Here’s a pic of the corner all the way to the end. As you can see the overhang of off by over an inch.

They came out and measured. They came back out to do the template.

The company was very friendly and nice staff. I have already emailed them with pics to give them an opportunity to correct this. I’m really only posting to see how it can be fixed. Can it be removed at the seam to have the edge trimmed down to straigten up the piece?

I agree with the millworkman. It's hard to tell from the photos if the granite was not fabricated straight or if your walls are not straight and causing the granite to be off.

Here’s a pic of the seam and the full piece. As you can see the overhang is obviously not even.

Seam

Back side along the wall

The seam itself is not bad but it's a poor match of the two pieces of granite. This would be a complete redo to me.

Judging from the photos, they didn't make an accurate template. Likely something in your kitchen is off slightly/ not exactly 90 degrees (very common) and they did not account for it. They tried to make it up on the long run by notching the drywall (also common and will be covered by backsplash) but they didn't take into account the affect on the overhang. The big gap on the far right of that run is unfortunate too.

That said, when this has occurred on my jobs in the past they have come out and re cut it in the field. 1" of difference is far too much and they should address it.

Not good. You got "fifty free" of nothing in result and even the tone is not a match, and that was possibly the "extra" material needed and no two slabs identical... You have an uneven wall, I doubt the template was laser. There is rarely "free" in a good result for anything. That is brutal truth.

So, could they cut it at the seam and re-align it? My husband thinks its the placement of the corner piece that through it off. I agree, the overhang being off so much is really bothering. I hate complaining but I really hope this can be fixed.

Oh good, the gap on the right is the fridge, thought it was a wall...

You merely want it 'workmanlike' , wanting a consistent overhang is a minimal request. Get on the phone and have the owner come out to discuss it asap. it is not your job to figure out how, it is theirs.

They will come, remove the piece, and re cut the back. The tonal difference will not improve, but the overhang will. Make certain you plan a ceramic tile splash. I imagine your walls may be an issue with gaps.

The owner called and they will come out next week. I’ll update once they let me know how it’ll be fixed.

I would be more upset because, they pieced the granite with the pattern going two different directions, so that it is very obvious.

@cat_ky the more I look at it, the more imperfections I see. That seam was badly done. The edging doesn‘t match up either. I regret paying extra for the Bevel edge. There‘s parts of the stone that aren’t Sealed (Like a pore?). It’s small pieces of garnet. Which is what I love about the stone. I guess they need to put some epoxy or something to fill it in? I don’t know. But I certainly have Learned what a free countertop looks like. I was able to pick this slab from the stoneyard. My contractor that I’m getting to do the backsplash thinks they screwed up the backsplash. I paid granite co for demo and the drywall will have to be completely replaced. They ripped and broke my window moldings.

It's a meh install, but the biggestate issue isn't the stone. It's the wonky walls behind the stone.

That backsplash should have been planned all along to just be cut out and replaced, then floated so that it is a smooth flat surface on which to tile, and to meet the stone edge.

That still needs to happen. You may even need to plane a few of the wonky studs to get a straight enough wall to tile. Do not let your contractor get away with trying to patch that dogs breakfast there. He should have cut it out from the beginning. It's the source of more than half of your issues with the counter as well.

@greendesigns my contractor was never involved until after the granite was done. I only contactsd them to repair the Sheetrock. I had originally planned to DIY the backsplash. The walls are fine. Here’s the before

After we moved in:

That tile counter and splash hid a lot of sins. It always does. You are acting as the General Contractor here, creating the scope of work and hiring each trade individually. Knowing what needs to be done, and who does it, is on your shoulders.

You need that fixed properly. Remove it, replace it, and float it out before tile happens.

I understand the frustration of wanting new. I understand budgets. But I would have under mounted a stainless sink, in the hopes for an appliance change at some point, to stainless. Which would be far better with dark cabinetry : ) I am unclear as to what is happening with island counter top....................?Now is the time to bite the bullet, if they are coming back.

@jan it’s all happening. The cabinets will be painted. I have stainless appliances getting installed, I wanted to keep my cast iron sink, and I am doing butcher block for the island. It just isn’t happening overnight:)

I’ve had stainless steel sinks in my previous homes and I’ve always wanted cast iron. It may be a top mount but I love it over stainless. I repainted it with an epoxy from rustoleum to shine it up:).

The granite installers showed me my walls that appear straight are not actually straight and makes an uneven gap along the back. They said few walls are straight. There is some room to fix this with back splash. I would think the overhang amount should be constant. But if the cabinets are not an even distance from the wall, this could be the better visual for the edge of the counter to match the wall......if that makes sense. I agree the granite edges should line up where the two pieces meet. Sorry for the stress. Of course you want it done right. With time, many imperfections become less noticeable.

Did you measure the countertops themselves to see if they are a consistent depth?

It all looks better than what was there before! A butcher block island will be lovely!!

Just FYI they measured and did a template on a separate visit. I get walls can be uneven and the backsplash can cover that gaps in the back. But it’s so obvious on the overhang thats it’s not even. It goes from 2” to less than an 1” on the the same run.

The seam also appears damaged/cracked/ pieced together. Not sure if that’s the stone itself but It’s noticeable at the seam

Isn't the reason fabricators make a template in order to account for, and scribe to, not straight walls? Seriously, how many homes have straight walls?

