No two stones or slabs are alike, although the marble and granite companies will tell you they are from the same block. Here’s some tips on how to select the right stones and to avoid stones that may not be right for your kitchen.

If you are doing a standard kitchen, you will need from two to three granite slabs. You can confirm this by visiting a granite fabricator who will cut and install your granite after you have selected it. Based on the kitchen plan and the stone you choose, the fabricator can provide you pricing and the number of slabs you will need.

Visiting a Granite Warehouse
The next step is to select your granite. If anyone tells you that you can select the granite from a 5 inch square sample, our advice is "run." With few exceptions, it just can’t be done. These are natural stones and no one can determine what the color will be. For example, a popular stone called Giallo Veneziano now appears to have a lot of salmon color in it.

Your fabricator will either have slabs or will provide you a list of wholesalers who stock a large variety of stones. Bring a kitchen cabinet door and a sample of your flooring with you, when you look for granite to help you match it. Keep in mind that once you buy it,
it is very difficult to return, so choose carefully.

Granite comes in numerous colors and from all over the world. India, Turkey, Italy and Brazil supply the most and specific types of granite come from each place. The rarer the piece the more money it will cost you.

Armed with a pen and pencil, jot down the name of the granites you like and their lot numbers. If you can, get the company to move the slabs and inspect each one. Don’t be pressured into selecting three stones based on the first stone that is facing you.

Most of the warehouses have terrible lighting and it pays to have the wholesaler move the stones outside or in a place where there is better lighting. The granite wholesaler may be more willing to do this during the week day or by appointment. Ours (Europa Stone in Northern Virginia) moved stones for us, but we had to make an appointment. Well worth it in our opinion. If the wholesaler is not willing to do it, then look for another. Keep in mind that you will be spending between $3,000 and $8,000, so don’t be intimidated.

You can generally reserve stones for several days. If you find something you like, we recommend you reserve the stones. Write each lot number down.

Inspect the granite pieces carefully for cracks. Some of the stones are “fragile and have a masking on the unpolished part of the stone to strengthen them. We recommend that you avoid these kinds of stones. As we learned, some fabricators may not even be willing to cut them. In fact, we ordered two slabs of a Juparana Creama Bordeau and found out from our fabricator that there were too many seams to cut these properly. Our fabricator returned the slabs.

Armed with the knowledge of what to look for we continued our search. We couldn’t find the right Juparana Crea ma Bordeau and settled for a Juparana Vyara (also known as Juparana Vyara, Juparana Vyara, Golden Vyara, Giallo Vyara, Juparana Viara). Once again our fabricator came to the rescue.

As you can see from the above photo, Juparana viara has waves in it. Our kitchen is U shaped and the waves in the Juparana viara would be at right angles to each other and stick out like sore thumbs. In the end we selected the crema bordeau below.
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When selecting granite countertops for your kitchen, avoid stones that have waves, especially in U shaped kitchens.