Awwww, you are going to love them. They are all different and all "feel" great. Have fun! Then, let me know what you decided to do with your samples when you are through with them! :)

I have no idea what I might do with them after I make a decisions. Only cost $35 for the samples. A bit disappointing as they dropped the cost to $25 a few days after I placed the order.

I ordered them from M.Tex(whatever). Mostly because they may be my best bet for the location I'm in. Our counter layout is such that we can do this in four smaller pieces, and plan on having the cut and edged by the supplier.

It will be real neat if they show up tomorrow, but where I live, "overnight" usually means 2 days. Sometimes it means it's stuck at the airport and who knows when it will get driven out.

Did you get them yet? I got mine from M Tex, too. I live in a rural area where people say "Soap what?"

My son keeps telling people his mom got her barroca soapstone, and they say, what's that for? It's pretty funny actually.

I paid $35, too. Right now, my slabs are sitting on my carport waiting to be installed. I can't wait. Until then, I keep walking by and "stroking" them.

Anyway, enjoy!

@hydrangea_luvr, I think that's actually a great thing---it makes your kitchen unique! We have the opposite problem---finally decided last week to go with soapstone after DH called from a friend's house where their Barroca counters had just been installed and said "okay, this looks good, I want this." (We had spent the previous morning at several different stone yards trying in vain to find a granite we both liked, after the quotes for our Paperstone came in at double our budget.)

BUT---we live in the SF Bay Area, M. Tex country. Virtually *every* friends' kitchen I've seen that's been redone here in the past 18 months or so has soapstone! Aaaaaaa. (On the upside, I guess we don't have to worry about people being unfamiliar with it for resale??) I would love it a little more if it were more unique here, though. (And in fairness, this is also bungalow country, where there's an argument that soapstone might be vaguely period appropriate, so I think that drove some of these choices---though in reality I doubt most of these little houses had any stone in them before the last decade or so!)

We're going to see the slabs on Saturday, though---exciting! Curious to hear what you think of the samples, macybaby.

@artemis - I'm dying to see your kitchen. It sounds like it's coming along and I think we decided we have somewhat comparable kitchens. I think I posted a little while ago asking to see pics, but I can't even remember what thread it was. (Too many things on my mind...not enough time.)

My nephew sent me a link to paperstone. He's a "green" architect. I didn't get the message though until after the soapstone was purchased and sitting at the M Tex Hackensack shop with my name on it. And it sounds like I couldn't have afforded it anyway. Plus, I'm very happy with what was delivered to my house last week. It all looked beautiful. And, the process went well with M Tex.

Sorry...didn't mean to steal your thread macybaby.

Good to hear---we are going to get a quote to have M Tex do the full install since we're just across the Bay from them, so we'll see how that goes. We have friends who loooove their Paperstone, but it has apparently gone up in price (or gotten trendier??) since they had theirs installed, and the quote was double what it was when I first called for quotes a year or so ago. Ugh. Ironic that soapstone turned out to be the cheaper option!

We are coming along nicely after a bumpy start--passed our rough inspections a few hours ago, right on schedule at the two-week mark! It still doesn't look like much, though. I'll try to get some photos up next week once the walls are finished and it starts to look like a kitchen again. :) Okay, back to work...

The samples arrived yesterday, I have them laid out on the floor. I wasn't too worried about looking them over yesterday because DH had a break in work and I expected he'd be around for a few days - he called today, has to be back on the job site 7 am tomorrow morning!

But him being back to work will make it easier for me to pay for the counters! He works seasonal so this is nothing out of the ordinary for us.

I love hearing about other people's soapstone counters. I also want a green counter, but I mean the real "green" as in dark green/black color, so I'm hoping one of the samples will give me that look.