I can sure understand your frustration and lack of confidence in the fabricator you were set to use. I just wanted to suggest giving Angie's List a try. I joined Angie's List after yet another frustrating experience with a GC that had been referred by a friend. I used Angie's List to find the company that is doing my kitchen and I found it a huge help. Just a suggestion as it isn't expensive to join.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Angie's List

Oh dear, my instinct says walk away.
Granite is expensive and when that much money is on the
table....
If you feel this uncomfortable NOW, imagine what you will
feel like when he has all your money? And add to this if
he does a terrible job. A red flag goes up for me that
he mis-quoted his price. Even if he made a mistake on
the price he needs to eat the difference. His mistake
he looses the $400 not you!

You will find a great installer who is a true artist and
fair in their price. I would ask every neighbor, every
church member,every one of my girl friends who they used to
get their counters done by. Ask your dentist, doctor,
child's teacher, laywer, taxman/woman...

And you did the right thing by coming to GW.

I don't live in Long Island in Suffolk County,But I am
almost positive there are Gardenwebbers who do and can
give you names of people they have used. I wonder if you
could find out through FKB? I will do a search later to
see.

I love my granite fabricator. He and his crew worked with
DH and I to create the most favorite part of my kitchen.
He did not have my kind of granite in any of his locations.
He helped me find it. When I could not afford the price.
He did another search all over new england until he found
slabs that I could afford and he could afford to work with.
My seams are flawless and bookmatched, my edges divine,
and I had a say where the template went. This is how
a good installer works.

I wish you the best in finding a good artist. This guy
might be it, but your worries concern me.

~boxer

oh check out the link if you have not yet,

Here is a link that might be useful: Natural stone primer/ granite 101 by stonegirl

Thanks fore your replies, I am not using that fabricator! I did find some recomendations here on Garden World, from a couple of years ago about fabricsators on Long Island. One person was raving about her fabricator, and another wrote how he did a horrible job, and then wouldn't come back to fix it. I guess part of this is luck that they do the right job, and stand behind any mistakes they make. Thanks for the info, Monday morning I will start looking for a fabricator I get a good feeling from.

Just one more question, any thought on if I'm better off having the kitchen go with the rest of my house, since I have 4 entrance ways off of it, den, livingroom, and dinningroom, (other is mud room) all of which are in the earth tones and gold, or if I can do something more dramatic like Blue Pearl instead of something that blends in with my house and will look beautiful too, like Giallo Venetian.

Thanks again for all your continuing help, it is appreciated!
ilene

we're in Nassau county we used http://www.elegantegranite.com/ in Westbury, Nettie was my salesperson they did a great job, and came in a lower price than some. We had a few places quote the job. had a few that were priced somewhat high, and a bunhc around the same prices. We picked the place we felt most comfortable with.

basically on LI and in other places too, some granite places have things on site, those stones generally will be cheaper than going to a yard. However, selection is limited. It is really granite and slab specific. Getting XYZ granite fom Yard A is different from XYZ granite from yard B. sometimes it does cost more.

All places can get the material from the same yards. if you like the slabs you loked at you can go to any place and ask them to quote you on those particular slabs.

[price per sqft is a meaningless number. you care about all in job cost. some throw in this or that, "free" upgrades etc. I think Elegante throws in the big ogee for free.

Thanks for the recomendation in Westbury, I'm going to give them a call today!
ilene

Here's another suggestion on how to choose a fabricator. Some fabricators use a laser measuring program which gives a very accurate picture of your space including wavy walls and walls that aren't quite 90 degrees at the corners.

They have a companion program called Slabsmith which inputs these measurements and uses an image of your particular slab(s) to mark exactly where your pieces will be cut to best match seams and to use the best looking pieces of the stone for each piece of your counter. There is evidently at least one other computerized program similar to Slabsmith on the market. This is a "proof" of how they proposed to cut our pieces - actually, we had some other choices, but this is the we chose:

You could ask who in your area uses equipment similar to this. Not to say that a craftsman couldn't do an excellent job with other methods, just that it is harder to mess up. Here is how perfectly the peninsula met the not-quite-straight wall in our kitchen:

Here is a link that might be useful: Slabsmith demo