I am not any kind of expert but this is seeming to me like an installer who is taking on work (maybe a new business?), offered free granite to drum up business, but isn't interested in doing careful or quality work. He just would like to call it finished and move on to the next.

However I believe that it is not easy to remove tile from drywall without damaging the drywall. It requires slow and careful removal and still isn't always possible to avoid the need to repair to some degree.

@raee-gw zone exactly. They told me it was for marketing. I’m willing to give them a chance to make it right. I’m not going to publically complain. I am out $1200 out of pocket just my portion of the granite install. So, it’ll be less referrals for them if they can’t fix the overhang issue.

The tile all needed to be removed before any template occurred. Not just before the counter install. Tile is a terrible surface. All kinds of things can be behind it. Yes, the drywall all needs to be cut out and redone. That should have happened before the stone went in. The order of work here has been mixed up quite a bit here.

A painted sink is going to last about a month before it starts to peel. Replace it now. With an undermount if they can polish the edge and find one that will fit the current hole.

I asked about doing demo separate and they told me they do it in the same day as install. ‍♀️

Look at your result? Their opinion on process and work order counts for what? Nada!

That was part of the "free"

Yep! But I go to their showroom and checked their reviews. Of course they’re going to post their best pics. Would you have said NO to free granite? They were professionals and dealing with them has been a positive experience. Nothing indicated the work would be subpar.

To be fair, there are plenty of posters who didn't get free granite that have had abysmal installs (judging from what I read on this forum). Free doesn't mean it will be bad, and most expensive doesn't necessarily correlate to the ever elusive perfect. And no, I don't think most people would turn down free granite.

I hope you get the results you were hoping for. Can't wait to see how your sink holds up. I am with you on cast iron. I do not care for stainless steel, no matter the quality. I've had stainless, cast iron, apron front porcelain, swan stone, and composite granite. My favorites have been the white porcelain apron front and the composite granite.

Well, they certainly took the root of demo (demolish) seriously, didn't they? I don't know what good they think marketing will do them when word of mouth about lousy demos (why didn't they remove the window mouldings first???) and crappily cut granite gets around, they won't be able to give a job away. That inside corner overhang is outrageous (and not in a good way). Can you have the walls re-drywalled before they fix the granite?

I had my granite installed by a large local company with a great reputation. As with your install, they did the counter and tile tear out BEFORE the templating. The walls were a rough mess as yours when they installed the granite. Then the contractor returned after to repair the walls. The granite installers caulked between the granite and wall. But since more work was done on the walls, the contractor who did the drywall had to do some caulking too. They (granite place and contractor seemed to think it was standard to fix the walls after the granite was installed.

Lafdr the template was done before the demo.

I get that you "won" granite for your kitchen. Cool! Great upgrade for the house.

But in your excitement, you forgot the primary rule of doing your due diligence about the project as a whole. There are alot more moving parts to getting new counters than "just" popping of the old and putting on the new. Tile counters are a major war issue to be wrestled through to make that happen. And there is a LOT more than tile demo.

Counter guys aren't General Contractors. Most counter guys want to arrive, drop, caulk, and leave. They don't do plumbing. They don't do backsplashes, unless it's a slab of stone. They don't think about the electrical that needs to be updated while the drywall is open on the walls, because they aren't electricians. They don't think about the consequences or the mess of demo. They don't think about what's the best order or process for the backsplash that you want done, because they aren't doing it.

They have their little world. Not the bigger job picture.

You needed a General Contractor for that. Emphasis on GENERAL. As in the person in charge of the troops. Including the counter guys. They needed to report to him for scheduling and coordinating, and to know how to handle their timing in the order of operations.

Unfortunately, the GC on the job defaulted to being you. You hired everyone individually, and weren't quite sure what the order of work needed to be, or the consequences of getting things out of order.

You didn't know what you didn't know. So things slipped past. And the job wasn't done optimally.

Its still salvageable. Rip down that drywall. Run the electrical for the under cabinet lights that you need. Then they do whatever they are going to do to tweak the counters. Including installing an undermount sink. Thats a must.

Then you have the drywallers in to install new, skim, and prime. You can live without a tile backsplash for a good while as long as the wall is painted, and the seam at the rear of the counter is caulked. So if you have to spend more money now to make all of the above happen, do it. And do the tile later. But the basics will be done, correctly.

I get all that. I am waiting on a quote from a contractor whom I personally know and trust to fix the backsplash area. The granite installer will be here next week so they can tell me how it’ll be fixed.

@bri bosh $300 of that was for demo, $220 for the upgraded beveled edge. The rest was 10sq ft.

It almost looks like the granite is not all from same slab too, because, the colors dont quite match where the seam is.

@cat_ky there‘s color variance in the same slab. The direction of the pattern is different as well.

Now that the sheetrock has been replaced and backsplash has been installed I wanted to update you all with pics! The granite installers came back and straightened up the granite. I ended up losing some overhang on the end of the cabinet but it’s next to my fridge so no biggie there. Because there was such a huge gap behind the sink area, the contractor ended up filling the gap with grout. there was some definite imperfections with the granite. Some of the pieces have chips and you can tell when they filled it in with grout. Overall, I’m happy and it is definitely way better than it was before. We aren’t finished. My husband wired it up for under cabinet lighting. We still have to finish installing drawer pulls, butcher block island countertop, and caulk in some areas once I finish painting the rest of the cabinets. Eventually the floor will be updated. It’ll do for now.

Looks great! So much better than the before. :)