With some marbles and granites, there IS no difference. With others, though, there's alot of difference. For example, travertine, bottocino, and crema marfil are three stones notorious for the way they fracture on veins, sometimes just from their own weight when picking them up. This problem will be much more prevalent in some lots rather than others. Guess which one's you'll find at the big box stores? As for granites, the same goes for coloring. My favorite stone of all time is the perfect example. Blue pearl-- it can run from a bright sapphire blue, to almost a cadet grey, depending on the lot your stone comes from. It's very rare that you'll see prime grade blue pearl at HD. As for pharaoh's example with the thassos, just like with blue pearl, there are actually different grades of the stone, from stone that has some veining to it, to stone that has occasional markings (almost resembling stains) to clear, which is a pure brilliant crystaline white. You'll never see clear thassos at the box stores. pharaoh-- you should've kept looking:

Sensibuilt is actually moving towards one of the top composite brands out there. I personally LOVE IT. It's Spill, stain, scratch and mold resistant. We used to have a portico deck which turned a hideous shade of green with mold, so i wanted something that was going to stay clean and playable for the kids. What i REALLY love about Sensibuilt above ALL other brands it that it is 100% recyclable! No other composite can do that, they may be made out of recycled material but they can't be recycled after it's life-cycle. The life-cycle of Sensibuilt can be reused 4 TIMES OVER! It's VOC free. It's all around environmentally friendly. Not to mention the 10 year color hold warranty which you simply won't find anywhere else. Sensibuilt is also in the process of re-working the surface of their product to take away some of the sheen so by the time you start building your deck, the lot you get will be the lot that has alot less shine to it. Obviously i am a fan of Sensibuilt and would recomend it to nearly anyone considering building or rebuilding thier deck! Here is a link that might be useful: Sensibuilt

Thanks so much for all of your replies. On the advice of kompy (thank you very much!), we did find a local dealer and we are working with them. Comparing apples to apples to all the cabs and design that Lowe's priced, they are about 8% more, BUT they also pointed out several flaws in the Lowe's design, such as how the molding they had stacked on top of the pantry would actually protude ever so slightly out from the wall, how one of the doors would not open all the way without binding and how the fridge & cabinets around it wouldn't allow the fridge doors to fully open! I definitely would not have been happy with that and I wouldn't have realized it until too late when everything was installed! They have also suggested some small design changes that I think really makes the whole layout better. And they are able to get items from Kraftmaid like wainscot panels for the island instead of sticking doors on it - which I think looks really nice! We haven't ordered yet, but I am very happy so far with the local dealer. Even though they are a bit more expensive, I think the expertise in kitchen layouts and the time they have spent with us going over everything is definitely worth it. billp1 - wow, that's a leap of faith ordering online from Kentucky and you're in NY! So glad everything went smoothly for you. bbell - I agree about the dealer making design suggestions and what to do or not to do. Just some small tweaks to the Lowe's design that were suggested by the dealer I think really has made the layout better (and actually, when we went into Lowe's we knew the basic design of what we wanted and they plugged in the measurements and cabinets, etc that fit in our measurements). And I do like that if there are any issues, then the dealer is the middle man to deal with Kraftmaid. Luckily I think we have found a local dealer who really cares about his clients and wants them to be happy with their new kitchen. He has been out to our house twice within the past week to take measurements, to demonstrate to us some of the issues w/ the Lowe's design and show us drawings with some design ideas. RICSFAN - we are planning to get cherry peppercorn too in the Montclair door style. What door style did you get? Are your cabinets installed yet? I would love to see pictures.

Our only experience is with plumbers. The first was a friend recommendation. We actually had them come out twice. First for a water leak where our primary wate pipe had siding nailed into it. They fixed the 3" pipe that had. Racked all the way down into the slab. Then told us our 1 1/2" pipe from the kitchen sink wasn't to code and put in 2" pipe outside the wall, inside the cabinet. Called them again when we had a gas leak where the PO had copper run under the patio slab then into the house. Settling happened and the joint completely separated. They came out and ran new copper pipe strapped to the foundation. Fast forward to our kitchen remodel. Called one that was recommended on the Next Door app. They were stunned at the length of copper run outside and said there's no way that will pass inspection. The sink drain pipe that was supposedly not to code would have been fine. The new plumbers did a reasonable job with running the new gas line in the ceiling. I'm not happy with where they drilled the holes through the ceiling joists, but that seems to be fairly common with plumbers.