Cloud- your quartzite sounds really pretty! I don't think I have seen a blue one, sounds like it would be soothing to look at something like the ocean every day! I'm glad to hear it's holding up fantastically! Give me a lot of hope Dragonfly- I've seen your previous threads about wanting marble, and then finding the one! Super White is beautiful. 7 months, with children, sounds great! I know all about the art projects left out, we are moving away from the playdough though. I'm glad you haven't had etching, you are right, it does seem like some of the SW is etching like crazy. Maybe it is a certain batch? Hoboken- I didn't know that you had Taj Mahal in a different house! I just knew about your latest woes with this new kitchen. Hopefully things are getting better for you? That's awful about the new SW. Is yours polished or honed? Are you at the point of progress that you can share a picture? It's strange how one type of quartzite can be perfect, but another have some issues. That really is too bad. Thank you for your reply!

cpartist answered your question re professional or student grade. Golden Acrylics, a brand, is golden and professional grade. I haven't bought acrylics in a long time except for gesso, for foundation and a cheap white. Colors, generally, should be considered in concert with the other colors in the painting. Most paintings, other than abstract, non-representational, should have unity. Your paintings to copy don't require that, imo. And if the color doesn't seem right, you can easily paint over it. You can buy a cadmium red, expensive, for example, or buy a cad red hue. Both professional grade. There is more pigment in professional grade than in student grade. So, even within a line of paint, there are choices of colors. As a beginner, I would choose professional grade but not the most expensive choices. The good thing is that the workhorse colors, whites, ivory blacks, ochres, earth tones-browns are cheaper than cads. Of course, you can mix. Another thought-each line of paint has a "true" primary color. Often the paint company will call that particular color by it's company name-such as the Grumbacher Paint Company will call that 'true' red as Grumbacher red. Down the road as you become more experienced, you may wish to replicate the color of a particular object and it is easier to mix a spot on color with 'true' primary colors and black and white. I had one college level painting class where one unit was on true color and we had to nail, copy precisely the color of 3 objects. I am only saying this because if you are now buying paint, and the true primaries are reasonably priced, in relation to other colors in the line, it may be of some future benefit to choose a true primary. Not a big deal. Just file this info in the maybe, someday file. Most often, clerks in an art sup store are knowledgable and can tell you which colors are true. Perhaps they ask a colleague. It may be in the literature of the manufacturer. Enjoy. It will be beautiful and fun.

Madre Perla owner here, though mine is brushed I tested a polished piece originally, nothing stained it not even tumeric. My slab does not etch. It has survived a lemondrop party and multiple instances of canning tomatoes. It's been 3-4 years its beauty, particularly the large uninterrupted island slab, still stops people in their tracks. They carress it, as I do, and say What is this???

Interesting question josephhou, there is no such thing as hard/soft quartzite. The reality is there is quartzite and there is marble. People sell marble as "soft quartzite" and that is wrong on many levels. If I were in your position I would use a few very simple tests to definitively determine if you have quartzite or not. It's easy to do. Then, if you have quartzite, you can polish or hone it as you please. If you do not have quartzite, then you can punt from there. But there's no need to hedge your bets when you can know the exact answer. All the info you need is here: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2692150/countertop-geology-part-six-lets-talk-about-rocks-some-more Please also direct your KD to this info, because he/she should also know the best way to deal with this question. Hope this helps!