This topic couldn't be more timely! I am in the process of selling my NYC condo and buying a Loudoun County new construction home. To start with, the condo had marble baths - vanities, floors, shower tiles, wall tiles - the whole thing. I hated it! Looking back, I now know why I hated it. I hated it because I always knew that condo was not my forever home. I was always trying to keep it looking fresh and clean and pristine for "when we sell". That meant that I was always wiping up water from the vanities. If we had guests, I would take every opportunity to go into the second bathroom to wipe up whatever water was sitting on the vanity. This was a constant issue and stress for me and my poor husband who was an innocent bystander to my obsession. One day my cat peed on the bath mat on the floor and the etching in front of the tub freaked me out and I couldn't look at it without worrying about a potential buyer's complaints. One night I put my contact case on the vanity without drying it off and to this day there is an outline of a contact case on that vanity. All this being said, the first person who looked at my condo made me a full price offer with no mention of the barthroom marble! Now that we are building our dream home, I have decided to put in 150 feet of Carrara marble kitchen counters and am plotting for that day In the future when I can afford to redo the builder 4x4 ceramic tiles in the master bathroom our budget requires we get now with Carrara marble tiles and vanities. Long story short, now that I know that this is "my" house and whatever I do with it only has to please me and not some future buyer, I am doing exactly what I want. The thing is that I am a relaxed person who enjoys things that feel warm and homey and used but have an underlying elegance. Marble is perfect for me! I can't wait to have it and enjoy it and appreciate it's characteristics rather than fighting them. Marble boils down to this, if you are going to fight every mark and indication of use - DON'T GET IT it is not for you. Stick with granite or something else that will look brand new in 20 years. If you appreciate a patina and signs of use, then get it and love it.

I know the original quartzite in this thread was not Vancouver, but there were a couple of folks thinking about Vancouver in this thread and were worried that it looked eerily similar. Did any of you move forward with the Vancouver and if so, what was your experience? I know every slab is different and I will attempt to do all much testing as possible, but the more data points the better...

Flo, thanks so much. I just got home from the tile shop. I like the basket weave with the black dot (not the dark grey I was considering) and the guy I’ve been working with at the shop suggested just buying field tile that matches the dot and use that as the liner on the rug (cut into 1/2” strips). His thought on the wall is to either use that same liner, to match the dot, or skip it. I’m leaning towards skipping it and letting the floor be the focal point. Do you still think this a tough tiling job? Is it the basket weave or herringbone subway or ...all of it together?. I imagined that the wainscoting would be easy. To answer your question, no I don’t dye my hair at home, but thanks for the heads up.

People in Europe having been using marble for their kitchens forver so it must not be bad. True. But keep in mind a couple of things. In many trips I have taken to France and Italy I cannot recall seeing polished marble, only honed. I am talking about café tables, bathrooms (a hotel room bathroom in Milan was every inch marble - honed - it did not look new, but it looked great), lobbies, stairwells, etc. Furthermore, in Europe there is not the "need for pristine" that North Americans have. It's a cultural difference, so to your point "it must not be bad", but that is their feeling about it, so just make sure you feel OK about etching. As mentioned, etching will look more pronounced against a polished surface than it will against a honed surface. Also buyer beware about the coatings for marble that I think @joseph_corlett is referring to. It is akin to plastic slipcovers on your grandma's sofa. It protects, and you can see the protected surface through the coating, but it won't look the same. If you are going to go to those lengths to protect the marble, so that it loses its unique beauty, you may as well get a different stone and not be bothered with needing any protector for it. There are granites and quartzites that do not even need to be sealed. Have you seen Taj Mahal quartzite?