Oh yeah, that backsplash seam is terrible. That would drive me crazy. And it’s so expensive, I completely understand your frustration.

What were the expectations up front?

You said you wanted to save money OR you said you wanted it to look good at whatever price?

Sure it can be done with 2 slabs, but there are compromises in looks, which is what you ended up with. Would you have paid for a third slab, even if only a small portion of that third slab was used to give you a more even pattern/color transition?

I have done 2 kitchens and used 3 slabs in both of them, and I didn't even have a slab backsplash. Did my fabricator use any or part of those third slabs? I don't know, but I got the looks I wanted in the kitchen. A third slab in the overall cost of a full kitchen remodel is not a huge amount.

I'm with chispa on this one. Two slabs could provide only oh so many pieces. I think it's pretty good for what it is. The angle up on the backsplash matches the down angle fairly well. And the sweep of the angle from the counter flows up into the backsplash. If you had wanted that to flow different, you would have needed a third slab to work with the patterns.

I would have for sure bought a third slab if it had been communicated to me there would be compromises. Nothing was communicated to me at all other than to buy 2 slabs. We have spent hundreds of thousands on this renovation and this looks to me like we went to the bargain bin and used whatever we could find for cheap. At this point I can’t afford to buy 3 new slabs on top of the 2 I already bought. It really sucks because communication at the beginning could have avoided this.

It is a bummer. But it is also not finished. So it sticks out more. Get the kitchen finished, your stuff moved in and what seems like a thing now will fade over time.

Also to note the island is a different quartzite, so we did buy 3 slabs for the whole kitchen. We drew it up ourselves afterwards and it was possible to cut all these pieces from 2 slabs without that additional seam. Just very disappointed and feel like I wasted 25k on these counters/backsplash. Tough pill to swallow.

I'm more worried about the wooden pulls you chose for your cabinets!

In two years they are going to start showing wear/stains from the skin oils, grease, dirt and water on the hands of the people living in the house.

Not related to my question. Not helpful

Why is the island a different quartzite than the rest?

They are fabricators, not magicians. If there are any mistakes by the fabricator on this job, it was his lack of setting customer expectations for veined materials and his customer selection skills.

Buy a third slab now if you can get a good match. Have the work redone. The long-term experience is the object.

Pay for that third slab that you needed now. Your fabricator thought you wanted to save that 7-10K even if you didn’t specifically say that. What would have given him the idea that you wanted to economize on the job?

I'm sorry you didn't like my observation. It was just a head up to what happens with wood, when people are constantly touching it.

Some of us here are old enough to remember our parents putting in slab doors with integrated wood pulls and noticing that they didn't wear very well.

Maybe your cabinet maker can put an extra coat of finish on them to extend their lifespan?

Hopefully they can be easily removed from the door/drawer fronts so just the pulls can be refinished down the road.

An extra coat of finish won’t save them. They will be goo from hand oils inside 3 years.