What a break shows in a marble
A marble is a recrystallized limestone: a dense mass of interlocking calcite crystals with no bedding to follow.
A split face on one is therefore a genuine fracture rather than a separation, and the surface it leaves is faceted. Under a raking light those facets return light individually, which gives a marble ledger wall a sparkle that a sandstone or a slate panel simply does not have. Ledger panel takes the format into the other stones.
Split face leads, but not alone
Split face is the largest finish here, with honed, natural, rock face and tumbled groups behind it.
The honed pieces are worth separating out. A honed ledger panel is the same stacked arrangement with a flat ground face, so the relief between the strips remains and the individual faces are smooth. It gives a wall the pattern of stacked stone with none of the sparkle, which is a much quieter surface.
Two thicknesses, two products
The figures here cluster at 0.75 inch and at 0.38, with a spread between them.
That is the split and the honed halves of the range. A split panel needs depth for the projection; a honed one is flat and can be thinner. It matters where a ledger wall meets a flat tiled surface, since three quarters of an inch standing off a wall is a substantial line to resolve.
Gray leads, and the whites follow
Gray is the largest color here, then white, multicolor, black and beige, with series names including Arabescato, Arctic, Glacial, Alaska and Cosmic.
Those are white marble names being used on a stacked product, which is the reverse of how they usually appear. A split Arabescato is the same stone as an Arabescato field tile and it reads nothing like it, because the veining that defines the flat tile is broken across a dozen projecting faces.
The sizes are wall units
6x24 leads, then 6x12, 6x18, 9x24, 9x18 and a 4.5x16.
Six inches is the common panel height: tall enough to carry four or five strips of stone and short enough that one unit is manageable. The 9 inch heights give fewer horizontal joins across a wall at the cost of a heavier piece.
Corners, and what a flat panel leaves showing
Where a marble ledger wall turns an outside corner, a flat panel leaves its backing and the sawn ends of every strip in view.
L-shaped corner units carry the split face around the angle, and on a marble the join matters more than on a darker stone, because a pale fractured surface shows a sawn edge next to it very clearly. Corners are counted by the running length of the corner rather than by area.
Where a marble ledger goes
A fireplace breast, a feature wall, an island front, a column, a bar front and an alcove.
It is a wall product throughout, since the relief that makes it work is what makes it wrong underfoot. Marble tile covers the stone in flat formats.
