A full slab is not the only way to get a real stone surface. When the job is small and the budget is tight, a remnant from our Austin slab floor can do the work.
Every full kitchen countertop job leaves behind usable pieces of stone. Those pieces are remnants. They are not scraps or seconds. They are the same slab you walked on the floor, just the part that was not needed for the larger cut. Our crew keeps an active inventory of these remnants organized by material and color family.
A remnant works when the surface you need is modest in size. A bathroom vanity, a small dry bar top, a laundry room folding counter, a fireplace hearth. These jobs rarely need a full slab. Buying a whole slab for a single vanity means paying for stone you will never use. A remnant lets you put that money into the fabrication and install instead.
We do this work the same way we do a full kitchen. You come to the slab floor in Austin. You pick the actual piece of stone. Then our crew templates, fabricates and installs it. One crew from start to finish. No subcontractors. No separate templater who hands off to a separate fab shop who hands off to a separate install crew. The same people who measure are the people who cut and the people who set the piece in your home.
We do not assign you a remnant from a photo or a warehouse bin you cannot see. You walk our Austin slab floor, look at the remnant in person, and point to the one you want. The color, the veining, the way light hits it. That exact piece is what gets templated and cut for your job.
A bathroom vanity top is the most common remnant job. Most vanities are under twenty five square feet. A remnant handles that cleanly. We template around your sink choice, cut the sink opening in our shop, and set the sink as part of the fabrication. Undermount or drop in, the sink is fitted before the piece leaves our floor.
A home bar top, a butler pantry counter, or a wet bar surface usually runs small. A remnant gives you real stone without the waste of a full slab. We can cut for a small sink, a bar rail overhang, or a tight fit against cabinetry. The install crew handles leveling and adhesive on site.
A remnant is the leftover portion of a full slab after a larger job has been cut from it. Slabs arrive at our Austin floor in standard sizes, usually around one hundred twenty inches by sixty inches or larger. When a kitchen countertop is laid out, the template rarely consumes the entire slab. The remaining piece, the remnant, can be anywhere from a few square feet to thirty or forty square feet. It is the same stone, from the same lot, with the same characteristics as the part that went into the kitchen.
Not every remnant is right for every job. The size and shape of the leftover piece dictate what it can yield. A long narrow strip works for a windowsill or a short backsplash but not for a vanity that needs a twenty two inch depth. A roughly square piece in the forty inch range can usually yield a standard vanity top. When you come to the floor, we lay eyes on the remnant together and check it against your cabinet dimensions before anything gets promised.
The condition of a remnant matters. These pieces sit on the slab floor, sometimes for months, and they can get scuffed or chipped on an edge during handling. Our crew inspects every remnant before we agree to use it. A small edge chip that will be cut away during fabrication is fine. A crack that runs through the usable area is not. We tell you honestly if a piece is sound or if it should be passed over. We want the finished install to hold up, not to become a callback.
A common situation is a homeowner who already has stone counters in the kitchen and wants the bathroom vanity to match or complement that stone. Matching from a remnant is not a color matching promise. Stone is a natural material, and even two slabs from the same lot can vary in veining, background tone, and mineral speckling. A remnant that came from the same slab as the kitchen counters is a true match. A remnant from a different slab of the same stone name is a close match, not an exact one.
We tell people to bring a sample or a good photo of their existing stone when they come to the floor. Natural daylight is better than a phone photo under warm kitchen lights. We pull remnants that are in the same color family and lay them out. Sometimes the match is obvious. Sometimes nothing on the floor that day gets close enough, and we are honest about that. Pushing a bad match just to book a job leaves a homeowner staring at two different stones every day.
For engineered quartz, matching is generally more predictable because the color and pattern are manufactured to be consistent. A remnant of the same quartz color name from the same manufacturer will usually read as the same stone. There can still be slight batch to batch variation, but it is far less than with natural stone. If you know the brand and color name of your existing quartz, tell us before you come so we can check whether we have that exact material in the remnant inventory.
A remnant job follows the same steps as a full kitchen, just on a smaller scale. Step one is the template. Our crew comes to your home with a digital templating system. They measure the cabinet top, the walls, any uneven spots, and the sink location if you have the sink on site. For a vanity, this takes about twenty minutes. For a fireplace hearth, they measure the floor opening and check for level.
Step two is layout and cutting at our shop. The templater brings the digital file back and lays out the cut on your chosen remnant. We show you the layout before we cut so you can see where the veining will land and how the edges will break. Once you approve, we cut the piece, cut the sink opening if there is one, and do the edge profile. Standard edges are eased, beveled, or a simple radius. More complex edges take more time and are handled case by case.
Step three is install. The same crew that templated comes back with the finished piece. They dry fit it first to confirm the fit, then set it in adhesive, level it, and shim where needed. For a vanity with an undermount sink, the sink is already attached in the shop. They connect the plumbing if the faucet and drain are ready, but they do not do new plumbing rough in work. The job is done when the stone is set, level, and cleaned, and the sink holds water with no leaks at the stone connection.
