(smacking self on forehead) D'oh, google site search, thank you mudworm! The appliances forum has too much tempting candy for me to hang out there.

wouldn't there be fewer seams and one less cutout for the cooktop, so less cost? though I don't remember charges for seams, just for more than one cutout, for the L-shaped granite in our previous kitchen.

would a farm/apron sink do the same thing to eliminate the narrow sink front/back, or does the apron sink still need a piece across the back? I suppose that back piece could be rather unnoticeably seamed between two side pieces, if you don't mind that in the back.

in addition to the narrow breakage concern, if you don't like seams either, then going with larsi's set up for both cooktop and sink makes your granite pieces all very square/rectangular for transport.

I hope larsi sees this too!

Mine isn't granite, but that is what we did with the soapstone around our cooktop. We live in SD and most people give me the blank stare when I mention soapstone, so ours was fabricated and shipped from the east coast. I didn't trust that any cutouts would handle the trip so going with four pieces worked great for us. The best part is we only paid for the actual square inches used - cutouts cost a lot of additional money, plus you pay for the part they throw away.

Here are a few pictures of the project.

the clamps are holding the back piece in place since that was the one that had to be centered, the big pieces were slid into place once both the back and front piece were clamped down. One they were all expoyed, the whole thing was siliconed in place from the underside.

Our sink is a drop in apron front that goes all the way back to the wall so we didn't need to piece behind that.

Hi, macybaby, Wow, that soapstone countertop is BEAUTIFUL!!! Thanks so much for the photos and detailed text on your project. More and more I like this idea. We will have black accent in our kitchen and I wonder if it'll look nice if I use black granite for the front and back strips. Once I pick out my stone (most likely granite), I'll talk to the fabricator about it.

I think Lars was retrofitting after a rangetop?

i would do it.
Soapstone forgives seams readily.

fori > I think Lars was retrofitting after a rangetop?

Mine is not a retrofit, but at this moment, it seems like a good idea to me for new installation. Guess he's been too busy remodeling these days.

davidro1 > Soapstone forgives seams readily.

I take it you meant that the seams will not be too obvious in soapstone, which is beyond my budget. I suppose I could do the same thing with granite macybaby did with the soapstone, but not sure how much the seams will show. To eliminate that concern, I'm planning on going with black strips at the "cutout". With a black cooktop and with a black sink I'm planning to get, it might look interesting/unique, but on the back of my mind, I fear that it will look terrible. I have no way of knowing what the result will be until I could see it.

I think you can get soapstone for very little. You are budget minded, and you seem to be handy too: go to YouTube and see how one makes ones own counters with soapstone. It gets delivered and you finish it. It is still a real stone, and it feels hard and is hard. But it's workable enough that you can do it yourself.

davidro1, thanks for your vote of confidence. I'll look into the videos (I like to know how things are done even if we hire others to do it). If I didn't have a full time job and didn't mind living in inconvenience for quite a while, I'd like to do everything myself -- DIY is always interesting. But once I factor in the cost of tools, my time off, and the duration, I think I'll just have to delegate some tasks.

I live in the SF Bay Area. To be honest, I haven't seen soapstone at any stone yard I have visited. I did ask for them. But since we are far away from countertop installation, I haven't done any intense searching yet. I'll keep an eye out.