I just looked at my invoice for my kitchen and vanities, and using my own remnant, I paid more a lot more than $450 for a 48" vanity, so I don't think it's a bad price.

Buy a wet circular saw from HD for $70 and cut it!!! Prefab is the way to go if you want to save money

I was thinking about it myself :) but then how do we finish the edges? Also, they are only 3/4" thick, so I was a little hesitant to do it ourselves. So, I guess we learned our lesson - buying something at ReStore for less is not always cost effective? :(

I would phone around to other granite places. Our remnant vanity top (40" long) was $300 total, including sink hole, faucet holes and finishing edges. We will install it ourselves. Finishing the edges is actually the expensive part! Same place charged us $75 for the shower niche shelf. (I thought it would have been a little less). She said it was finishing the edge (really only one 27" long edge) that cost the most.

So if it's around $30 per sq ft, then for 22x36" vanity it should be around $180, right? Approximately 6 sq ft by $30? Is that the estimate I should be looking for? That sounds much more reasonable than the $300 we were quoted. Should that include attaching undercount sink or would that be a separate charge? The $300 we were given included the sink install. Thank you all!!!

Meant to say "undermount" sink above.

My fabricators charge around $300-$500 to cut the undermount hole, polish the edge, and attach the sink. It depends on the size of the sink, as well as a couple of other factors.

We bought granite off of Craigslist and brought it to the fabricators with templates. The pieces for the kitchen already were the correct measurement front to back, they needed to be cut to length to fit in a u-shaped kitchen, to have one edge polished, and to have a sink hole cut. We also had another piece that needed to be cut for the bathroom vanity. The front edge was already polished but it needed to be cut to length and width, and have a hole cut for the (top mount) sink.

The total cost of fabrication for all of this was $450. It did not include mounting the sinks, or installation, or even delivery.

I think we will call some other places around but it sounds like going through the fabricator (with their remnants) is the way to go since the price is basically the same.... I may have to craigslist these vanity tops now :-)

I thought I posted this before, call around!

I got wildly different quotes for granite tops, some fabricators might not be busy, and have some remnants sitting around. I got a top for a vessel sink (in a house Iwas selling) for $125, and others with undercount sink for about $30/foot installed, however, I also got much higher prices as well.

Ok, i will call around, thank you!!!

Bongo, since you mentioned fabricator and their remnants, I just want to clarify that there may be granite yards, (with greater selection available) in your area with remnants available. Since you're only looking for simple 36" tops, the fabricator you go with isn't all that crucial (ie, just have the granite yard do the cutting). And, as someone else mentioned you may actually be able to find pre-formed tops with sink cut out and faucet holes already done. I did that for my basement BR. In hindsight, not that great a deal (I didn't know about dealing directly with granite yards at that time), AND it was a PITA trying to find a sink to match the hole. I also ended up having to buy a new faucet (still have the original one I bought), so in reality absolutely not the best deal! LOL

I think you need to shop around. There are regional differences and they all charge differently anyways. Prices have come down and they seem to be quite competitive. The company you first spoke with wants to sell you his remnants, so you might not be getting a very good price on fabricating ReStore's merchandise. Maybe look for a fabricating shop that does not have a yard.

The yard I asked about remnants said they do not discount them.

bongo15h:

Go back to your fabricator and buy the tops with installation included. Marble is a poor choice for countertops, especially vanities in my opinion.

I just charged a lady $700.00 to install 30SF of granite she bought off Craigslist for $300.00. She could have bought 3cm new for that much.

We live in a Philly Suburb and our local granite & marble shop charged us I believe $100 or $150 (can't quite remember) to cut and finish 6 marble sills. The cuts and polish were lengthwise of the sill and were used for our shower curb and niche pieces.

Our shop would not "warranty" the work...saying that they were cutting into stone that they didn't supply and were not sure where it was sourced from, quality etc. Basically they said that cheaper marbles from china break easily.

We got the sills from Lowes so I am sure it was cheap marble from China and we didn't pay too much for the sills and it was lots cheaper than having them make matching calacatta marble sills for us (they supplied our calacatta marble counter...but that cost us $200/sq ft). It was a risk we were willing to take and it turned out perfect.

Good luck.

So after shopping around, i found a number of places with much better quotes. You guys were right - calling around did help as the prices varied significantly. Usually, the smaller places or one-man shops gave me the best quotes. The larger fancier places had the highest estimates. Thank you to all for your input!!!

There are varying types of equipment used to fabricate the slabs at different shops. Some have to do more hand work (labor intensive) and some have ultra-expensive computer-run cutting machines that the bank owns and the fabricator is paying off.

As firsthome points out, the specific type and grade of stone should also play a role, if it is easy to cut or not.

Hi Bongo, I'm also on L.I and wanted to know if you can refer the guys you ultimately went with? I just need a piece of marble shortened and the one side finished/smoothed.

A view from the other side of the fence.

It isn't particularly difficult to cut stone, but the blade I use costs about $70.00 and will probably cut 200 lineal feet or so. The same industrial diamonds in that saw blade, although finer, are in the pads used to polish the saw cut.

The thing that most consumers don't see is risk. If something goes wrong with this cut, I've given a person paying me $300.00 the same right to say not nice things about me on the internet as a person who hired me to build a $300, 000.00 addition. The dynamite is equal, the risk and reward is not. Not even close.

Exactly,risk and reward.Used to have lots of people call me to cut angles on prefabricated laminate countertops they bought at the box store.I had the only saw around large enough to do it.They would throw a fit when I told them $50 a cut. One little chip and I bought it.

Didn't care if I did it or not.

Takitaki - you can message me and I will respond to you with what we ended up doing. Thanks.

Risk VS reward as Joseph stated is often overlooked by novice money hungry contractors especially i may add in the tile shower field.

can i pay you $50 to cut a $1800 slab? yes but who loses when it chips or worse cracks on a bad resin fault line from the factory that was just waiting to fail. Now while we negotiate the loss I may go out of pocket $1800 just to keep my name in good standing.

i recently looked at backsplash tile job that was over 2k in tile alone the client wanted the 2k material installed for $300....!!!

I can measure and buy the shower glass panel myself for $200 but i pay my glass company 4 times that for a reason.