Someone here posted a link a couple of pages back to a ranking of leather manufacturers. Don't know how accurate it is but there also seems to be some good basic leather facts on the site. We've had a Classic Leather sofa, the Providence model, for more than ten years. It was on the pricey side but is the best purchase we ever made. Nice styling and a soft touch to the leather. We love it. Here is a link that might be useful: Leather manufacturer ratings

Would someone in the Boston area please post recommendations for pellet and/or gas stove dealer/installers? Many thanks!

Oldhousegal, I am in Portland, Ore! I haven't gotten the soapstone yet -- just ordered it on Monday. They told me it will take 2-3 days to leave the warehouse, and then another 5-10 days of transit. Our cabinets will be here in 2 weeks, so I was holding off on getting the soapstone until we had an ETA on the cabinets so that we didn't have too much construction stuff clogging up our staging area (the garage). I will post pics once the stone comes, though! I ordered 4 slabs of Barocca. I was also told by several places that soapstone was not readily available in Portland, but you can find it at Pentel (on NW Yeon). You can visit their warehouse and see the slabs in person -- the slabs are beautiful, but they only have one variety. The frustrating thing is that Pentel only works with fabricators, so they will give you a list of fabricators, but won't tell you how much a slab costs! Annoying. Our contractor has an account through CFM, who is one of the fabricators on the list at Pentel, so we asked them for a quote -- they said it was going to be $4,700 for the soapstone, including installation. Ordering from Texiera and getting my carpenters (who I love) to cut and install will cost about half of that. So far I have been pretty impressed with Texiera. They have been very responsive to my emails, and phone calls. The sample pack that I ordered arrived within a few days, and they were happy to answer all of my questions. I ordered my slabs, but could not find a way to order the tinted epoxy w/o ordering the entire DIY kit (my carpenters have the necessary blades already), so I emailed them -- they got back to me within 10 minutes and added just the epoxy to my order.

Thanks avidchef. The price I got from the KD was an all-in price, including installation. I know that they are taking a markup which is ok with me as long as the price stays reasonably competitive. My tile guy is not a fabricator. If what we did last time for the bathrooms is an indication, he will send me to a couple of yards (probably in Long Island City or Connecticut) and if I find what I like, he will have me tell the yard to ship it to the fabricator. The fabricator who did my bathroom counters did a nice job. They were Granitops in Yonkers, if I remember correctly. I know that my tile guy will take a markup if I go with him and I guess I am ok with that too, since otherwise I am just someone off the street to these folks. I guess the question is how much is ok. He probably wants 20%. I also guess that if I went directly to the fabricator, they would charge me more than if my tile guy got involved. I am really afraid of doing this one on my own. I am an experienced shopper, and sourced all my bathroom fixtures and fittings myself and have sourced my kitchen appliances, but stone is a bit of a black hole to me.