we used a company called ultimate stone. they were recommended by my contractor and the pricing went through my contractor as well. i dealt with a guy named damien.

they're out in the western burbs somewhere, but i'm sure they'd take a job in the city.

they were easy to work with, fast, and did a great job on the fabrication/installation. i'd recommend them.

I will recommend to call my friend Khurram In some of the pictures the countertop are from him.
khurram 773.370.7300
and you can tell Giacomo the crazy italian give the number! :-)

Are you looking for a fabricator or a granite showroom? If you want to view granite I recommend Damar in Northbrook www.damarstone.com.HUGE warehouse,helpful staff. For fabricators I would recommend stonecrafters www.stonecrafters.com

Thanks for the responses! And amylville brings up an interesting point about showrooms vs. fabricators. Never having purchased a countertop, I assumed they were one and the same! But does that mean showrooms do not fabricate (i.e., cut the granite)? That you need to work with two different businesses? Or is it just the case that some showrooms with large inventories do not handle the cutting/install as well?

If this thread drops due to my hijacking of the topic, I may have to post separately.

In the meantime, I hope to hear from those more knowledgeable than me!

Thanks!!

showrooms are practically useless for narrowing down your choices, imo. they show you tiny little samples that don't give you an accurate representation of the product.

in order to go to a warehouse to view whole slabs, you usually have to have a fabricator call for you to set up an appointment. once you're in, you can browse literally thousands of slabs, but be prepared...it's kind of an industrial environment and can be kind of slow going if they have to pull slabs out for you to look at.

what i'd suggest is narrowing down your choices by browsing some sites online that show various granites/stones. make a short list and then start looking at specific slabs in person.

fyi, fabricators buy the slabs from the warehouse, cut it to your specs and install it. showrooms may/may not employ fabricators. most showrooms don't carry any inventory and simply outsource the work to an independent contractor (the fabricator).

we viewed slabs at dal tile in elk grove village and had an excellent experience. it's very user-friendly. you can just walk through the aisle looking at all the slabs.

I've gotten quotes from quite a few people, but the biggest warehouse/showroom I went to was in Aurora. Heartland Granite. If you get the Trib, you can see their ad in the Home section. They sell and fabricate as well, and their prices are reasonable. From what I've heard, they do a great job.

ask organic_donna. she has a beautiful kitchen (look on blog) and was VERY rigorous in her hiring.
LC

We used heartland tile and marble out of Wisconsin. They have an office in Wheeling as well. Their prices were in the middle for the same slabs from 5 or 6 fabricators.

They did a fantastic job and bent over backwards and recommended a steel fabricator for our floating island.

You're welcome to come look at their work.

go check out rocktops in crete, il. they're super nice, and you can pretty much show up whenever to see their warehouse.

they also carry a bunch of slate, and soapstone and marble, tons of options! they'll sell your fabricator the slabs or do it themselves. they're very friendly and not pushy at all