It depends. The five could be indistinguishable from each other or you may only like slab 2 and 3.

Always choose your slab and write your name in it with a sharpie.

Be involved with the templating.

We have a joke here, “Lick your slab!”

As Joseph said it depends on the slab, some are very similar and you'd never tell the difference but our general rule is you pick the exact slab you want.

Only exception we make to this rule is quartz because there is very little to no variation between slabs.

It is not unheard of to ask to see all 5 or 7 slabs that are available.

Your spending a good amount of money on granite, the warehouse staff can certainly move a few slabs around for you to choose the one you love.

thanks all! I guess I'm still confused because there doesn't seem to be one correct answer! The company we're buying from said they don't show individual slabs because they are all from the same lot, so they will be the same. I am talking granite or quartzite. The woman acted like I was a total nut to even suggest it...unfortunately this is the vendor our builder is using, so we don't have a choice.

Typical of production, not typical of custom but it is also price sensitive. Design centers don't offer this service, but instead use sample "chips" of slabs and likey offer a limited selection. If you're building custom and the builder is using a design center and/or has limited basic offerings, you might have to pay more for the custom slab process. Some builders use prefab pieces also, available at big box stores and importers.

Slab showrooms (warehouses) are set up solely for this purpose. Dal, Arizona, Bedrosian, MSI, Pacific Shores to name a few.

Net material prices will vary from under $10 psf (prefab) to nearly $100, with fabrication varying significantly also.

@Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor when you said slab showrooms are set up for this purpose, what are you referring to? Prefab pieces? Where I went is a warehouse with rows and rows of stone - most pieces had 3-4 of the same type stacked behind. Is this somewhere I should look at each piece specifically? Sorry if I'm making this more confusing than it is!

@colindbmc not typical around here but I believe they will do it for you if you ask. It's not a few minutes. It's a machine and some work to get each of say 6 slabs. So you could always ask for them to do this and take pictures. then when you know which one you want you can sharpie it? [I hadn't heard that either assuming after you pay?].

Around here there are 4-5 granite yards that most fabricators uses so you go to the yards and then tell the fabricator which one you like.

I've only had the pleasure of selecting granite twice. First time I was able to be there to see where my granite would be cut and seam etc. The 2nd they sent a 3d image to me of the same thing. I much preferred the first way.

I would look at the 'first' slab in each item they have, not asking for anything to be moved; narrow it down to maybe three options, THEN ask to see the remaining slabs of my first choice, and perhaps of the second choice. I wouldn't ask them to move a bunch of slabs where I didn't even like the first one. Just making sure I understand your issue with the warehouse.

I would not pay for a slab I did not see and choose. The warehouse we bought our 3 slabs from had every slab pulled out and lined up in a row at my appointment so I could see every single one - they did this without me asking. I think she is the nut not you!

To avoid any headaches even if you do offer 2-3 slabs to chose from, I would send people to a warehouse and have them pick the slabs from the 2-3 offered choices.

The way I always work on any of my jobs, being this a New home or a kitchen remodeling, I take people to a warehouse and tell them this Group-1,2,3, each group has different pricing, this is the least expansive and this is way up there... pick what you like.

That said, granite cannot be picked from a sample, doing that asking for trouble because you don't know what you get. Each lot is different from one another, the small granite samples they have been laying around for years and picking from that sample and the stone you get could be way off from what you saw, in some cases, it will not look like it's the same stone.

Some customers don't care but some will throw a fit and that can't be good and I know a few builders who have model homes or trailer set-up type showrooms and offer granite from samples they all make customers sign waivers that they are not responsible for "what the stone will look like " but written in a more explanatory way.

Yes, I know how many of the posters here feel about "tract" homes. Whatever. We can choose anything we like, but yes we do need to use the vendors available. For instance, we didn't like their standard cabinet manufacturer, so we upgraded to shiloh and will pay the difference.

I've gone to the warehouse and I can price out any material there - we'd pay any overages. I haven't even talked to the builder about any of this - everything comes straight from the warehouse.

