All the Silestone is the same quality, some colors cost more. It's all some special recipe of 90% quartz with resin binders. Zodiaq and Caesarstone are the same recipe, they are just different colors, and different marketing. Essentially it's all engineered quartz. I have heard Silestone bragging about some special microban addition, of which I am extremely skeptical. I do not think there are any problems with putting tile all the way down the counter edge, you don't need a Silestone backsplash if you don't care for one. My sister has a tile all the way down to her Zodiaq countertop, it looks great. I also just want to say...you might want to shop around for price. HD always seems to be about double the price of the smaller shops in my area (Twin Cities metro), which makes sense, since they use the same local subcontractors, give them what they ask for, and then add on a big ol' chunk for being the middleman. The engineered quartz is always about the same price in material...it's the install that varies wildly. Of course you may have your reasons for going with HD, like you feel more secure going with a big box store (many peeps do), don't want to deal with looking elsewhere, are using their credit card, they are the only place in town that carries Silestone, etc, in which case pay me no mind! But otherwise...check out some other fabricator shops. You might be shocked at how much lower your bill could be. Congrats on new countertops! Joanna

"Seek and ye shall find; ask and ye shall receive." Ten hours ago I posted " Plywood is incapable of applying constant upward pressure on a sink as straps on sinks do. And replacing the sink would be a nightmare." Well I went to work and my nightmare has come true. This sink, undermounted in 2cm stone, is supported by plywood and is leaking like a sieve. I don't know when I've seen a worse topical caulk job. A knife slides easily between the sink flange and the bottom of the stone. That leaking is contributing to the failing seam. If it leaks enough to rust a steel reinforcement rod, it can blow the front rail off and crack the rear. There's a dishwasher to the left and a wash machine to the right (small condo) that will have to be pulled so I can Rotozip the cabinet sides to gain access to the plywood so I can remove it to remove the sink. I'll have to patch the cabinet sides back together, install the sink harness or straps, remake the seams, and reinstall the sink and appliances. I'm practically writing my proposal in this post. I can change a strapped sink in an hour and a quarter. I'm going to propose a Kohler K-3942 as an alternative. The appliances could stay, no cabinet alterations, and the existing sink, plywood and all, would be cut out from the top. I won't have to make the front seam either. This bachelor likes stainless steel apron sinks. Wish me luck please. And never, ever, use plywood to support a sink.

At my last house I had Caesarstone Raven which is a smoky gray with hints of misty white running through it. It was beautiful and I loved it so much I'm actually thinking about getting it again in my current house. I compared it with a lot of different colors, and the color is just right- not too brown not too cold. However last time I made the mistake of getting it honed and it smudged constantly. I did wash it multiple times a day but it was ridiculously difficult to get smudges out. Everything made it smudge. After trying mfg recommendations, I constantly ended up having to do something the manufacturer said not to do and use other solvents to try to get smudges out. It was really bad when the Sun lit up the area. Now I'm actually thinking about getting Caesarstone Raven without a matte finish in my current home but I'm wondering if I would be better off trying to find a Silestone equivalent color. So far I haven't been able to do that. I like the charcoal soapstone in silestone but it has blue undertones and looks a bit too cold. Any good recommendation for a smoky gray that's not too cold or too warm so it ends up looking brown?

I can’t speak to the MSI stone, but we have the calacatta gold and really like it. It is very white and the veining is more subtle than the other fake marble quartzes we saw. It was expensive, but since we used it for our backsplash and counter we decided to splurge.