Bar
Countertops

Timing

It's Never Too Early to Reserve Your Slab

The slab you fell in love with may not be there when you're ready for it. Reserve it early.

But there's no price list in this business. Two suppliers can charge different prices for the same slab, and the work you want done changes the rest of it.

About 95% of materials fall between $55 and $150 per square foot installed. A few always sit above it: Blue Bahia granite, Blue Macaubas and Cristallo quartzites, the Calacatta and Statuario Italian marble families, and Onyx.

But it's not just about material. Here's what else affects your price:

1. Sourcing: When your material is already in our inventory, you pay a set price per square foot for the footage you use. If it's something we don't stock, we bring it in from our suppliers, and slabs come whole, since that's how the industry sells them. Different suppliers price the same slab differently, so we shop for the best value, and we keep remnants on hand for small projects.
2. Project size: Bigger projects cost more than smaller ones, but often get better per-square-foot pricing.
3. Complexity: A waterfall end means a mitered corner and more fabrication. A long overhang may need support underneath. An integrated sink adds work. Each one adds cost.
4. Waste: A bar is a small piece off a big slab, so on a dramatic material you're paying for the whole slab and using part of it. We lay out every cut digitally to place the best of the pattern where it shows. The pattern still decides how much we can save. Beautiful, but it comes at a cost.

Desirability drives price too. What's trendy costs more, what's out of fashion costs less. The rare blues are expensive because they're genuinely rare. The Italian marbles are expensive because demand is high and supply isn't.

Comparing Quotes?

The service side of a quote, meaning templating, fabrication, edge work, and installation, runs about $30 to $50 per square foot, and it's fairly consistent across the industry. The big difference between quotes is almost always the material itself.

Two things to watch for: a quote that isn't itemized, where any change becomes an extra, and "free edge" promotions, where the cost is built in somewhere else. If one quote comes in far lower, you're usually looking at a different material or brand, not a better deal.

Our quotes spell it out line by line: templating, fabrication, edges, cutouts, installation, and anything the bar adds like a drink rail or support for an overhang. And it helps to like more than one color, because flexibility is what lets you land on budget.