(via Best Advice: White Marble Countertops Pros & Cons | Apartment Therapy)

(via Before & After: A Fresh Bathroom Remodel | Apartment Therapy)

I can’t get enough of Carrara marble & black in bathrooms these days. The pink faucet is just an added bonus

For whatever reason, I’ve been spending a lot of time dreaming about renovating my kitchen and bathrooms. To say that there is no money for this endeavor is the understatement of the year, so beyond some cosmetic fixes, all of this will remain firmly in the land of makebelieve for some time yet.

What moved me to post about this, however, is a discovery I made yesterday. Now, I’ve always been a huge fan of Carrara marble, particularly the statuary subset which is predominantly white with less overall grey veining. I’ve always loved the look for countertops, floors, even wall coverings. There’s a coolness (both temperature and colorwise) to this white stone that is unmatched.

Of course, marble comes with a huuuuge caveat, which is that, as a calcite based stone, it is extremely vulnerable to acids. Yes, people complain about marble staining (from red wine, for example), but it’s the acid etching that is a bigger concern. On a honed (matte) as opposed to polished (shiny) marble surface, acid etching (this is what it looks like on a shiny surface) may be less apparent, but there are horror stories of people forgetting something acidic somewhere on their counter, only to find that the acid has eaten a hole right through their countertop!

I am not a very tidy cook (nor a tidy person in general, I must admit), yet I am also pretty anal retentive (I know, contradictory, but true), so I realized finally, with pain in my heart, that marble countertops would ultimately not be for me. Every stain, every etch, every chip (did I mention it chips easily?) would be like a wagging finger, admonishing me for my lack of attention. It would be a mistake.

… and then I discovered Luce di Luna quartzite (pictured above, in a kitchen that looks, at least in this photo, extremely similar to my own). With quartz as its primary ingredient, this stone is as resistant as you would expect granite or man-made quartz countertops to be. In fact, by all account it is sturdier than actual granite. Better yet, while quartzite comes in a wide variety of colors, Luce di Luna looks about as close to Carrara marble as you’re going to get. While the base color of the stone is grayer than Carrara, and the veining on Luce di Luna tends to run in (extremely modern) parallel lines, the similarities are striking.

With all its benefits, Luce di Luna quartzite also comes at a premium. It should be no surprise that it is much, much more expensive than many of the items on the market, including Carrara marble. Given that I’d want the countertops in the kitchen to match those in the bathrooms, at the end of the day, perhaps the most affordable solution will remain Corian in Rain Cloud, which, while clearly engineered, manages to capture a similar look at a far more palatable price.

Marble for my kitchen is my greatest wish, threat of stains be damned!

(via thebrickhouse)