Marble AND ITS ADMIRERS

Endlessly appealing in soft shades of honed or polished white, grey, black, and cream, marble is one of the most prized materials for countertops. That’s in spite of its many drawbacks: marble is relatively soft, which why it takes so well to carving. It stains and etches easily, requiring frequent sealing and careful cleaning to maintain its beauty. Like many natural stones, it can be chipped or cracked and will break if enough pressure is applied.

The demand for marble has spawned a sub-industry in marble lookalikes, beginning with marble-look laminates and continuing with solid-surfacing materials and engineered stones. Most have advantages that marble cannot offer, and several manufacturers offer gorgeous lookalikes. Most cost more than marble (or any other natural stone), but never need sealing and are easier to care for.

Another material that does a convincing imitation of marble is porcelain, which is just catching on in North America after wide acceptance in Europe. Porcelain is made by wet-grinding clay together with feldspar-rich materials and ceramic pigments; it’s then poured into slabs and shaped by compaction. The material is fired at temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees F. Porcelain countertops are resistant to impact, scratching, heat, and UV, impervious to stains and chemicals, and completely waterproof.

As a countertop material, it’s also lighter and thinner than most natural stones (at 3 /8" to 1 /2" thick), so it works well for backsplashes and as wall and floor tile. (Porcelain tiles are so strong, one European manufacturer shows a horse walking over a porcelain tile floor.) Like solid surfacing and engineered stone, porcelain does not require sealing, and cleans up with a damp cloth and a pH-neutral detergent.

Porcelain slabs are fabricated similarly to natural stone and bonded materials, using water-based saws and other CNC technology. Manufacturers like Crossville Tile specify cutting speeds based on disc diameters and cutting angles in order to minimize the chance of breakage.

Brittanicca is a quartz composite engineered to resemble marble from Cambria.

ABOVE Engineered stones like Cambria’s Summerhill convey the look and beauty of marble but won’t stain or rust. RIGHT Pietra Grey is the name of this porcelain countertop material made in Italy by SapienStone. BOTTOM These mined blocks of marble are at the Ortensia quarry in Carrara, Italy.