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Soapstone Slab selection

16 years ago

We are now at the point of selecting our soapstone slabs at Maine Soapstone. We are in KY so we are selecting based on pix. They are offering - Amazon, Emerald Sunshine, Ice flower. We would like a quiet stone, dark with minimal veining. We would like to have that silky feel but don't want it too soft. They tell me the green tint of the emerald sunshine will fade with oiling. Recommendations? Thanks

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Comments (8)

emmie9999
16 years ago
I have Ice Flower from the same yard, and if you want quiet stone with minimal veining, this is NOT the one to get! It's pretty wild. I love it. Amazon is supposed to be very quiet, I think. Very black with white veining, isn't it? Emerald Sunshine is one I have not heard of. Do you have pics you can post and share?

Emmie
vwhippiechick
Original Author
16 years ago
Here is my attempt to post pics of the slabs. Thanks for your help. The top and bottom are amazon, the second one is original and the third is iceflower.

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sail-away- No i dont work there, me and my husband are building a new house and We had just found Dorado, its brand new here and we (i) had such a time trying to pick out countertops. and it just seemed to me that no one around here, anywhere in Tx really except for Dallas had used or heard of SS but i am sick to death of granite. so i found something new, came accross this site and i cant believe how many threads there are rg SS. I just wanted to make sure i wasnt nuts for chooseing it and seems like alot of other ppl love it too... but no one yet has really been in TX? So i've been reading alot of what ppl on here are saying and i have a ton of pictures, DS emailed me a whole portofolio it seems and none of my pics look like all the others on here. Just trying to show off a bit ;-) We are still waiting on our stones to arrive in their next shipment in a few weeks, and no our kitchen is still being worked out so there isnt much to see at this point. Will share as soon as i can! oh and i write on so many of these dang things my answers just get shorter and shorter.. i like the reading but all the typing can get tedious... can the weather PLEASE get warmer so i can find something else to do! hahaha NO LAUGHING!! :)
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I would just make sure that you've seen and touched actual pieces of the same variety of stone. We were pretty sure about which variety we wanted and which one we didn't want, just from looking at pics of slabs. When we went to see the slabs in person, when we touched the different varieties, our list of preferences was flipped upside down. Our favorite became our least favorite, and our least favorite became our favorite. I think we would have known this by holding a sample, but I'm not positive about that. Once we knew which variety we wanted, when it came to picking the individual slab, I think a pic would have been fine.
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Your counters are beautiful, Prill! I noticed that the vein on the slab we chose was turning a bit green or turquoise at the end of the slab. I figured I would probably notice some more of that color in it once it's installed. I love yours, so now I really hope so! I'm ok with scratches and dings. I figured that comes with any soapstone. But when she said it was the softest one they had right now, it made me wonder if I was making a bad choice. The place we looked at the slabs was a small family business. The husband, who has the ability to move the slabs around with his equipment, wasn't there and we could only look at the first slab in the group. The woman that helped me explained that he had already sorted them so that the slabs behind were nearly identical as they were just slices of the same stone taken from the mountain. The explanation seemed completely logical to me, but I was kind of bummed that I didn't get to eye my slab #2 (and maybe #3 as we are having them make a sink for us as well...). Did you have the same sort of experience when you looked at slabs? This is our first time, so I didn't know what to expect.
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We were really lucky in that we used Joshua Schafer at Creative Soapstone. He told us to find slabs that we liked, and not to worry about which way the veining would go -- that part is his job, to make sure that his templating highlighted the beauty of the slab and omitted any fissures, etc that the slab may have. It was tough to do, and if he caught us discussing how a patterning on a slab might fit, he moved us along (in his kind, craftsman type of way). But sure enough we found slabs that we loved, and he templated them in a stunning manner. Do you want a busy veining pattern? Quiet? That's what you need to look at, then go fall in love with a slab. Make sure you post pictures!
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marthavila
16 years ago
I am getting GM Original. The slab I selected doesn't have as much veining as appears in your sample. In fact, it's pretty "quiet" overall, but then it does have some incredibly dramatic white veins with goldish/rust inclusions that show up in isolated places. From what I've seen, Original can vary significantly from slab to slab. Ice Flower, no matter what, is going to be a pretty busy slab. Amazon is interesting. I've not seen it in person though.
emmie9999
16 years ago
The second of the photos in your post looks almost exactly like my Ice Flower. It's gorgeous, but busy, takes a long time to darken with oilings, and is very VERY soft. From the look of things, Amazon might be your best bet. Have you gotten sample pieces?

Emmie
rgillman
16 years ago
I agree - Amazon looks pretty interesting - and it looks like it has those caramel veins, too. Marthavila -- your Original looks more gray than green, if I remember correctly. So either there is lots of variation in the base color or Original or it is Ice Flower in disguise! But maybe it really doesn't matter.
It is beautiful.
Buehl
16 years ago
I like the third...do you have a pic of it wet/oiled?
vwhippiechick
Original Author
16 years ago
I am getting samples soon I hope! These are the only pics I have right now. We are waiting on the template kit, hoping it will arrive today.
donatelolee
13 years ago
There is Soapstone Slab gallery and video in http://bit.ly/hb2OEx

Here is a link that might be useful: Soapstone Slabs Gallery and Video

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