You are locked in to one or the other unless you do extensive remodeling. It's not just the granite. A wall oven and cooktop needs two extra cabinets. If you get a standard sized range, you can always replace it with a more capable range down the road. If you leave a 30" space, maybe just a plain 30" base cabinet, a skilled carpenter can retrofit a single wall oven below counter later if you want to add a second full sized oven. Or do what I and millions of others do and buy a convection toaster oven. I can roast a chicken in it if I want to, or bake brownies, or whatever. And it can be stored away in the pantry when it's not needed.

How is he planning on transporting a 5'x10' slab that weights in at 1800 lbs? Professional fabricators have a special A frame sling that supports the granite on an edge, not flat, and it takes a heavy duty truck and trailer in order to be able to transport, as well as a crane or 5 or 6 really hefty in shape guys. And that's just transporting it from one place to another. Fabricating also requires moving the slab to a horizontal position. Then it has to be cut. Professional fabricators have literally thou$and$ of dollars in their tools, and that is if they're ones who do it by hand. Those that have CNC waterjets have millions of dollars in their tools. You may can polish the edge of a pre fab slab with a couple of hundred dollars worth of tools, but you're not going to be able to fabricate an entire slab's worth of granite with them. Slabs are best handled by the professionals who have the knowledge and equipment to do so. Amateurs have NO place attempting dealing with whole slabs unless you have the opportunity to really up that whole life insurance with a double payout for accidental death. Or maybe he's trying to get a Darwin Award or get on 1000 Ways to Die?

"Probably fine" doesn't cut it in my book when I'm spending thousands of my own hard earned dollars and plan to live in the house for many years. "Probably fine" doesn't gaurantee you anything. I know it's been a loooooon battle for you, but I second the suggestion (as I did the other day) to move on again. LWO said what I said the other day. You may have to spend a little more money to get a quality fabricator who knows what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks he is doing, but it is so worth it. Hang in there!

We have signed a contract - with a different remodeler and it's in budget! We're so excited. The GC we were so frustrated with did lower his proposal, but was still $14K over budget. In the end, we feel that we are not his target customer and that's okay. We have found a GC that fits us and we are moving forward. We have a rough estimate of when work will start and will have a more exact date once he has a chance to plug us into their system. He expects they'll start work the end of October or the beginning of November. Monday we meet with our cabinets guy to go over things one last time before placing the order. We called and secured our granite today and then I had to swing by to ogle it and touch it. LOL I also started looking for alternative backsplash tile options, because the glass tile we picked out before is ridiculously expensive it turns out. I've found a good alternative that is $8.99 sq. ft compared to what The Tile Shop estimates the other one ran at $35.00/sq ft. We love that the GC we are going with will tell us that Option A costs $x more than Option B. That's the information we need so we can do our part to keep things in budget.