We first saw the granite we loved at HD, but their price ($92 SqFt) was the most expensive of all the places we shopped.
We ended up at a local fab shop and ended up paying $47 SqFt including cut-outs and ogee edging.
So, it may be a good idea to shop around.

I first got a quote from another fabricator. I brought that to HD and found a slab I wanted. Ended up getting Bianco Antico for about $60/sq ft after the promos and other discounts received, which I was pretty stoked about. I picked out the slab and picked out the layout I wanted for the kitchen. Everything went smoothly with the install and they were very communicative throughout the entire process. I absolutely love my new counters. They are stunning!

We looked at HD and Lowes for granite. They both carried some very low cost granites (39 sq ft) but they weren't colors I wanted. For the colors I liked, both stores were much more expensive than the independant fabricators I looked at. Also, you want to know the name of the 3rd party they will contract it out to, so you can get your own reviews.

HD subs the work out.

What you end up with depends on how good the sub is.

HD was the cheapest out of 3 quotes I got before my DH decided that he really didn't like the antique brown granite i picked out. My neighbor used to work for HD as a project manager, he said that HD is usually 20 percent more than going to a fabricator and installer. I did not find this to be true in Atlanta. Good luck

We have been to three fabricators in our area (southern Virginia), driving hours to visit and get pricing. The prices at the independent granite places were approximately $70 per square foot for the level 1 granites. I kept wondering, "Where are the $34 per square foot prices I'm reading about on Garden Web?" We finally figured we just can't afford it, and would have to go with another surface, when we got a call from Home Depot, and I asked about the granite that was my personal favorite, River White, which was classified Level 2 at the fabricators. The associate said, "We're having a special on that right now for $49/sq foot." We also are getting 10% off, free financing, and several other things. I may be getting ready to go through some craziness like whisperingwillow, but I'm paying $30 less per square foot.

I am a fabricator.

I looked at fabricating for Home Depot. It would be a lot of volume on some easy colors. Unfortunately for what HD was willing to pay me I would have had to cut every corner possible to make any money.

Now when we find out we are bidding against HD we are pleased because our pricing is very competitive (often lower) and our finish quality and office support is vastly superior.

I did not get an in person quote from hd but I did use their online estimator to price out my counters. I also priced it out a builder's outlet store and finally an independent. The independent was cheaper by $1500 for 3cm. The other quotes were for 2cm. He also threw in a granite window sill, granite top on a half wall, and only charged me $150 for a bianco antico bathroom vanity top including the sink. I believe he had a remnant. The main attraction for me was he did not charge for any extras. I could have any edge I wanted, any radius, and as many holes as I needed and it would not cost me any extra. Plus he was able to do my kitchen without any seams including a fairly good size "L" shaped island. If you live in an area with some independents I would recommend at least checking them out.

I live in CT. My local Home Depot would have sent me to New Jersey if I wanted to see the granite in person. To be honest, they looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if I would be able to pick out my own slab; they had to call someone to find out where the granite yard might be. Obviously, do not get a lot of GW readers at my local HD.

The HD quote ended up quite a lot higher than going to a granite yard and picking my slab and having them fabricate it. I got a higher level granite for less money, got a free SS sink which I then upgraded to a silgranite less the SS credit, got free demo and no upcharge for the eased edge we wanted. Oh, and HD could not tell me what I would be looking at for granite. While they advertise certain colors, no guaratee that if you make that drive, it will be in stock. And HD samples were 2cm where 3cm is standard for installs around here; salesmen couldn't tell me if what is installed would be 2 or 3cm.

I would recommend going to more than one yard though. The same granite we had installed was more than double at the local Marble.com location and it was not an operation there that I would recommend someone else visit.

My experience with HD is similar to whiperingwillow's...the scheduling and communication was extremely lacking. And when we encountered a problem with the granite slab, we got a run around: granite people didn't have the answer so we have to ask HD. HD didn't have an answer so we have to go ask the granite people. We had this run around conversation at least twice with both groups. It made me wonder why we even purchased the granite from HD in the first place since they were of no help. We had to do all scheduling and coordinating and try to resolve issues that arose.

