Just had my bathroom countertops replaced by USA MG. Overall, I'm satisfied. I picked out a Level 2 granite that I love and the pricing here was better than 2 other places I'd checked out on the same street. They came over to measure on a Monday, and the countertops were installed the following Saturday. I purchased the sinks through them, but purchased faucets on my own.
Neutral:
- they made a mistake in the measurements of one of my countertops resulting in off-center sink and faucet holes. The original proposals they came up with were: 1. cut some length off one side which would still leave the sink & faucet off-center but less so (doesn't completely fix the problem), or 2. do nothing. They reluctantly agreed to replace it after I requested those 2 options be sent to me in writing.
Pro's:
- good price (they say you can negotiate discounts on bigger jobs, but my job of 2 bathroom countertops at a total of 17 sq ft was not considered a big enough job for them to negotiate)
- they don't make you buy the entire slab of granite (that was a requirement at 1 of the other 2 places I compared)
- good selection. Level 1 is the lowest priced, but I think they only had 2-3 to choose from. Level 2 and up had several selections per level. They have free samples of some of the more popular styles that you can take home
- you can walk around their warehouse and look around at said selection
- existing countertop removal & installation of new countertop included in the price of the stone you choose
- the 2 men they sent to do the installation were very nice and tried as hard as they could to salvage the existing countertops (was planning to re-use them in another project). They were able to get 1 of the 2 countertops off without it breaking. (In their defense, the original builder of my home definitely did not skimp on the glue used to hold the countertops in place.)
- I got to keep sink cut-outs to use as cutting boards. (I think you have to specifically request this, not sure. They didn't bring it with them when they came to install and had to make another trip back to their store.)
- their office manager or secretary (not sure of her exact title, she seemed to be the one in charge of taking care of payments), Tiffany, is SO nice! She was so easy to work with and was the most re-assuring part of every step in this transaction. She was so professional and believed in things being right. I felt like she was on my side.
Con's:
- they don't do a very good or consistent job of measurements. One countertop runs off the non-wall side of the cabinet more than the other.
- at $75/sink, I would've done better by going to Home Depot a few blocks away and picking out a sink there. I could've easily saved 10-20% on the sink purchase, and in hindsight, I wish I'd done this. I got a very basic sink, and $75 can buy you a Kohler sink at Home Depot.
- I was quoted $150 per sink to do the plumbing, for a total of $300 for both sinks. While we didn't need it, it seemed really pricey to me.
- while I was browsing the sales floor, I felt like the sales guy was trying to convince me to purchase this one piece of granite that was smaller than all the rest, but not small enough to be considered a remnant (remnants have discounted prices)
- they had to do some small adjustments to the countertops during the installation, which meant taking somekind of saw and trimming the countertops. That left stone dust everywhere in my bathroom and it was a nightmare to clean read more