I think it's so funny how people are so judgmental about this topic. We are building in a very high end community that is contacted with 4 different builders. The cheapest home is 500K. Most are 750-1 million, which is where our home price will end up. It is what it is.

Thank you for all the helpful advice!

I find it funny that you’re implying people are superficial in their accurate description of the tract home building process, but then you feel the need to brag about the price of your home. Seems like we have a case of pot and kettle here.

Regardless, the Company you’re buying from is clearly trying to take the path of least resistance by just giving you any old slab of the color you select. Perhaps you will be allowed to select the slab, but as LWO pointed out the customer is the builder so the fabricator owes you nothing. That’s not a comment on how good your home is, it’s just a fact.

I hope the upgrade cost for the Shiloh cabinets wasn’t too much. Though I suspect if the builder isn’t doing high volume on Shiloh it wasn’t a deal by any stretch.

The stone warehouse we went to took nice pictures of every slab. They brought an ipad on the floor and showed us the various slabs from the lots they had. Then we decided which ones we wanted to see. We ended up looking at the first slab in a block “in person” and then looking at the pictures of the other consecutive slabs to confirm that they were similar to the first one.

If you are talking about granite or quartzite definitely look at the specific slab... And if you end up using a subset of it make sure you see and approve the template (take pics!). We just went through this process... all of the warehouses we went to were very happy to move slabs for us (or pretended to be very happy which was fine too :->). If you are talking about natural stone with any kind of movement there is going to be variation...

If you’re buying plain old raisin bread, the pieces of the loaf are very much like each other. If you’re slicing marble cake, where the pattern changes the deeper you slice into the cake, each slice will be a bit different than the previous one.

That's a good analogy.

Where I went is a warehouse with rows and rows of stone - most pieces had 3-4 of the same type stacked behind. Is this somewhere I should look at each piece specifically?

That's exactly where you'd expect to look around. You'd choose the stone you like, then look at ALL the slabs available with that stone. You'd determine whether they have enough /whether their slabs are appropriate for your space.

Then you'd take a picture and watch them label YOUR STONE. And you'd specify your favorite bit to be cut for your island (or whatever happens to be your most prominent cabinet).

However, we're giving you general advice here. "The real answer" is whatever your company says.

Yes, I know how many of the posters here feel about "tract" homes.

Tract homes are fine -- as long as you understand the pros and cons going into the deal. My daughter lives in one, and I like her house quite well.

Tract homes come in a wide variety of prices, and from your description, it sounds like you're getting a high-end tract home. You're choosing from their limited vendors, who offer good prices because they're guaranteed to do this whole neighborhood -- and they're looking to cut corners.

The price point does not make the tract home process any different. It just changes the basic cost of the material. The way they do business is exactly the same regardless if it is 100K or 1M. They make their real money on any changes and performing all the work as efficiently (read cheap) as possible.

When we built our home, our builder did not allow us to look at any slabs. We just picked what we wanted from a 12"x12" sample at the design center and went on our merry way. Granted, their countertop offerings were of granite that were in the grade 1-2, so variation was very limited.

When we redid our kitchen last fall and could pick any stone we wanted, we did look at different stones and when we found something we liked, we asked the distributor to start moving slabs around so we could see the variation in each, determine if there were any blemishes, etc.

@Jar G point taken! My point wasn't to brag, but can see how that was taken. I've seen the same posters over and over have nothing but disdain for tract homes. Not necessarily in this post, but in many others. As my meaning was misconstrued, maybe I am doing the same regarding their tone.

I think it would be good to remember that there is a wide range of tract builders. I totally get the disdain for certain ones, mass producers, national brands. This is an interesting tract builder. We designed our elevation and floor plan. They were not taken from the builders own stock, but yes they work with certain vendors. Some I've been thrilled with, some not so much. I don't think we're overpaying to upgrade to Shiloh, but we are comfortable with the price either way. Again, your tone is implying that we're being screwed.

Just an update, we will pick the actual slab once we pick the style. So I'm not crazy, that employee was. Thanks all.