Granite can make a terrific aesthetic statement in your kitchen. Whether smoothly honed or polished to a mirror finish, it can compliment most design styles.
Modern technology has improved our ability to quarry, cut, shape, and finish granite, which has dragged it out of the kitchen and into a host of other applications for the home and office. There are many reasons why granite is an excellent material for outdoor and indoor applications.
5,000 years is a long time. It’s so long that we have trouble comprehending it. But monuments built of natural stone more than 5,000 years ago are still standing today, which is a testament to natural stone’s enduring beauty and strength.
Study by Marble Institute of America shows granite to be as cleanable as engineered stone.
The sequence of events which brings natural stone from the quarry to the home has not changed much since stone entered the homes of the ancient Greeks. Large blocks of stone are cut from the quarry. From those blocks, thin pieces of stone are cut called slabs. The slabs are then shaped and polished and shipped for installation.
Granite is another durable but expensive countertop option that’s also pretty much beyond the realm of do-it-yourselfers. Like solid surface materials, granite stone is cut and polished off-site, including cut outs for sink openings. That demands a lot of accuracy and coordination to make sure measurements and templates are correct.
There’s no doubt that granite is the king of the kitchen counter arena, but don’t overlook marble as a possible choice for countertops and other kitchen, bath and home applications. Traditionally, marble has been used in bathrooms for vanities, tiles, and showers, but now there is an increasing demand from the design community and from homeowners to use marble for kitchen countertops.
Selecting a countertop edge treatment for most homeowners is an ‘either or proposition’; either they go with whatever is the cheapest or they leave the decision up to you. This approach can be aesthetically lacking and the showroom ends up leaving money on the table.
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Danbury, CT