Hi fivefoot... countertops are always such a treat..please post pics.. I am partial to anything named for St. Rita...I am named for her...my father was the captain of a fishing boat, "The Saint Rita" and later a smaller boat, "The Little Rita." so I can't wait to see what your St. Rita soapstone looks like...I bet it will be beautiful...as she was. KA:) Here is a link that might be useful: painting of St. Rita from the boat..now in my home

We visited Moab last fall and it was one of the highlights of our entire Western US trip. Arches, Canyonlands... wish we had had more time there. We hope this fall to get to Bryce and Zion. The red rocks are amazing. But as plllog said, best left as natural art, or at least as vertical surfaces. Some stones have good reason to be polished, and some k;tchens have good reason to have polished stone, and some people have good reason to prefer that look. And polished is not necessarily unnatural. However, if you don't prefer that look, then as jrueter said, there are other options with granite. We bought the same thing that she has but ended up exchanging it for a different leathered stone for various reasons. The options are confusing.... leathered, honed, brushed, riverwashed, satin, antiqued, maybe more. One supplier I talked to last week said that the boutique names may differ but often mean the same thing or close to it. But it doesn't have to be polished. These kinds of treatments really bring out the beauty of some particular stones, but may mute certain characteristics on other particular stones.

We went to Pental in Portland and chose their "Tobacco" quartz. After we made our choice, we looked at a few slabs of the same color. There are variations in each slab, so if you go with quartz, choose the slab you want. We did get a little flack to do this because "they are man made and all the same" They are not, so pick the one you want. Now Pental has so many more new quartz choices to choose from than when we were doing our remodel in 2013. They had a lot of natural stone choices then but we had our heart set on quartz. We are very happy with our choice, but if I had to make that choice today with all the new quartz styles since 2013, I probably would have chosen one more marble looking and whiter. Durability wise our quartz has held up beautifully!

It looks like marble, but more than likely it is quartzite (similar to marble.) Especially since it is stored outside. Quartz is not good out in the elements. Be careful if you are choosing it for your kitchen. Quartzite and marble will scratch and etch. Unless you are not much of a cook and the kitchen is more ornamental, I would choose quartz or granite.