This weekend we went to see The Stones, a.k.a. the giant slabs of granite that we have to choose from for our kitchen counter tops. These reside at various stone yards throughout the area, and we had to go pick out our slabs. The counter person has samples to pick from, but because granite is a natural stone, each slab is unique; even if two slabs came from the same mine, they will vary in color, streaks, veins, etc.. So, you really need to go pick out the individual slabs you want to use. Which we tried to do.

So, our builder's allowance puts us into the "level one" range of granite. What's that? That's the "low end", "basic", "entry level", granite - as all the stone yard employees told us over and over. So, it's off to the budget corner for us! Maybe that's all partially a way to nudge people into the more expensive stuff, but their scheme is complicated by the fact that nobody at the stone yard will tell you what anything costs. How can anyone decide on slabs if they don't know prices? That's what the "levels" are for, I guess. But what's the actual difference between level one and level two? Should we even look at level two? Could we afford it? Would we be willing to spend the extra money if we found something we really liked? Who knows.

The stone counter-top process works like this: there are suppliers (the people who buy the slabs from the mines: wholesalers), and there are fabricators (who buy the slabs from the suppliers and then cut and shape them into pieces for your specific project). You only ever talk money with the fabricator, even though you have to choose the slabs from the supplier. You can select slabs from the supplier, you can reserve them, but the supplier will not give you a price on them - they will only say stuff like "this one costs more than that one" or "this one costs a lot more".

So we're allowed "level one" granite, but we don't really love any of it. We liked some of what was classified as "level two", and loved a lot of level three; and the top-end, "exotic" was full of really mind-blowing stuff. But we don't know how much more any of that would cost, not even as a rough percentage of level one. All numbers go through the fabricator: we reserve the slabs, the supplier tells the fabricator, the fabricator does an estimate, then tells us. If we don't like those numbers, we repeat the cycle. Asinine.

Anyway, some of the expensive granite slabs we saw were pretty spectacular: interesting patterns and wild colors, dramatic swirls and details (some had embedded fossils!) - and all that is what makes it expensive. The "level one" stuff is very uniform in pattern and color - and while it's not necessarily ugly, it's just not spectacular.

In other news: a few weeks back, the electrician said the builder doesn't do Cat-5 in his houses, and it's not in the contract, so it would be extra. But we found an email from the builder's agent saying he does do Cat-5 standard, so there was no need to put it in the contract. And, the tile guy says the builder does not do a tile back-splash in the kitchen, but our contract says he does. And we are trying to pick out a front door to replace the one the builder chose and installed without consulting us first; but the door guy Mrs. had been working with got himself all confused and went ahead and picked out a (very expensive) door for us without confirming it. The builder's agent caught that before we ended up owing three grand for a door we hadn't even selected - called up Mrs. and said "Wow, you picked a REALLY expensive door!" Mrs. said "I did? I don't think I picked any door."

So what we have here is widespread communication failure. Nobody in the process communicates with anyone else so nobody knows what they are expected to do. It's very frustrating. The process stops for lack of information, or overshoots because someone didn't bother getting information, etc..

And the builder is still complaining to us about losing money on the house. We have no sympathy. He did the estimate, not us. We didn't force him to agree to the price he put in the contract. If he underestimated, or can't control costs on his end, that's on him, not us.

So, we're deep in frustration these days.

We're starting to pack for our move, though. House goes on the market in three weeks, I think.