I say save yourself the hassle of having to run around talking to several people in order to find to what should be simple answers. And I am sure that you can find quality service elsewhere from fabricators that will be more involved in helping you find a good slab for your kitchen and provide quality fabrication.

We did run into a problem with our granite slabs not all flowing in the same direction. The granite people (you deal with more than one person through the entire process) were just irritated that it would cost them money to fix the problem. They didn't care if the end result was a bad match. We weren't paying some heavily discounted granite price. We paid for the highest level granite at HD. We wanted quality installation, which I felt the people at the granite company didn't really understand. And as oldryer said, HD doesn't pay fabricators much, so I can see why the granite people were stressed out. But they should have ahd a level of professionalism....

And like whisperingwillow, I am not a difficult person either, but throughout the entire process, I was made to feel like I was a difficult and demanding person for wanting things that should be standard in quality installations: veining flowing in the same direction, no extra unnecessary seams,....

Buying granite from HD didn't seem to have any advantages for us.

Still waiting on HD to redo their quote which includes Carrara at $62/sqft. The KD at HD told us who they use for slabs and the yard and fabricator are the same in Orlando. Se said normally we could not go to the yard until we bought, but said if we wanted to go look, she would make it happen. Final decision will be this weekend, but so far the only issue has been the delays between each step.

Look..You wanna go with Homer Burrito...bless you. They will screw you and nickel and dime you for everything. Find a GOOD granite fabricator and pay them for their service. This is NOT something you do every three years. You gonna buy a Mercedes and ask if they sell recap tires? Step up to the plate.

I in the process of purchasing cambria countertops for the same price as Whit is paying. I'm just east of him on the coast. I thought cambria is significantly more expensive, but guess not. My KD also said I'll only pay for the amount of product used, not for whole slabs.

I was completely astounded to see how many granite places are near me. Not a ton, but maybe a dozen within a reasobable drive. Not to mention the options if I wanted to drive 2-3 hours.

I picked 4 based mostly on proximity and online research. They were all very nice and willing to show me around the slabs. I had a layout with me, and they all did basic quotes either while I was there or emailed me later that day (my kitchen is small and not complicated, so that helped). They were all places I would have been willing to work with, I picked based on who had the stone I liked best. I really liked one place, but the stone I liked lived elsewhere. They were all fabricators that sold stone, so I didn't have to do the roundabout pricing when I saw something I liked.

Most of the quotes were in the same general ballpark. With so little space even the top tier stones were only a few hundred dollars more than regular stones. And in my area ANY granite was less than the Cambria quote I got, so I kind if felt like I had carte Blanche when choosing since I would save no matter what!

I decided with my tight timeline I didn't want to fuss with a big box. The prices from the small shops were reasonable given what I have seen here, and I think they take a more personal interest in each of their jobs. The shop I'm using thinks I'm nuts for wanting to talk to the template guy so I can understand the tolerances, etc, but they gave me his card, suggested some times to try when he is likely to be there, and let him know I would be calling. Doesn't sound like big places are as accommodating to those that want to be involved.

Almost forgot: the Lowes guy that helped me so much with the bathroom suggested a specific person in the cabinet/counter section to see. Brought the name of the granite I was thinking of for a quote, she said they can get almost anything. Haven't heard anything since, it's been about 2 months. Even though I told her the bathroom guy sent me!

This post was edited by williamsem on Tue, Jan 29, 13 at 22:03

OK, so there are at least a half dozen or more stone yards within a mile of me at work. Only two are also fabricators. I will start going to them today and tomorrow with our drawing and see if I can get the marble or maybe Cambria like Beachlily wants at a reasonable price. We'll see. I have reseached to death and have garnished way too much knowledge about it.

