Specialty Stone Design

Hi Minja, sorry that you feel this way. We actually did went out with the Designer, Tom Quock from Floorcraft and met up with your GC and didn’t realize you were on vacation. The facts are that Cambria slabs are 55″ wide and the length of your cabinets required a 56 ½″ piece. You insisted there to be NO seams and unfortunately, we couldn’t stretch the stone and must put a seam to pull it off. The seam was less than 1/​16″ and we couldn’t of made it better. Please note that as fabricators, we can only do our best in fabrication, but are still limited to how some slabs react. In this case, the choice of cambria quartz slabs you’ve chosen has glass quartz flakes to it and will chip when the blades hit, a similar reaction to fabricating granite slabs. As to the length of the slabs, that’s the specs of the manufacturer and beyond our control. Both the GC and the Designer of your cabinetry can validate those points.
As to the additional hole that was requested, both the GC and Designer did not want to be put in the position of deciding whether or not you wanted the hole or the position of it in your absence. Hence, the reason why we didn’t drill it.
Hopefully, this will clear the confusion and alleviate the frustration on your end.

I bought my countertop through the same person that sold me cabinets for my kitchen /​bath remodel, that’s how I ended up working with Specialty Stone Design.
The quality of the work is actually decent, and the prices were competitive. I could’ve given them at least 3.5 stars for the work, but the customer service was so terrible it left a bad taste in my mouth. Let’s begin.
Brandon, the installer, came out to measure the space for the countertop. He was very professional, and helped me through the process of figuring out awkward corners, spacing of faucets, etc. We were warned that our plan to push to the limits on the size of the slab in order to avoid seams was a little risky, I crossed my fingers as cabinets have already been installed and there was nothing I could do but hope it all works out.
Unfortunately things didn’t work out perfectly. Installation was scheduled two weeks later, but I got a call the day before to let me know that when the stone cutters were trimming the edges, some of it crumbled, which meant that we were now almost 1″ short on one side, and we now are given no option other than choosing where to place the seam. The lady on the phone, Melanie, wasn’t all that sympathetic and told me that the stone should’ve never been sold to me as designed because slabs have curves on the edges and can crumble, and that I should’ve shaved off 2″ from max size of the slab if I really didn’t want a seam. At no point was any responsibility taken for the fact that my cabinet guy called them and talked to them before confirming with me that we could do the max. Sigh. After consulting with my husband, we chose to have the seam over the sink. Melanie tells me «don’t worry, it’ll be great. You’ll hardly see it.»
The installation went fine, the stone looked great in the kitchen and vanity. Once the epoxy dried, I saw that the seam was sadly visible from across the room. The seam on the back side of the sink was uneven, this was explained to me that sometimes the stone warps a little, so there was no way to get the two pieces exactly even. In the front of the sink, the two pieces were offset a tiny hair but it’s visible as it was directly over the sink lip. Apparently since it past the «blade test» it was considered fine. Then there were all the little chips at the seam from when they were cut. Brandon cut out the epoxy and refilled it with a darker color so it was better at camouflaging the chips, but they’re still there, staring at me. My heart sank. When I asked if they used a fresh blade when they cut this (fresh blades would’ve minimized the chips), I was told that when it comes to the cuts, «sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you don’t.» ??? Deep breaths.
I call Melanie to ask what can be done about this, and she immediately retreated into the position of «if the seam is less than ¹⁄₁₆ of an inch, then we’re within industry standards.» No offers to come check it out, see what can be done about this. Just attitude that is clearly meant to make me feel that I’m over reacting. If I were «really really concerned», she said, I should call my cabinet guy who I placed the order with, maybe he’ll come out and look at it. Wow. Customer service at it’s finest!
By the time I actually called my cabinet guy, Melanie has beat me to the punch, and have alerted him to the «fact» that I’d «thrown a fit». That shocked me. We send pictures around, talked through some possible fixes. Melanie’s position is clear, if they do anything, they will need to have us sign a written waiver indemnifying them against any potential damage. Basically, «not our fault» instead of «how can we help make it better».
We then went on vacation. In the middle I get an email from our contractor about the need to drill another hole for the air gap. Brandon has no problems and was about to do it when Melanie throws up all stops, basically no work to be done until the other «outstanding issue» was resolved. And if they do drill the hole, again, need indemnification against any potential damage. Wow. Extremely helpful aren’t we? In the end I didn’t want to take any chances and honest just didn’t want to deal with Melanie at all, and decided to buy a new faucet that used one fewer holes, and use the extra for the air gap.
It’s been a week since we’ve been back from vacation, and while the seam still bothers me, we’re letting it go. We’ve seen better and we’ve seen worse. So in the end, probably industry average.
The customer service on the other hand, was abysmal. If you’re ever working with these guys, make sure you’re dealing with someone other than Melanie.
Lessons learned by a home renovation newbie. 1) don’t take anyone’s word for it; when in doubt, talk to the person who will actually be doing the work to make sure they’re on the same page as you. 2) «great» and «hardly see» are subjective, ask for clarification of exactly what you’ll be getting. and 3) never go on vacation in the middle of a home renovation.