Thanks for the link My3Dogs! Looks like a great site and I will have to figure out what chairs I want to re-upholster so I can check their fabrics. I was looking for a specific Waverly fabric for my kitchen valances but they did not carry it there. I did find it though at FabricGuru.com for $6.95/yd plus they only charge $4.99 for shipping no matter how much you order. Its nice to know there are places to buy fabrics at a reasonable cost. I'm thinking about pulling out my 37 year old sewing machine and trying my hand at the valances. I bought enough fabric though that I can always turn it over to a professional if I really mess up! The fabric I ordered is Waverly's Rutherford Hill Merlot. I think it will pull together my colors in my kitchen and keep with the "Tuscan" look I am going for. Here is a link to my kitchen. I have saffron gold walls with Currant Jam (Burgundy) accents around the windows, butler pantry and in the powder room, plus my kitchen chairs have sage green seats and my adjoining sunroom is painted in light greens. Here is a link that might be useful: My Kitchen

Patricia, in this day and age of e-commerce, most of the to-the-trade companies have websites that can be browsed by mere mortals! After all, without customers, designers or these manufacturers wouldn't be able to make a living. Also don't forget that some of the projects posted on Houzz were completed years ago and some of the things have been discontinued over the years.

I try to keep mine (mostly 1/4 & 1/2yrs) in 16x11/6" boxes by color, holidays, type(gold/slver,strips,plaids,dots, etc), hand dyed, period, solids, flannel,etc,etc. I store most of it stacked 3 high on industral shelves. I fold and file like index cards. On the bottom shelf I keep a laundry basket with my batts and covered shoeboxes with scraps cut to useable size sqs. Unfortunately I also have too many, some folded and others just in baskets on my cutting table. I am ashamed of my stash but like the boxes to store as they are easy to see and access. I lable with index cards facing out. Jayne

Most important-make sure they know you must be there to lay out the templates on the slabs and sign off on that before they cut. Take photos of the templates on the slabs. Hopefully have photos of your slabs already and the stickers on them. When you get to the shop, be sure the slabs they picked up are indeed the right slabs. Our fabricator was great and we worked as a team ( he and his DW and the DH and I) to get the templates on the slabs in a way that minimized use of the parts of the slabs we didn't care for and at the same time got the seams in areas that look good. Our slabs were bookend cut (mirror images) and we only have seams in the middle of the sink on the lower level and in the middle of the run on the bar level and we elected to put the seams in the exact same area of each slab, in places where there were not a lot of veins. By doing so, we essentially made the two sides of the kitchen mirror images as you stand at the sink. The fabricators warned us several times.."If you do that the veins will not be running the same way" but we were good with that, in fact we like it a lot. The sink is angled, so the whole layout is like a chevron anyway. But the point is, make sure the fabricator points out the ramifications of any decisions you make but at the same time, remember it's ultimately your choice. Second-either be there when they install or make sure someone you trust completely is. Even though they did a great job, we watched them like hawks and asked a lot of questions. In one case, we did stop the guy from doing something useless which was try to remove one of the stretchers off the top of the cab. It was in the way of the sink so it to him It made sense to remove it until DH pointed out to him that it was also screwed through the sides of the cab and wasn't going to come out unless he dissembled the entire sink cab. Instead, DH told him we would have to just notch it to get it out of the way. Oh and on the seams, ask when they template how they pull them together. I think Oldryder or someone has some threads on this but if they don't have some equipment like those suction things to pull them together, you probably don't want them doing your kitchen. For us the whole process was painless (except for the picking the slabs part) and turned out great. Hope that's the case for you as well.