Polished can show off the veining of marble better than honed.

Polished will be more slippery than honed, especially if wet.

Polished will show dirt, scratches, smudges and smears more than honed.

Honed is more porous than polished, so it's easier to stain.

Etching that occurred on polished would be more visible than etching on honed.

Polished on walls and honed on floors is fairly common in bathrooms. Once or twice when polished has been installed on floors I've come back and sanded the polished to knock the "gloss" down to "honed".

If you're doing a marble mosaic, I'd choose:
- polished for WALLS for the 'sparkle' factor, and
- honed for FLOORS for the superior slip-resistance and wear-gracefully aspects.

mongoct, did you sand the polished floors to make them less slippery??? when we lived in ct, we had polished marble floors in the m bathroom(there seemed to be ALOT of marble used up there) and i don't remember them being slippery at all. we always use a bathmat... i am planning to use polished marble on our floors again, with the use of a couple of rugs...wasn't worried until have been browsing the forum...are certain polished marbles more slippery than others???

busybee,

The polished was taken down to honed because the owner got tired of seeing any imperfections in the reflection on the polished marble. Smears, smudges, etc.

The more a floor is polished, the finer the surface and the more slippery it could become, so it depends on the degree of polishing.

Honed floors can go in the opposite direction which is they might get shinier in areas of more wear. I was told that honed granite can do this and that's much harder than marble. Polished marble floors that show wear areas can always be repolished again to bring up the gloss to an even level. If it's a small area it might even be DIY with the right tools.

thanks! think i'll go with the polished.........

Have you seen this in real life, blondelle? Just curious. I can see it as a theoretical possibility but all the old marble floors I've ever seen just look worn, not shiny.

I put in Home Depot polished marble tiles on the bathroom floor and shower walls. I understand the hypothetical issues but since I've usually got bath rugs down and the marble (it's the pink stuff from a few years ago) has some movement, I don't notice any specific wear.

Thanks everyone! I got some samples, and I'll have to say that the polished really does show the veining off so much better than honed. The honed carrara I'm looking at is much more white than the same tile polished. That said, I think I'm going to go with honed on the floors and tub deck, and polished on the walls for maintenance reasons.