Yet another countertop seam question!

4 years ago

We just got the kitchen redone after a flood (and the entire condo floor), and yesterday the countertops were going on. The designer/project leader sent us a photo and, to our great despair, there’s a big ugly seam glaring at us from even a basic quick photography done from a distance.

Here’s the thing: this lady communicated with us for EVERY small detail (yay), but a seam, or the placement of it, was NEVER mentioned. So we were not only shocked to see one, but to see such a obvious one (look more like grout on a tile if you ask me…)

The reason for it: the telecom wires couldn’t be removed (a column will be rebuilt at the end of the countertop with the lower cabinets material/colour), so they needed a « dent » to put them through.

So we re not experts, so here’s the questions:

1- Is it as bad a job as we think it it?
2- she offering to redo and do a diagonal seam near the wall (as indicated with the green tape on the last photo) and a small piece (the green tape near the telecom wires) that would also have two seams and would apparently be much less solid cause it would be held by the cabinets basically. Is that a way to solve this?
2B) are those kind of wires « easy » to temporarily disconnect and reinstalled after placing one solid piece with a drilled square in it?
3- If the seam is elsewhere but equally big and ugly, why bother?
4- is that something that we could eventually get another expert come to « fix » or does it need to be done right from the start?

That’s a lot of questions, I know, but we’re a bit at a loss here.

THANKS!!!!!

Featured Answer

PRO

Granite City Services

4 years ago

I am a fabricator. The seam isn't horrible; white tops are the most difficult to match. Failing to review the seam locations and options prior to fabrication was a gross failure of competency by your designer. It's NEVER a good idea to surprise a customer with a seam. I think a small "U" cutout and the seam in the corner is a better option mostly because a seam the full width of an island or peninsula is almost never the best choice.

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Comments (10)

PRO
HALLETT & Co.
4 years ago
Sad that it wasn’t communicated. Not a great color match or seam width. I would have preferred a U shaped cutout at the column so you would have had two short seams mainly hidden by trim. Hopefully you don’t have a gas stove.
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PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
4 years ago
What are your top dimensions please? I’m betting they were out of slab which would explain the long seam placement. On the other hand, the perfect vein match makes me think it was one piece at one time.

The quality of that seam is unacceptable, considering today’s CNC machines and SeamPhantom. They didn’t use factory specified color match adhesive, a rookie mistake, and grossly underestimated the fussinesses and sophistication level of their customer. They have to pay for these errors.
C Roy
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks Joseph. Actually it was the same piece of slab, but they just figured that was the best thing to do to “wrap around” the telecom wires.

They’re coming back Monday to “fix the seam”. Can’t wait to see what THAT will look like. They keep saying the job is well done and are offering to do it again with a diagonal seam near the wall but want us to pay an extra 2100$ for the material and they’re covering labour….. if I’m paying more money it will be to someone else.
PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
4 years ago
What supports are holding up your cantilevered section please?
OC Kitchen
4 years ago
Your stone is beutiful. Can you share what it is? Thank you.
PRO
Joseph Corlett, LLC
4 years ago
Looks like Cambria Brittanicca Gold.
C Roy
Original Author
4 years ago
It’s not Cambria (it’s actually the company we wanted to go with, but our designer had a few fabricators and providers she works with and Cambria isn’t one of them. I’ll ask the name and let you know. But it IS a gorgoeus one!
C Roy
Original Author
4 years ago
http://highlandstonequartz.com/highland/the-bold-collection/

Name of ours is : Michael Longelo
OC Kitchen
4 years ago
Thank you!