For most women, picking out colors and materials is probably their favorite part of renovating. This is most definitely not the case for me! As much as I would love to think of myself as a Joanna Gaines, I’m awful at this kind of stuff. It stresses me out because I’m so worried I will make the wrong decision. Picking out our granite countertops for our kitchen was the one exception.

When you’re ready to explore countertops, it’s best to first find a fabricator. Granite warehouses do not give pricing to the public, so you’ll want a fabricator ahead of time, if possible. This way you’ll also have an idea of how many slabs you’ll need before shopping. It’s a terrible feeling to fall in love with a material and then find out there isn’t enough for your project.

I first talked with a local fabricator who sent me to a warehouse in Raleigh. My husband and I drove the hour and a half drive one afternoon to look at our options. I was expecting a small showroom and was really surprised when we walked into a massive warehouse full of granite, marble, and quartz. Each slab was labeled with a name, slab number, and a price category sticker. They grouped them by color, lowest being blue, green, yellow, and the highest, red. As we walked down many aisles, you would see the same name of another slab but it could look completely different. These variations come from how the slab was harvested. We sent the fabricator our top three picks for pricing.

After talking with a few our family members and friends, we decided to get a second quote from a fabricator located 30 minutes away. Our first experience with the local fabricator wasn’t bad but this fabricator blew us away! They were more our style and felt like talking to someone we had known forever. They typically work with a different granite supplier, that is also located in Raleigh, so we made the drive again to do some shopping. They did offer to work with the previous warehouse we had visited but knowing how we like to stay true to our vendors, we decided to check out their supplier.

This warehouse was very similar to the first. They had the same pricing stickers, same labels, similar names, BUT they had the slabs much more organized. They didn’t just give you a slab number, they had a system where each row had a letter and each slab on that row had a number. This made navigating back and forth so much easier!!! When there are three River Whites that you’re choosing between, it’s nice to know they are located at H8, F4, and A2. At the previous warehouse, we had to run all over trying to find the other slabs we were comparing between. Another plus, they had rolling bins that you could store your samples in as you browsed (tile backsplash, cabinet door, etc). After a few laps, we came to a conclusion on a River White variation. What do you think??? (Sorry for the light reflections!)