Marble Moldings

Why that matters on a bullnose

A bullnose is the piece where a run of tiling stops, and it is the one place a trim is seen from more than one angle at once.

On a stone piece the figure wraps the curve continuously, so the edge reads as the same material turning a corner. On a printed trim the pattern is applied to a face, and the moment the face curves away the print either stretches or stops. It is the clearest visible difference between the two and it shows at the one place people look closest.

The profiles here are small

2x12 leads, then 1/2x12, 3/4x24, 1x12, 11/16x12 and a 1 3/8x9, with thicknesses running from 3/8 of an inch up to a full inch.

Those are pencils, liners and narrow caps rather than wide bands. A stone molding is milled out of solid material, so every extra inch of face is another inch of block removed, and the sizes stay modest for that reason. The trim in other materials is in moldings.

Honed and polished, almost evenly

Honed slightly leads polished here, which is an unusually even split for a trim range.

It happens because a marble molding has to match its field tile rather than suit itself. A honed floor takes a honed edge and a polished wall takes a polished one, and a range serving both has to carry both in roughly equal numbers. That is not true of a limestone trim range, where honed is the only answer the stone gives.

The stones behind the profiles

Bardiglio, Alpina, Carrara, Athens, Macchiato, Sahara, Royal and a Delicate run through this range in whites, grays, beiges and a green.

Those are the marbles that also exist as field tile, which is the point of a stone trim collection. A molding has to come from the same stone as the surface it borders, not merely the same color, and two marbles of similar tone from different quarries sit badly together along an edge.

Thickness decides how it sits

The figures run 11/16, 1, 1/2, 3/4, 3/8, 5/8 and 15/16 of an inch, which is a wide spread for a small range.

That is the profile doing it: a deeper piece has more material behind the shaped face. It also decides how far the trim stands off the wall or the tile, which is the thing to settle against the field tile before either is ordered.

Where a marble molding goes

The top edge of a wainscot, the cap of a backsplash, the outside corner of a tiled return, the junction where tiling meets plaster and the border of a panel.

Marble tile is the field it belongs to and limestone moldings the softer stone alternative.