I got a honed carrara vanity top from a local stone yard. It's beautiful and dealing with them was painless. Two years later a few etches (it's marble) but no stains or chips. It's a beautiful stone and I picked it out, including the exact area for templating.

Why not price check all your options? You may be surprised.

Black granite is black granite, and will wear well no matter where you get it. Carrera marble will develop patina, no matter where you get it. But if you're going to go to a big box store and order a vanity top, they will send to your home the very same sort of fabricators and give you the very same sort of aggravation you had before, and only you can decide if it is worth it. That said, what I think you're suggesting is that you might order a prefabricated vanity with a prefabricated top? Some of them are quite beautiful and extremely cost-effective . And yes, the stone will still be all the same, with less choice of color, and no flexibility of shape. But it is a perfectly reasonable option.

Hi - I was thinking of the pre-made (30"x22" and 36"x22") black granite vanity tops with undermount white sink bowl already attached - H.D. sells them for under $200 each with a click of the mouse. The entire top/sink shows up at your home a few days later. Sold separate from the vanity itself.

It just sounds so, so easy and fast.

So just curious if anyone savvier than me owns/owned such a stock granite top and though it a fine alternative to custom fabricating (assuming one is ok with the limited choices at HD or Lowes.)

ap999:

No local fabricator can compete with a Chinese prefabricated top from HD on price. My butt doesn't hit my van seat for $200.00.

The only exception is if the local fabricator has a screwed up top and with perhaps ripping an end off, it will fit perfectly for you and Bubba can cut it during his lunch hour for cash.

Just realize that it will be dyed granite, so careful what touches it or you clean it with.

Did one of those for our kids bathroom three years ago. It still looks like new. For less than $150 it made a huge difference.

Thanks for the help everyone!

gpeach1: is that vanity 19" depth or (the standard) 22"? (It seems better scaled to the space than the vanity in our kids' bath (similar layout).)

I used HD solid surface tops for two baths in my vacation rental. No problems whatsoever. Uber $150 each for 48" wide vanities.

Yes it is 22" depth cabinet.

I wondered the same. I just purchased a 31"w carrara marble top with undermount sink attached with a backsplash included, online from HD. Hasn't been installed yet, but I was pleasantly surprised, it looks very nice in the box. Cost was $339 delivered to local HD store where we picked it up for no additional shipping cost.

Thanks all for your thoughts! Much appreciated.

I'm going with big orange's gray granite "Napoli" Pegasus top w/undermount sink attached. $170 for the 30"; $229 for the 36" (plus tax, free shipping)! The colors work for me, and its just so easy: I tried twice in the past 3 days to go to a highly recommended (and lower priced for my area) stone yard/fabricator but traffic was so bad I gave up both times. So today I clicked and ordered from the comfort of my home.

This started as an all marble master bath, now its all ceramic tile and cheap gray granite! (Well, marble shower jambs but those are cheap/stock things from the tile store.)

we had a pre-fab carrera marble top/sink from Expo Design (RIP) - it was an arm of HD in a previous re-model. No issues for the 6yrs we lived there with it. We haven't decided on the vanities yet for this new house reno, but I would definitely do the pre-fab again.

No, most people (including me, and I suspect most people here) can't tell the difference between expensive custom vs. well-chosen big-box granite -- in a bathroom -- especially when the sink takes up so much of the space. So no harm in "going cheap".

For a kitchen, especially a kitchen in an open floor plan so that the countertops "show" from multiple rooms, I would take the time to pick and choose the most lovely stone possible. With "wide open spaces" on an island, people do notice whether the granite is just flat or has embedded crystals and graceful swoops of color.

Regardless, I would never, ever, ever buy from "Big Orange". They installed my laminate countertops, and they treated me horribly -- and then after the countertops were installed, they discovered that the backsplash couldn't be installed in my kitchen -- my kitchen which they measured before installation. At every turn, they were genuine arseholes.