Gatorjaw - Gosh, I'm sorry. I hate when these things happen. I also have an apron front sink and ran into a small (tiny) problem on the day of my granite install (sink had a blemish and had to exchange it at last minute so the fit in the cabinet was not as good as when the cabinet maker had built it with the flawed sink), but in the end every thing turned out fine. I was concerned that my gap where the front of the apron meets the cabinet was too big. But a small bead of caulk hids it fine. Plus my cabinets are white so you don't see it.

I digress, sorry. I don't have a picture of the top of my sink right now, but my farm sink is undermount so you don't see any caulk on the top part. I looked at your pictures and that does seem to be a lot of caulk. Maybe someone else with a non-undermount farm sink has some pictures to show you.

I don't know. Gosh, I'm sorry. Let us know the out come.

Maybe a different color of caulk would help. One that is closer to the color of the granite and not white like the sink.

Oh gosh; granite people do surely seem to dislike an upmount farm sink. Of course, it's not like they're straight or anything; the sides of mine are crazy crooked. Mine had to be dropped straight down into the granite, but it fits very nicely and has no caulk at all.

These are the best pictures I have at this time:

No caulk at all. I surely hope you get this resolved to your satisfaction  your granite looks beautiful!

Kate.

Gatorjaw,

The link below shows examples of installed upmounted apron sinks, and as you can see, little or no caulking is used. Our granite was cut too large as well, but the owner of the company offered (on his own) to do a do-over at his expense. I lived with the fat caulk for a weekend, and realized that as much as I hated to have them do it over, it would bug me every time I looked at it. So we had it redone, and I'm glad now we did. We were lucky to have had a very cooperative contractor who readily agreed that the install was wrong. But your gap seems bigger than mine was (slightly) so I definitely don't think you are being unreasonable or unrealistic to have it done over. One thing I should mention, on the first round they templated the sink area on site. On the second round, they took the sink with them and did their cuts with it physically present. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Apron sink pictures

Thanks everyone for your input, it is good at least to know that I'm not totally crazy. Since we still owe everyone their final payments, I'm assuming they'll do the right thing, but I will be nervous until it's completely resolved.

Kate, I have to say that I love the granite - it's Red Dragon and I'm really happy with it. The biggest bummer in this whole thing is that the granite around the sink (it's on our island) is awesome - I'm going to hate giving it up for a different piece.

Thanks again.

Oh my gosh. I had a similar installation problem with my Shaw's 30" last week. In my case, the installer made a hole too large in the base cabinet. They filled the gap with massive gobs of caulk. It was really hideous.

My cabinet person spent about a half an hour rubbing her chin and finally came up with an idea to use molding around the sink to close the gap. I'm very hopeful that it will solve the problem. My advice to you is to push back, sister! If you're like me, you've spent a lot of time, money and life-force on this project and you don't have to accept this.

Here's a what I came home to. This is a picture of the right side of my sink from the front. Yug!

i don't think the caulk is nearly as bad as the fact that your sink is up-mounted and it sounds like that's not what you wanted.

undermounting shaw's can be difficult, but flush-mounting it shouldn't be a big deal, and that's what should've been done here. the problem is that the top of your sink protrudes up higher than your countertops.

ideally, you want the top edge of the sink to be slightly below countertop level.

the caulk is a bit too large of a bead, but, imo, the slight up-mount is a much more problematic issue. i'd see if you can have your GC try and re-set that sink a bit lower, and while he's at it, perhaps he can achieve a slightly better fit with the countertops.

try that, at least, before ripping out the granite.

That is a lot of caulk! I hope you get them to change the granite, it's the right thing to do IMHO. I agree that they should consider another color caulk after they fix the granite. Probably clear caulk would work better. In our case, the sink is undermounted. With the uneven top, there are areas that needed quite a bit of caulk in the back. The GGs went with clear caulk and although I was a sceptic, I trusted their instinct, and I'm glad I did. The white caulk would have drawn attention to the gap, whereas now the gap kind of disappears in the granite.