Granite remnants are common and cost effective. Granite is an igneous stone, generally hard and heat tolerant. A granite vanity top will take a hot curling iron set down briefly without damage. The tradeoff is that granite is porous enough to want sealing, usually once a year for a bathroom that sees daily use. Hair products, soap scum, and hard water can build up on the surface over time. A quick wipe with a stone cleaner keeps it clean.
Quartz remnants are popular for vanities and laundry tops because quartz is non porous and needs no sealing. It resists stains from makeup, toothpaste, detergent, and bleach. The downside is heat sensitivity. The resin that binds the ground stone can discolor or warp under sustained high heat. A hot pan off the stove is not a bathroom problem, but a flat iron left face down can leave a mark. We tell people this upfront. For a fireplace hearth, quartz is generally not recommended if the fireplace produces direct heat at the hearth level.
Marble and dolomite remnants look good but come with a real maintenance story. Marble is calcium based. Acids etch it. Lemon juice, vinegar based cleaners, some face washes, even a spilled glass of wine will leave a dull mark that cannot be wiped off. Sealing does not stop etching. Sealing slows staining from oils and pigments, but acid attacks the stone itself. For a powder room vanity that sees light use, a marble remnant can be beautiful and hold up fine. For a kids bathroom or a laundry room where bleach is in regular use, marble is a bad choice and we say so. Quartzite is a different material, metamorphosed sandstone, generally very hard and more acid resistant than marble. Some stones sold as quartzite are actually dolomitic marble and will etch. We test the stone with a drop of acid on the floor if there is any question.
Start with a call or an email to our Austin shop. Tell us what you need. Bathroom vanity, bar top, laundry counter, hearth. Give us the rough dimensions. Length and depth. If you have a sink already, tell us the make and model or have the spec sheet ready. If you know what stone you want, tell us the material and the color family. If you are trying to match an existing stone, say so. We will ask you to come to the slab floor.
At the slab floor, we walk you through the remnant inventory that fits your size and material needs. You pick the exact piece. We check it for soundness. We talk through the edge profile and the sink cutout. Then we give you a written quote with the template date, the fabrication timeline, and the install date. The quote includes the stone, the fabrication, the sink cutout, the sink set, and the install. No hidden line items. No surprise charges added after the fact.
On template day, have the vanity or cabinets installed and level. Have the sink on site if it is an undermount or drop in that we are setting. Have the faucet available if you want us to mount it, though faucet connection to supply lines is plumbing work and we do not do new plumbing. The crew arrives, measures, and leaves. On install day, they return with the finished piece, set it, and clean up. The whole process, from first call to finished install, runs on the timeline we put in writing. No guesswork. No open ended scheduling. Call us at (512) 297-7493 for a straight quote on your remnant project.
$38 per square foot, cut, measure, and install included. Jobs over 1,000 square feet: $30 per square foot.
Sink cutout and sink set are included in the fabrication work. Non standard work is still quoted before work begins. Send the rough square footage and the rooms involved, or call (512) 297-7493 for a straight quote.
If the remnant came from the same slab as your kitchen counters, the match is exact because it is literally the same stone. If the remnant is from a different slab of the same stone name, the match will be close but not identical. Natural stone varies from slab to slab. We lay the remnant next to a sample or photo of your existing stone so you can see the match before you commit. If nothing on the floor is close enough, we tell you honestly rather than install a mismatch.
No. A remnant is the same stone from the same slab. The quality of the material is identical. The difference is only the size of the piece. A remnant that has been handled and moved around the slab floor can pick up a scuff or a small edge chip, but our crew inspects every piece before we agree to use it. Any damage that would affect the finished surface is cut away during fabrication.
We handle any job that a remnant can yield, down to a small windowsill or a single step tread. The limiting factor is not the job size but whether we have a remnant that fits the dimensions and whether the fabrication and install time makes sense for both sides. Call us with your measurements and we will tell you honestly if it works.
You can, but you should know the tradeoffs. Marble etches from acids, and many common bathroom products are acidic. Toothpaste, face wash, some hand soaps, and any cleaner with vinegar or citric acid will leave dull marks on the surface over time. Sealing does not prevent etching. For a bathroom that sees heavy daily use by kids, we usually recommend granite or quartz instead. They handle the abuse without the maintenance headache.
Yes, we install hearths for wood burning and gas fireplaces. We recommend natural stone like granite, soapstone, or quartzite for hearths that will see direct heat or hot embers. Quartz is generally not recommended for hearths because the resin binder can be damaged by sustained high heat. We tell you this before you pick the stone so you can make an informed choice.
Tell us the rooms, the rough square footage and what you have in mind for remnant projects. You get a number for the whole job, in writing, before anyone cuts anything.