Thanks for the advice. I will have a stainless steel sink and a stainless steel Grohe faucet. My counter does hang over into the family room by the pool table. We have bar stools there. It's just enough for two, but truthfully, we only use them when we play. I'll have to take more pictures, but the near end of my kitchen starts with a pantry and laundry room, then a door, and then a counter to the right and breakfast nook to the left. You can see it down the hall through where the fireplace is. Beyond that is what you see in the first picture. Man, I really need to do something with that garbage can. I told my DH that and he said, yeah, like people don't think we make garbage. So understanding. The templating went great. I could tell the guy was impressed with my questions, and he was eager to please. He was careful, and has done templates in many homes including his bossed beautiful home that I had seen the day before. He said he has templated homes on the beach in Naples to mobile homes. Each he does with care. I was impressed. Now if I can just convince the DH that we "need" a soap dispenser and Never MT. Again, any cheap recommendations to go with the Grohe faucet in stainless steel?

dcward89: Corian wants inside radii as large as possible with a 1/2" being the minimum. I've put 1 1/2" on hundreds of jobs without complaint or failure. Make sure the bottom front and back of the built-up edge is sanded smooth to prevent stress risers. You can have your edge built up at the sink if you like that look. It is a bit time consuming and tricky, so expect to pay extra. Just tell your fabricator you want a price on building up your sink edge. If you're going stainless steel, I strongly suggest you look at Karrans Edge series sinks. I've got one and my wife and I love it. No lip to hide crud and it looks great. There is no rule as to how high coved splash can be. I've done a "tile cove" where the Corian stops right after the cove; about 1/2" high. The edge is eased a bit and the tile man sets his tile a grout line thickness above the "tile cove." You get all the sanitation and easy cleaning of Corian cove, but the silicone joint is now on the vertical wall instead of being in the deck/wall junction where all the crud is. I prefer 1" 18 gauge square tube steel to support any countertop. It's best to have it welded into a frame, but that will cost extra too. You aren't allowed to have full underlayment under solid surface; it retains heat. There are many acceptable ways to properly support a cantilevered top; the strongest and least conspicuous cost more. Read over the linked fab manual and insist that your fabricator follow it to the letter. It's as much for his protection as yours. I followed it for over twenty years, had 2 warranty calls, both ruled customer abuse by DuPont, but we fixed 'em anyway and I got paid. Here is a link that might be useful: Corian Fab Manual

I don't have an exact answer to this, but my initial thought would be to measure some of the platters, etc you want to use for entertaining. See if 12 or 14" is enough. Do you have a sketch so we can see what you are referring to?

I'm sorry, but fabrication is expensive and these countertops are expensive and so I don't see how working with a customer to make sure they like the templating is "donating time." Are you saying that people spending thousands of dollars on countertops should just take it however the fabricator decides (which would likely be whatever is most convenient for him and never mind how it looks in the end or if the customer likes it)? There are several people in the trades on this board who seem to have rather dim views of their customers. I don't understand this because you make your living off of these people. I do understand that some people are more difficult than others, but that's how it goes, right? I interact with my clients every day that I'm at work. So, I do understand how some people can be, but...there are so many threads on here with photos of stuff that's really not acceptable. My Dad worked in construction. He did work for both general contractors and for individual homeowners. He took pride in his work, did a good job and wanted his customers to be happy with the work he did. He had no problem taking time to make sure these things happened and he worked REALLY hard, often in unpleasant weather, to produce a good quality finished product. I never heard him complain about anything...not the heat that he worked in over the summers, the lack of bathroom facilities on many of his jobsites, the condition his job left his hands in, etc. He never complained that his customers wanted a good job or that he had to spend time with them. He also didn't gouge people or charge more when he was busy. He didn't call any of his customers a PITA or try to charge anyone a PITA fee or anything like that. I see many tradesmen, contractors, etc., these days, who seem to have really big egos, look down on their customers, try to take advantage of customers whenever they can, who feel entitled to be paid a lot of money for a minimum amount of work (or poor quality work), who refuse to take hard jobs because they are only looking to do what's easy, and who take no pride in their finished product. I'm not saying this is anyone here, but I am saying that you often seem pretty quick to criticize the customers, who are paying a lot of money and who mostly just want a good job in exchange for their money. Overall, I've been very disappointed with most of the people I've hired to do work on my home. No, I've not hired anywhere near the cheapest guys and, yes, I've been willing to pay for someone who does quality work. You can jump to calling me a PITA, if you want, but then we could talk about how much I've paid/been willing to pay (much more per hour than my husband or I have ever earned and we make a decent living) and I have photos to show the poor quality of work these guys have tried to leave us with. We could also talk about the way some of these men have acted in my home (regarding bathroom facilities that I provided, the use of my refrigerator/icemaker, etc.) and about the shocking lack of any work ethic (sheer laziness and lack of any pride in their work, not caring about the quality of their work and trying to take advantage of us in many ways, including by trying to pass off horrible quality work as perfectly fine/a good job) some of them have displayed. We could also talk about the various lies we've been told by multiple people we've talked to about doing jobs. Thank goodness we know enough to mostly prevent ourselves from being taken advantage of... Then, we could talk about the experiences of a good friend who is a single woman and how everyone she has hired over the past 15 years (and she's paid them a LOT and has never tried to hire anyone on the cheap) has basically taken advantage of her, charging a LOT and then doing subpar work. Things have changed, and not for the better. It seems that you can't trust anyone these days. I'd NEVER pay thousands of dollars for new countertops and then not be present for both templating and installation. If someone tried to charge me for that, I would find someone else. If I couldn't find someone else, I'd put in countertops myself (tile, butcherblock or maybe cut soapstone myself--which is what a family member did and it looks beautiful) before I'd allow myself to be treated that way.