I wish I'd read these comments before trusting Lowe's with my countertop install. I saved for 2 years to buy new countertops and wasted it on a dishonest company. The Lowe's store "specialist" handed me Allen & Roth fast track program flyers and said everything is done online. A & R fast tract means nothing. The program states 10 days, the store personnel said 15 days or less. My install took 59 days and ended up with a mismatched seam. Lowe's Sage Surfaces brought a large slab of granite (they called a free cutting board) to cover the mismatched seam. It's so heavy I can't move it. I was contacted later by Lowe's customer service and offered a 10% discount to "make it right". I have learned the hard way that Lowe's cannot or will not deliver on any promise or guarantee and they don't understand the meaning of "Make It Right".

So many great experiences with quartz countertops that I have to share my experience for those in the decision process. Expected low/no-maintenance, nearly-bullet-proof from Cambria, but my countertops are terribly marked up from, of all things, rivets on jeans. A week or 2 after Cambria Whitehall installation, Installer came out to help with removing gray marks--they look like pencil scribble and some would wash off with dish soap, but others wouldn't. Installer decided the marks were from metal objects, mostly pocket knives (his marked the edge while reaching to clean the widow sill). The marks that wouldn't wash off Installer said are scratches. Fast-forward a week and we have 4 friends over for a Friday night. The next day: tons of marks all over the edges of the counter. Whitehall is very white and small-grained so these marks are *very* obvious. Tested the Cambria sample piece and jean rivets did mark it. Seems like it wouldn't show on a darker color, but it is something I didn't think to test on my sample prior to purchase. As for other benefits of quarts, there is one small stain that I can't figure out where it came from. But wine, tea, coffee, berries, chili sauce all clean up easily.

I have quartz and I like it! Paid $44 per sq ft at Lowes. We have LG Viatera in Cabo. We initially wanted Allen + Roth in Grand Pacific but I think it was $55 per sqft. The seams are hardly noticeable when looking down from your normal height (i.e. when you're standing and working), but you can see them if you lean down close. I can feel the seam slightly, but nothing too severe. A cloth or sponge wouldn't catch on it. It doesn't look plasticky to me but I am not sure what you mean by that! I think the less patterned stones tend to have that Corian-ish look about them, which I don't like. Anyway, I love love LOVE that quartz is pretty much zero maintenance! We can barely see any stuff that we spill thanks to the color/pattern we chose, but it's so nice to know that it's not going to get stained, etched, etc.

Oh no! We are(were?) going to have the same countertop installed in our kitchen- is it really bad? Or does it look like old etched marble? I hope so I really like this countertop.