A piece of marble completely changed my plans for my new kitchen. I went from planning for a sensible Calacatta-like quartzite to an outrageously gorgeous, but not very sensible Paonazzo marble. With that one decision I lost half an island and incur the worry of marble spalling. But it is the most gorgeous slab of stone I have ever seen ... sigh.

Rita:

Good news. You can have your beautiful marble without etching, you just have to have Stoneguard applied.

I hope you post photos, Rita!

WOW, that is absolutely gorgeous.

Thank you, Lisa. I am glad you like it too :-)

Stunning! Love it!

We're in the process of a kitchen reno and are really having a hard time with the countertops. We found a number of gorgeous marbles and calcites - but we're so afraid of being slaves to the countertops - having to worry about etching, etc...

Should we just go for these and use Stoneguard? Is calcite ok?

I know nothing of Stoneguard, but I know a little about people. We are fallible even if our new toys are not. Who knows whether the Soneguard will be applied correctly, or whether someone visiting your house will chip your stone? Stuff happens.

The Parthenon is marble, and it has been around for a while. The image below it is the Parthenon recreated somewhere in TN. I far prefer the original with its "patina" to the pristine version, but then I am Greek. Coating or no coating, it might be best to decide whether you can live with imperfections. It might help you to remember that no surface is perfect. But other surfaces might be more easily repaired.

By the way, Rita, your inspiration images look very Parisian to me, très élégante! I love the fridge.

Stoneguard is polyethylene, commonly known as plastic. I would be sure it doesn't change the appearance, as has been the experience of those who have used other topically-applied marble protectors.

From what I've read, it also changes the feel of the stone.

I will look further into Stoneguard. I would not care for the feel of the marble to change. My biggest concern is about spalling when an object strikes the stone and mares the surface. Having said that. I am going to quote eam44 from a previous thread with one little change: I am Italian. I am programmed to like marble. I really and truly LOLed when I read that, eam.

BTW, in Europe they call counters worktops (in French, plan de travail, I can't think of the Italian.) I am fine with patina and I am getting myself to accept spalling. I have seen enough people on GW who all like their marble counters, patina and all.

That is a beautiful slab! No wonder you fell in love. What's the name?

Thank you, traci. It's called Paonazzo.

For someone who wants a man made product Silestone Pulsar seems to be inspired by the coloration of the Paonazzo.

"From what I've read, it also changes the feel of the stone."

As does etching.

Thank you, Pal, that Pulsar looks great. And thank you, Joe for the reminder about the etching. I will bear that in mind. Final decisions need to be made soon.

Well hello neighbor! In Greece when a new piece of marble is installed the owners christen it with cut lemons, so basically they etch the entire piece. I've heard the Italians do this with tomatoes. The shiny and new isn't always desirable in these wonderful cultures.

eam44, in Italian, in my house, where the counter was most assuredly not stone at the time, we called the kitchen counter the ... marble! Even in French, we called it the marble at home, not plan de travail. (We speak French and Italian at home, but our French is more up-to-date in the sense that my children go to French schools, we read lots of French books, watch French TV, not as much current Italian input, so they may well call counters something like worktop too.)

And as for christening the marble- Brilliant! I'd borrow the lemon from the Greeks (we have borrowed so much already, no?) Our part of Italy is not partial to tomatoes. Lemon on grilled meat, lemon desserts ...

I apologize for the thread highjack.

I love the idea of etching it all at once

A piece of marble completely changed my plans for my new kitchen. I went from planning for a sensible Calacatta-like quartzite to an outrageously gorgeous, but not very sensible Paonazzo marble.

Rita, I can see why you fell head over heels. That is absolutely stunning!

I'm not choosing a marble but I wound up finding a quartzite BEFORE my house was finished being designed! My whole house in terms of color is designed around this quartzite. I found it almost 2 years ago and bought 3 of the last 5 remaining slabs well over a year ago. So glad I did because according to the stone place, they closed the mine down where it came from and it's no longer available.

Originally I was thinking I'd make my backsplash the star of the kitchen and do a muted countertop. Also originally was thinking of green cabinets. Nope no more. White perimeter and a quarter sawn dark oak island.

What a show-stopping piece of stone! The colors and the designs are amazing. I can see how this would turn your kitchen around. I don't envy you templateting this gorgeous slab. There is not a single spot I would want to cut out for so much as a sink! I've never seen such good incentive to keep your counters clear. It looks like a Japanese landscape.

Rita, Your inspiration pictures are beautiful, but I find that the busy stone works best with the neutral backdrop. How will the kitchen look when other elements are introduced, and it becomes busier?

That's a really good point, Lisa. I actually spent a lot of time thinking about it. I can't post a picture of the kitchen I am redoing until tonight. It's in a PDF and I can't grab the image. DH will do it for me later.

Your image is great. Thanks for the mock up. I think real life looks pretty different than magazine photos in general. But there are a few things that come into play for this specific look in my specific space.

First, I don't expect the kitchen to remain pristine while I am busy working in it, however I do put everything away once I am done. My mother spent many years training me ;-)

Second, there is a place for everything, so clean-up is a snap. The kitchen is quite large. The island that is currently there is 17 feet long. There are 23 feet of tall cupboards parallel to the island and 12 or 13 feet perpendicular to the island (not sure about the last two measurements off hand). All the windows are on the long right hand wall of the kitchen.

The one element I was not willing to change in the interest of aesthetics was my oven stack- it's a very pretty oven stack (Gagg) and I really, really tried to convince myself to get under counter ovens, but that started to get difficult too- so I settled on having the stainless stack- the Gagg ovens are pretty sculptural in their own right.

Oh and lastly, I gave up counter seating (along with any storage on the other side of the island.) Counter seating is not something we use much, outside of people chatting wile people are cooking - which I love -and so will put two ghost stools (even copying that) off to a corner. The kitchen table is where my children do their homework- and the first one os off to college this fall. Also I never serve meals at the island. The island is often used as a buffet.

That is probably way more than you wanted to know about my future kitchen! I really do appreciate the feedback. I am amazed at how generous this community is with providing ideas and expertise to one another.