See if you can go to a stone yard. Most have samples of both. Once we got there, we discovered that up close, the manufacture stone was more one dimensional. Real stone has life in it. It stood to reason...we don't like fake leather or wood-look floors either. I recently saw some artificial stone pillars. It looked like a car bumped into one edge of it. Underneath, it just looked like concrete and pieces of stone. Ditto on the pricing.

The cement board is an exellent base with no wire mesh necessary. I would recommend using fortified thinset mortar instead of regular mortar - it provides a stronger bond and grabs quicker, although it is a little messier to work with and clean up. BTW, don't buy the premixed thinset, mix it yourself from a bag (okay to buy the bag with fortifier already in it).

quote" Why did the buyer bail on bluestone? "quote Because I'm a Wussy and let them change to Oklahoma multicolor. Most of my competitors won't let a buyer out of his choices. I have buyer compassion when it comes to changes. If I'm told before the work starts on tile and coping they can make a change without additional charges as long as the product is of equal or lesser value. At any given time I have lots of pallets of rocks behind the shop so I really don't lose any sleep over it. I'm not sure if it's select or full color, heck I couldn't even tell you if it's from Pennsylvania. I'll be going to the shop this afternoon and will take a digital camera to snap some shots of the pallets. See ya, Kelly

The scratches will weather and probably be less evident over time. Stones I've seen delivered to work sites are piled into crates. These are both manmade and natural stones. I never really went up to these houses afterwards to check out stone condition. Ron