Mosaic, field tile and pattern sets
In Stone Tile Depot's marble collection, mosaic is the largest product type, then field tile, with smaller groups of pattern sets, waterjet decos, accent tiles and pebbles. Marble mosaic leads because small pieces suit the places marble is most often used: shower floors, backsplashes and bathroom walls.
The sizes on the listings measure different things as a result. A 12x12 can be a tile or a mesh sheet of small chips, and a single figure with no second number beside it is usually a hexagon mosaic, named for the size of the piece. The marble floor tile page holds the field formats on their own and marble mosaic tile the sheets.
Marble names, quarry by quarry
Marble is named for quarries and districts, the way wine is, so two tiles sharing a name can differ. Carrara is the fine gray-veined stone from the Apuan Alps in Tuscany. Calacatta comes from the same region with a brighter ground and heavier veins. Arabescato pools its veining into rounded shapes. Bardiglio is a specific blue-gray marble from the same mountains, Bianco is the general Italian word for the whites, and Nero for the blacks.
Royal, Eastern and Silver are trade names. Some point to a source, as Eastern White does to a white marble quarried in China, and some are a supplier's label for a color group, so the stone description on a listing carries more information than the name on its own.
Polished, honed and the rest
Polished and honed make up most of the collection, and after those two comes a shorter list: tumbled, multi finish, textured, and a few split face, rock face and leather pieces. Honing and polishing are stages of the same grind, with polish taken to finer abrasives until the face reflects. Tumbling rounds the edges and softens the face in a drum of grit, and split face and rock face are broken surfaces, not cut ones.
Multi finish means one stone offered in more than one surface, honed and polished most often. Because the pieces share a stone, the veining and base tone belong together, though polish deepens color and the polished pieces usually read a shade darker than the honed ones beside them.
Thickness and the heavier pieces
Where a thickness is listed it is mostly 3/8 inch, and otherwise often 1/2 inch, the ordinary depth for an interior marble tile on a wall or a floor. A smaller set runs heavier: 3/4 inch on long formats such as 12x48 and 24x48, and 1 1/4 inch on the French, Roman and Versailles pattern sets.
The pattern sets are where the tumbled and textured faces gather, because they are cut for floors meant to read as old stone. Each one is several sizes sold together that lock into a repeating layout, and a few of them are rated for outdoor floors as well as indoor ones.
Mosaic shapes and waterjet
Hexagon is the mosaic shape found most often in the collection. Basket weave, herringbone and penny round are the next tier, and arabesque and chevron turn up on a handful of sheets. The shape does as much to a room as the stone does. A herringbone reads as movement on a floor; a small hexagon or penny round gives a shower floor far more grout lines, and more texture underfoot, than a large tile can.
Waterjet pieces are cut by a high-pressure jet of water and abrasive, which is what makes curved outlines like the arabesque practical in stone. The same cut lets two marbles interlock with tight joints, so several decos pair contrasting stones, Alpina White against Royal Beige in the crossed picket for one, and draw the pattern in color as well as in line.
Pavers, medallions, sinks and trim
Marble pavers and pool copings are the exterior formats, and Stone Tile Depot's marble pavers are mostly 1 1/4 inch thick, cut that way so a paver carries load on its own. Marble medallions, ledger panel, marble sinks and the pencil liners and bullnose on marble moldings each have a page of their own.
Color and the rooms marble suits
White marble is over half of the collection, then gray, beige and black, with smaller multicolor and blue groups. White with gray veining is the classic bathroom stone because it reflects light in a small room and shows its pattern best close up. Beige marbles such as Crema Marfil read warm next to wood, and black marbles like Nero suit a powder room or a fireplace surround, where a dark stone can be the one strong surface in the space.
Bathrooms, showers, kitchen walls and fireplace surrounds are where marble tile is used most, since they are surfaces seen closely and used gently. A floor across a whole house is the harder brief, and the finish carries it. The marble backsplash page covers the kitchen wall, and marble slabs the counters.
One chemistry across the collection
Marble is a carbonate rock, and a carbonate reacts with an acid: the surface dissolves slightly where the acid sits and leaves a dull patch called an etch. Lemon, vinegar, wine and most limescale removers all do it.
There is one real distinction inside that. Most marble is calcite, calcium carbonate, and reacts readily. A dolomitic marble is calcium-magnesium carbonate and reacts considerably more slowly, which is why Bianco Dolomiti and Thassos have a reputation for being the forgiving whites. Slower is not immune, and the difference is one of degree.
How visible the result is comes down to the surface, and on a floor that becomes the governing decision, which the marble floor tile page works through.
Marble and the stones next to it
Travertine is a sedimentary limestone deposited by mineral springs, which is why it carries cavities and banding. Marble formed differently: limestone, or dolostone in the case of dolomitic marble, recrystallized under heat and pressure, and the impurities in it were drawn out into veins. Limestone is usually the parent rock of marble.
The travertine and limestone collections cover those, and all three share the same carbonate chemistry.