I had the same problems with HD as everyone else. Templating went fine but they didn't tell me I had to be there to sign off on some paperwork so I had someone else be there to let the guy in to measure. So I had to go to HD to sign off on the paperwork which they sent in. Two weeks come and go and I hadn't heard anything so I started leaving messages for the granite company. After 3 days we finally go ahold of them and they tell me they don't have the paperwork to get started. Found out after more phone calls that they did get it but had lost it and then they wanted to schedule me an additional two weeks out, at this point it had already been three weeks since templating. Complained and they set us up a little over a week later. HD's contract with the granite company states installs within two weeks. If we hadn't followed up, we would still not be scheduled for the install which is putting completion of the kitchen even further off. The install is a few days away still so I can't even comment on that part yet.

The pricing was fair and we thought HD would be fine but the granite company does so much business that there is no customer service, they are two hours from here and do all HDs business within a two hour radius of there shop. Since I didn't hire the granite company directly, I've been talking to the KD and managers at HD to see what they are going to do about this. At first I wanted HD to use their might to push my install up (almost a month from templating) but due to employee schedules, by the time everyone got to review my problem its almost time to install anyway so I'm looking for a percent discount on my purchase.

I wish I had chosen a local company for my install if for nothing else then the customer service.

However, I know two other people that got granite from HD and their's went fine except for how long it took for the installs.

Yesterday a contractor that HD recommended from a list called "Red Beacon" finished our upstairs guest bathroom. They recommend Red Beacon when the job is too small for one of their in house subs. It looks terrible. What a mess. Then he charged me way more than his bid. I didn't like the guy, just a weird dude, so I just paid him and told him how disappointed I was with the way he did it as in the grout lines were to be zero grout line and they are all different sizes up to a quarter of an inch when we agreed on an eighth of an inch. Not to mention he didn't put the tiles all running in the same direction of flow meaning the tiles have a directional pattern on them in the form of veins running through the marble. The tiles vary greatly in shading and he put darker ones all in a row and lighter ones randomly when it would have looked better to disperse them throughout. He didn't even install a threshold and had told me he would cut the tile in small rectangular pieces to meet the door jam but he ran the tile all the way to the entry and just cut off the edges and butted it against a thin metal strip and filled it in with grout. The tile cut isn't cut evenly so it's all running down hill as far as the butt joint against a metal strip. It isn't a metal threshold strip it's just a thin metal strip.

I reminded him that he said he was going to do a threshold and he said oh yeah I did say that I don't know why I didn't and just shrugged. I told him I didn't think it looked good and would he like that in his house? He said no. I said what do you think we should do about it and he said that well if you ever have any other work in the future I could fix it then. What? I wanted to say there will never be another time. I paid him the full amount because we were alone in the house and I just don't need to be feeling like someone would do something to me or even say something to me that was really awful and with no witnesses here, he really could do/say whatever he wanted. It was so awkward.

His skill level was just not up to doing this very small bathroom. I am not sure where to go from here. I don't want him coming back here. I can't even make myself go up there and look at it closely. It took him 3 long days to do 36 square feet of tile plus the side of a 5 foot bathtub and there was no tear out except for taking up that amount of carpet. I think I could manage getting over what I paid him but it's the materials that I am agonizing over. It was all Carrera marble tile and side splash on the face of the tub and a new Kohler toilet.

I am starting to hate HDepot and Lowe's. Something always goes wrong when I have dealt with them and I don't know why they recommend people that don't have skill levels to meet even basic requirements. I honestly feel I could have done as good of a job. He also used three more boxes of tile than he estimated which would have been nearly half again as much as the space. I realize that setting tile on the diagonal takes more but not that much. So he bought more tile and I had to pay for that too. I cleaned up the driveway myself and there was so much wasted tile out there including some he was cutting in circles to place over the open trap for the toilet that smells so bad while working which I totally get but I had mentioned just setting a full tile on top of it as we have done in the past with the master remodel not cutting a custom tile piece just for the amount of time the drain was going to be open. Each tile costs several dollars and I saw at least three of them discarded when I was cleaning up I guess he was practicing on, not counting the ones that were upstairs. What is going on Home Depot?

P.S. I'm sorry, that was a little OT and I should have started my scenario stating that it was for floor tiles of Carrera marble and not for countertops. I didn't mean to hijack the thread but just wanted to share my HD experience. I went to them for a tile setter thinking that I would be saved from a bad experience from trying to find one on my own. haha.... : (