Photo source

Photo source

http://www.granitegurus.com/2010/07/5-most-common-granite-countertop-donts.html

• Dramatic Visuals: Famous and historic landmarks like the Pyramids at Giza, the Taj Mahal, and the Washington Monument are all examples of the striking beauty of natural stone. Ranging from sleek and sophisticated to rustic and textured, natural stones can help you create a bold design statement. You can highlight a slab of exotic granite as a work surface or create an elegant office lobby using cool and pristine marble.
• Building Green: If you are designing with the environment in mind, natural stone is a green and sustainable material for your building project. Natural stone, reports the Marble Institute of America, is 100% recyclable and, because of its long-lasting durability, “the most sustainable building material available”.
• Minimal Maintenance: Business owners and homeowners alike choose natural stone not only for its appearance but also its durability. Materials like granite are resistant to stains, scratches, and nicks, and properly-treated materials can weather years of use and wear. An annual sealing and an occasional spot-cleaning, for example, can keep your granite countertops looking like new without constant maintenance and worry.

This first fireplace, showing Statuary White marble, about kills me.

I don't know if I could ever leave my living room if this were my home.

contemporary living room design by seattle interior designer Garret Cord Werner

Silver Travertine.

Photo source.

Gorgeous Onyx

http://www.granitegurus.com/2010/11/beautiful-slab-fireplaces.html

• Rough – This finishing keeps natural stones in their natural exterior. Such natural stones are mainly used in exterior decoration. Few people use roughly finished natural stones in roofing too.
• Polished – Also known as mirror polished finishing, this is the most popular natural stone finishing. In it, one side is finished by the action of the Abrasives on polishing head which gives a mirror finish on the stone. It gives a mirror like impression to natural stones and makes them elegant.
• Honed – Honed is also a smooth finishing for natural stones but this is not polished. It is done by using a less number of abrasives on a polishing head. The use of abrasive leads to smoother but non-reflective surface.
• Sand blasting – Sand blasting is the finishing method applied for sand-stone.  To do it, a blast of sand is fired with hi-speed on the stone. This finishing gives a coarse look to the stone.
• Brushed – this finishing is appropriate for some specific categories of natural stones. Few natural stone patterns integrate natural veins. With brushed finishing, backgrounds of such stones get suppressed while veins of the stone get highlighted. These natural stones are considered a favorite for wall décor in modern interior decoration.
• Hand Split or Cleft -   This is a traditional treatment for natural stone finishing, in which the stone is split along its line of cleavage to open the same at the natural grain. Such finishing gives an unparalleled character to the surface of natural stones.
• Flamed – with this finishing method, natural stone surfaces are flamed or burnt off, using a high temperature apparatus. This apparatus is similar to ‘Blow Torch.’ Flamed finishing of stones offers them a contoured finish which bases on their internal characteristics

Sandstone is rock mainly composed of sand sized rocks or grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth’s crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, gray and white. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Sandstone are resistant to weathering and this makes sandstone a common building and paving material. The cement of sandstone may be rich in various materials; Silica, Iron, Calcium Carbonate, all of which contribute to the final color and characteristics of the sandstone.

Limestone is a sedimentary rocks composed of mineral calcite. It is an important stone for masonry and architecture vying with only granite and sandstone to be the most commonly used architectural stone. Limestone is used as a facade on some skyscrapers, but only in thin plates for covering rather than solid blocks.

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. It is usually have a medium to coarse grained texture. Granite is nearly always massive (lacking internal structures), hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use as a construction stone. Granite is an igneous rock and is formed from magma. Granitic magma has many potential origins but it must intrude other rocks. Granite has been extensively used as a dimension stone and as flooring tiles in public and commercial buildings and monuments. Granite can be worked to achieve every type of finish from traditional hand tooled, flame textured, shot blasted, acid washed, or honed to highly polished mirror finishes.

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low grade regional metamorphism. Slate can be made into roofing slates, also called roofing shingles, installed by a slater. Slate has two lines of breakability: cleavage and grain, which make it possible to split the stone into thin sheets. When broken, slate retains a natural appearance while remaining relatively flat and easily stackable. Slate tiles are often used for interior and exterior flooring, stairs, walkways, and wall cladding.

Natural stone tiles have become extremely desirable in the past several years due, in no small part, to the rise in popularity of diy programs on the telly. Our passion for property and DIY has led to a predominantly higher number of people engaged in redecorating their homes using the very best quality accessories they can find. Stone tiles have grown to be one of quite a few elitist or exceptional quality furnishings that have survived the challenging climate of the past two years and have retained their popularity.

Renowned heroes will often be heard saying, ‘with great power, comes great responsibility’ and regrettably this is also true of stone tiles and their providers – albeit the particular expression is more like this ‘with great popularity, comes great quantities of immitations’ and it is this key point that we’ll be looking at in this article. Just how do you tell an excellent quality natural stone tile from an immitation one?

Top quality natural stone tiles may be measured by several implicit properties:

1) Solidity

This is fairly easy to explain and when I do, people tend to be a little shocked by just how simple this is and how, if I hadn’t mentioned it, they wouldn’t have actually thought about measuring it. Solid means rock hard, almost impossibly hard to chip, scratch or crack. You can get a good indication of just how solid a stone tile is when you pick it up. If there is absolutely no rigidity or you don’t get any sense whatsoever of frailty, then chances are it’s a solid tile. If you weren’t averse to some exciting experimentation then you could always drop a hammer from a good height onto the tile to see if it breaks. Alas! The timeless hammer drop test. In our showroom, we have plenty of space to actually drop a hammer onto our natural stone tiles. If the stone is truly high quality natural stone tile then the test will cause the hammer to leave no marks on the tile. In your case, do you think the tiles you’re thinking of buying could withstand this kind of challenge? Only superior quality stone will be able to and this will help you make your first decision.

2) Water Absorption

A authentic, quality natural stone tile won’t absorb water in anyway. This is why our jerusalem stones prove to be forever sought after for wet rooms, bathrooms, swimming pools, jacuzzis and even exterior stone walls. All of our premium quality natural stone tiles will propell water absolutely, continuously and if you’re thinking of getting some other ‘stone’ tiles, such as travertine or immitation stone, make sure you ask about the water intake rates, particularly when you’re looking to tile your bathroom.

3) Resistance to Weather Factors

This is a direct follow-on from the previous stone tile property. I’m sure many of you won’t be surprised to hear that a truly natural stone that has not been machine manufacturerd or is synthetic will be much more resistant to the great British weather – rain, sleet, cold and wind.. Any stone you’re considering for an exterior must be able to withstand these elements. Our own exterior jerusalem stone does withstand them and in some cases, like our recovered and reclaimed natural stone, have been withstanding them for hundreds of years.. You can always ask the shop owner or sales assistant if the tiles they supply are suitable for external use and if so, for some examples of where you can go and look at them. One telling sign might even be if they have any natural stone on display outside of their premises.

Clever marketing and sales tactics can heavily influence your buying decision and you should be wary of smart looking displays containing really nice looking tiles at unbelievable knock down prices. Make sure you always do your own research and due diligence on any stone that is advertised as natural stone because there are so many cheaper immitations out there that will ultimately cost you more in the long run!

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