thank you so much for your response!! :) That gives me validation that I made the right call by not accepting the slab. I was only shown one and it had some tiny bits of brown but nothing majorly significant. I’m like you, just wanting a white background with subtle gray thick veins. I may ask our contractor to go with a different supplier as I don’t think she was real happy with me for not wanting it. But it’s my kitchen that I’m paying for and want a specific look. Thanks again!

Good decision. If you don't like it at first blush, you definitely won't like it after paying to get it installed. Make sure you like the slabs you choose. My only regret was not paying close enough attention to the thickness of the prefabs. I asked for 3cm and my fabricator sneakily showed up with 2cm pieces. I didn't even notice it until the pieces arrived on-site. Not the end of the world, but certainly a point of frustration.

Mike, I think they are all the same thickness. The edge can be fabricated and glued on so you can determine how tall that edge is. This makes it look thick. We did a taller edge on the island to make it look higher end. But you do need to have the extra inches in material to be able to do this.

We didn't get the option for that taller edge but would have absolutely loved it. Thick looking countertop edges just look more high-end to me than the thinner ones.

I agree, I too asked for this and was denied because it was a “major upgrade” … I guess because you are like doubling the amount of slab and gluing it together to give appearance of a thicker slab.
I have seen this done with a darker granite and the glue seam was unsightly. So make sure glue seam doesn’t show :)

Thank you Ashley. I am going to show this to our contractor. :)

@Ashley Lathrop your kitchen is truly beautiful may I ask what is your backsplash tile? Currently looking into tiles with variations for mine and yours is beautiful!

calacatta plata by viateria doesnt have the brown....its all grey veining only

@Catherine Gelinas check out hampton carrara marble from the Tile Shop...it looks very similar...the 2x8 size

@Ashley Lathrop would love to know backsplash tile and cabinet color ! Im using Silestone CG as well w white cabinets and finding it hard for backsplash w some depth but not too much i dont want all white

https://www.tileshop.com/products/splendours-white-ceramic-subway-trim-tile-3-x-12-in-494543

Link above to 3x12 glossy tile with texture from the Tile Shop. Comes in difference colors. The white with grey picks up the grey in Silestone CG. Cabinets BM Chantilly Lace Advance line.

@pm dorr it’s called Cloe by Bedrosians. It’s perfectly shaded to look white but with depth, so it doesn’t look all white. It’s got lots of shades of white. I love it.

@patio_garden where did you purchase your slabs from. I am currently looking to buy the same silestone calcatta gold slabs.

@Ashley Lathrop could you tell me where you got your pulls and knobs for your kitchen? Love everything about your design. I am deciding between silestone calacatta gold or msi calacatta azai but I cannot find installed pictures of the latter but after seeing your kitchen I will probably go with the gold

Sorry C M looks like I missed your comment. I got mine at Apex Marbles on Junction Ave.

@Lori S, Thank you! They are Top Knobs in Channing and Marion. I got them on amazon, but they have a website too. We still love CG!

@Stacy Norris, very happy that it all turned out well in the end for you. Your Quartz countertop looks beautiful. We are also going with a grey kitchen, so seeing that you have no gold in your kitchen, I wonder how you decided to go with the Silestone Calacatta Gold and not the Calacatta Classic (which has no gold or brown in it)?
We are still deciding between these two Silestone colors as well as LG Viatera Calacatta Plata but have yet to see it in person as I’m worried that the veins may be too grey on the Viatera C P and we want more subtle grey veins. Thanks for your feedback.

@K H thank you!
Honestly, I didn’t realize there were so many different Calcatta golds out there! It wasn’t until I had a problem that I really scoured the internet researching the different ones. There’s very little gold/brown in mine. (Which is what I wanted). Had I known that there was a “classic” version with no brown at all, I may have chosen it.
I started out requesting “Britannica” but was advised that it might be too bold for such a small kitchen.
I always wanted white with gray veins ( the brown veins I just accepted in minimal amounts). 🙂

Stacy Norris the thick counter is an illusion. It’s mitred, and not double thickness. We had a mitre in our old home. The installer said it would be too heavy with double slabs so they mitre only pieces on the edges to give the illusion of thickness.

It's been a while since this post...does anyone have experience with SileStone matte/suede finish NBOOST? Does it hold up as they show in the videos?

Ashley Lathrop your kitchen is gorgeous! What color white did you use for your cabinets?