I definitely see it as a re-do for them. I just had 2 under mount, fireclay sinks installed. They were well aware of this beforehand and my cabinet guy had them delivered to his shop, as Shaw suggests, so he could do custom measuring etc.
The fit is beautiful, no issues. I don't understand why your people had such a hard time. I am wondering if they are trying to make it look as though somehow it was your fault for picking such a "difficult sink" ? They should take full responsibility as in my opinion you should get what you asked for. ALso...way too much caulk. Here is one of my new sinks.

Thanks again. The "big" granite/sink meeting is now set for Friday.

Honestly, the upmounting is not bothering me. Considering my overall OCD regarding the kitchen, I oddly don't have a strong opinion on up/flush/under-mounting, as long as it's done correctly, and as long as I have the purty front of the sink butting out.

Everyone (KD/GG) is saying that we will resolve this amicably, but they continue to indicate that a re-do will likely have the same results, b/c Shaws are wonky etc. etc. So that's my biggest issue: the contention that this sink "can't" be done the way I want it. Luckily, because of this forum, I have lots of photos to demonstrate that it CAN.

Food for thought: I don't know if you have a seam behind the sink currently. But it seems like a seam would help make the fit much tighter, because the sink could be approached from either side independently by the two granite pieces. We have a seam behind ours, in between the first and second hole (going from left to right, air switch, single-hole faucet, then soap dispenser). It's our only seam and it's hardly noticeable.

gatorjaw,
I just read about your sink/granite install problem and wanted to know how it turned out for you. Hopefully the granite was replaced to your satisfaction.

Can you please come back and tell us the outcome???

We are still in limbo...
There is now a seam behind the sink (there was not one before) and the fit is much improved. Also, the caulk/glue they used is not white. So that's good. Unfortunately, there is a big glob of it around the front, both sides, and that looks not at all good. Also, the glue stuff that goes all the way around the sink is still "tacky" - I've got major concerns that it is going to attract dirt etc.

Bascially, I think we've come to the conclusion that the people who have worked on this project thus far just don't have the skill set to accomplish our goals. I know that the GG tried really hard, but I look at this gob of reddish glue (matches the granite, but NOT the white sink) and don't understand how anyone thinks it's right.

I'm going to have an outside granite person take a look at it, but I'm thinking I will probably have to (a) replace the cabinet under the sink so that the sink can be undermounted, (b) buy a new piece of granite and (c) hire someone else to make it right.

Sorry, long answer!

p.s. Photo below, which also shows that the cabinet isn't really cut properly and will also have to be trimmed out, but that's another issue altogether!

I'm bumping this up, wondering if anyone has advice on what our next step should be...

As I mentioned, I think we're going to have to start over (new cab, new granite) and just do it undermounted the next time. If I use someone new, obviously it will cost additional $$$, but at this point having it done right (the first time), is the priority.

Should I have some other granite people come look at this and give me their opinions, or should I just interview other companies and ask to see other farm sinks they have worked with? OR should I give my current GG another shot and assume he can handle undermounting?

And there's the whole "should I trust my KD to cut the hole in the new cabinet for the sink?" issue...

call me crazy, but i think it looks possible to just shave about a half an inch off of the bottom riser of that cabinet (the part that supports the cabinet where the toe kick is) and then just re-mount the whole kit and kaboodle with much more success.

i'd have your current guys at least try that (at their expense) before you incur the added expense of the fixes you've detailed.

i think if that sink just sits a half inch lower, it might result in a better fit with the granite.

regarding the bead of silicone--they usually have to make 2-3 passes to get a nice finished cured-up silicone bead around the curved rim of a farm sink. the first couple passes look butt-ugly, but then once they set up nice and hard, filling in any larger gaps, you can go back over for a finish layer that will end up being smoother and better-looking.

(i'd do one that dries clear. both the white and the red you've shown do not look good.)