I'm curious too! What did you decide, Sophie? Allie

sorry to see this thread has gone negative... I think blondelle tried to give some good advice - maybe not what the OP wants to do, but clearly blondelle did a great job photoshopping the kitchen to show what minimal and less expensive changes could do to make the space more cohesive by keeping the elements that are more difficult and expensive to change and making easier less expensive changes elsewhere. maybe it makes the blue island feel more at home by taking out the other strong color in the room??? too many strong colors competing against each other along with so many other elements like the busy granite. whatever the case, just posting back in to respond to linelle... re: my comment of the granite looking "serious". I meant that it is less in keeping of the whimsy of the blue island and green walls than some other choices that could have been made, such as butcherblock, or a solid casesarstone, or even soap stone. This particular granite does seem sort of formal to me for the other choices that were made. From my trips to the granite yards, I haven't seen many lighter granites that I would consider to be on the informal side (just my opinion :-)

THANK YOU to everyone who helped me learn from this experience! There is so much knowledge (and willingness to spend time on graphics!) on this board! I'm very grateful. I didn't know what I didn't know...but I sure do now! I did not even know what "templating" really meant before. Lesson learned! My contractor has gotten involved and the manager of the granite fabricator has apologized and offered to make things right. They have one slab left from this lot. I'm going tomorrow to see if any part of it might provide a better match for the larger, L-shaped piece in question. Thanks to all of you I understand that it will not be a perfect match...but I'm grateful for the opportunity to see if there is the possibility of a better color blend. I'm so glad to have an idea of what my expectations should be. The smaller piece that is poorly color-matched was installed with the wrong ends touching. They're going to attempt to pull it out, turn it around, and re-install. That would have been avoided if they'd involved me in any part of the planning as they said they would! I was told that the small piece might break in their attempt to remove it, and the large remaining slab in this lot was rejected already by the fabricator as a poor match...but this is step one in their attempt to fix. I'm hopeful and going in with a positive attitude. It's only a countertop, right? That's what I keep telling myself... I've moved on to dealing with the backsplash tile that I selected to match my initial granite sample (which wound up not being the slabs they gave me...it was creamier/browner) that doesn't work with these countertops. Thank goodness they hadn't started to install the tile yet! I'm hoping my contractor will help absorb the restock fee for that tile (25%..is that normal?) since it's not like I just randomly changed my mind. These counters definitely don't look as good with my floors as the original slabs I selected. I'm just trying to keep things in perspective....and hope that maybe someday we can put in hardwood floors so the (old) floor tile that doesn't match isn't one more thing for me to kick myself about. This process can definitely be discouraging.

Diagonal seams are not acceptable. They are the weakest, require much more support, and have the most chance of a color and pattern mismatch because they are the largest possible joinery seam. They have the most chance of shifting as cabinets settle and move, giving you a large area of lippage vs a small one. They also waste the most material, which costs you more with the extra slabs needed, and in general, just look ugly with any stone with directionality. That diagonal is not a good look. At all. . A french miter is always the preferred seam for a corner. Quartz is not natural stone. It has zero predictability in color pattern production. You need to have that expectation on the front end. You will not get a pattern match like bookmatched natural stone. Ever. It's not printed from a pattern like tile. The individual solids colors are mixing as swirl paintings that are different every single time. No manufacturer or fabricator anywhere warrants a seam to be a perfect match, because the product has no predictability. Each slab is individually patterned and colored and is unique, and can not ever be a perfect match. That is a as well done a seam as any Quartz manufacturer would promise. It an acceptable match. It does not fall outside any industry tolerances.