In a nutshell: outstanding service and quality.
We went to…read morecheck out Affordable Granite based on a few reviews, and particularly because it was mentioned that they have a very fast turnaround from template to installation. We were on a very tight schedule with certain aspects of our whole-house renovation because we had a firm move-in date and needed a functioning kitchen. Affordable Granite delivered on absolutely everything we needed, and were completely respectful, professional, and friendly through the whole process -- and I ask a lot!
We scheduled a date for templating based on our cabinet installer's commitment of when the base cabinets would be ready. He was one day off in his time estimation and needed an extra half day to finish. With only a few hours notice, Sara rescheduled our template appointment from late morning to the last appointment of the day, which allowed the extra time to complete the cabinet install without delaying our granite fabrication another week.
Next, they worked very patiently with me until I felt completely satisfied with the layout. We have a tricky kitchen, with a large peninsula instead of an island, which necessitated a 90 degree turn without messing up the "movement" (similar to "grain" in wood) of the stone pattern. And we had chosen a pattern with a very definite movement direction. Plus the size of our kitchen (fairly large, and with most of the counters continuously connected) made it so a minimum of two seams would be needed. And the placement of our sink and dishwasher made it even trickier. I definitely wanted no seam around the sink, but this meant that we would either have to have three seams, or put one over the dishwasher. Bruno knows his business! He assured me that though it is usually preferable not to put a seam over the dishwasher, he had done it before with perfect results, so we went with it to minimize the number of seams. And the result was indeed perfect.
I was really worried about visibility of the seams, and I must say, they did a BRILLIANT job of laying out the template to make the seams visibly almost non-existent. One seam is simply invisible because they placed both sides within a section of pattern with minimal movement. For the other seam, in a spot of fairly high visibility, they lined up the elements of the granite in such a way that the movement pattern continued perfectly gracefully across the seam, and even created an interesting figure that looks like it's a natural part of the granite! Every person who was invited in to see the counters after installation could not find the seams by visual inspection; they all had to find them by running their hands along and feeling for them.
Affordable Granite has a one week turnaround from template to install. On top of that, we needed each of these tasks to be accomplished on a particular day, since we had one week between cabinet installation and the last day the plumber could install the sink before we had to move in. Again, Sara came through for us (she's an amazing office manager, very warm and friendly, knows her stone and her business, and super helpful and has fast communication responses). She scheduled us for the first installation of the day, at the earliest possible moment after fabrication was completed, so that we could have the plumber come in that evening to put in the sink.
The installers included the same guys (very professional) who did the templating. Bruno, the owner, really knows his business, and knows how to deliver on all the details that make for a truly high quality outcome. (I worked for a high-end interior designer for a while, and I'm very particular about details.) He personally helped with laying out the template on the stone. And he came to my house to oversee the trickiest part of the installation and make sure everything came out to my satisfaction, including taking care to tread lightly in my home.
One final comment: when I first went to their stone yard, my first impression caused me some definite hesitation. They were kind of hard to find (behind another business), the office was hard to spot, and their yard was small. I definitely prefer to have a very large selection so I can tweak my design details perfectly. I thought I would need to go to the giant wholesaler's yard to pick my stone, and have Bruno do the fabrication. But it turned out that Affordable Granite has a really good selection of stone, despite being a small yard. I was expecting the same cheaper, boring patterns as big box stores, but that was not what I found. I found a gorgeous variety of very interesting granite right in their small yard that fit my design beautifully. So while they don't have everything under the sun, their small selection is surprisingly well curated.
We had an outstanding experience, start to finish, with this small business, who delivered excellence in all the ways that really count.
