Legacy Granite

Finally deciding to replace our formica with Granite in our kitchen and bathrooms it turned out to be not a very straight forward venture. We knew very little about what to expect for costs so we looked at the highest ratedf in Angies list, plus two others. We choseFrank at Legacy (who was not on Angies list) as he was the one who came up on top after sifting through all the others. We got his name from one of the granite yards. There should really be a book written on the Granite industry and how to know if your getting the best deal. There are so many that have a garage granite operation that you need to stay away from. With Legacy I was able to see his industrial saws, that were quite impressive, and contact his references that were recent and seemed candid in their laudatory remarks. Legacy was prompt and gave us a quick appointment for the measuring. We needed 189 sq/ft of granite with 5 sinks, After choosing the granite Frank created templates of all our counters out of plastics so they would be cut correctly. It was a week of fabrication and then the install of two days. There were no hidden costs as there were with other top companies; no extra costs for bullnose, sink cuts, demolition, or the actual sinks, all was included. I required about 3.5 slabs of granite. I purchased 3 and Frank allowed me to pick the remainder (two bathrooms) from his left over inventory at no additional cost (this granite was at a higher level than the level 1's that I had ordered). Though he included the sinks, we wanted specific ones so we purchased them ourselves and Frank deducted his cost from the total bill. Something unique that we wanted was for our breakfast bar to be raised on piers, lowering the existing pony wall. Mentioning the raised breakfast bar to the top rated granite place on Angies they said "bad idea, will cost a lot for fabrication". When I mentioned to Frank what we wanted, he created a design and method to support our desires while on-site. There was no additional charge to us for him to fabricate this. What we had done: 1) A kitchen that took two slabs, full backsplashes, with an elevated breakfast bar on fabricated granite pylons. 2) Master bath that required one slab, two sinks, backsplashes, window sills, and the sill on top of a pony wall for the shower. 3) two other full baths, single sinks, with window sills. Selecting the fabricator: If you don't choose Legacy then here is what to look for: 1) Do they have the equipment to do the granite fabrication? 2) How quickly do they call you back. I had one fabricator contact me back two weeks after the job was completed! 2) Do they charge anything above the base price they quote you. Demolition, take away, 1/2 bullnose edging, sinks, sink cutouts, faucet cutouts, plumbing reinstall. The base cost with Legacy included all of this. 3) Can they work with your vision or do they move you to go with a basic model? When they look at your counter surface do they sacrifice a hard install of a big piece and cut it to make it easier? The bigger companies run an assembly line operation, any deviation to things special slows them down, they want you in and out. 4) Can you trust them that they are not padding their price. In reviewing fabricators I found one that would charge $27 sq/ft more than a competitor for the exact piece of granite. 5) Don't do a granite project without getting at least 2 quotes. I used to think you could choose the highest rated angies list person, who also rated high on a good cost, and just go with them, not true. Selecting the Granite: 1) We went to 3 granite yards, St. Pete, Clearwater, and Tampa. Good thing is that they pretty much all have the same granite and the names are the same. Some of the yards have different high-end granite. They all had a good selection of level 1 - 3 granite. BTW, they don't speak highly of each other as the competition if quite tight. 2) Levels - This was most frustrating. You cannot get an actual price for the granite from the yard. They will tell you which slabs are the level 1 - 4's, you pick what you want and they will notify the fabricator, the fabricator will then give you the installed price. It is hard to know what the actual fabrication and install price is? By getting quotes from multiple fabricators for the same granite name, same yard, I was able to determine that most level 1 granite is about $10 sq/ft, level 2 about $15 and level 4 the skys the limit. I tried to get a level 4 piece, asking Frank to see if he could get a deal since it was the last piece. It was suppose to be $40/sqft and they would give it to him for $34, too much for us, but at least we were able to see how flexible the yard would be. I did see granite that was over $100/sqft! 3) when you find the piece of granite you want you have to get it tagged, the granite can vary quite a bit, even with the same name. If you need more than one piece of the same granite then you need to try to get the same lot # and the closes "slice" to the number on the piece you like.Selecting sinks and faucets 1) All the fabricators will give you a catalog of the sinks they can provide. These are basic sinks, if they are the ones that come with the project, they probably cost you fabricator $30 each and a kitchen sink about $200. We paid $60 extra to get a 16g sink, it is well worth the money. 2) We purchased all our own sinks on Amazon, the faucets were also purchased on Amazon. 3) Be careful to match up the sink to the splash location of the faucet. This is hard to do but if you get a big faucet with a small sink or visa versa then you will always have splashed water on the counters. When it comes down to it you need a skilled and talented fabricator that can take your selected granite and do a flawless job. You can get this with someone for $70 or $35 sq/ft