Natural stone is a wonderful product for hardscaping, flooring, and even countertops, but I don’t think there is a builder out there who won’t have a disclaimer about the fact it is a natural product and colors will vary. Each and every stone has its own unique texture and color. This makes for a truly one-of-a-kind project, but it can prove to be challenging to find exactly what you are looking for, if you are trying to match a picture, your neighbor’s house, or even your own house. To truly get what you are after, you need to pick the exact piece or pieces you want. That means selecting the specific granite slab, or pallet, or hand picking from boxes of stone tile. Efficiency does not come into play here. If there is a desire for a certain look, there is going to be a lot of waste. The good news is, stone doesn’t go bad, so any rejected pieces could always be saved for a future project!
If you go visit a supplier, it isn’t like going and picking up something off the shelf at Wal-Mart. There are no specifications and quality control that goes into making the stone. The stone was formed millions of years ago without human involvement. What is available is going to vary by region and even how far down the quarry is currently cutting stone. One type of stone quarried closer to the surface one year may look significantly different than the ‘same’ stone quarried last month. Samples and names are a nice guideline, but there is no guarantee as to what you will get once placing an order. When working with natural stone, there needs to be a fair amount of compromise, as the specific color or texture that one is going for may simply not be available currently. It may have been available 2 years ago and it may again be in another 2 years, but since it is a natural product, you need to be willing to work with what is currently available. Think of color, texture, and veining ‘families’ and realize that what you receive may not be exactly as imagined. The picture on-line may (will) be different than a sample you see in a show room or stone yard, which will most likely vary from any samples you are given and that will probably be different than what is delivered and installed. They should be in the same ‘family’ as what is expected though, that is the important thing.
Much like mother nature didn’t have a guideline for the coloration, the same goes for size. Stone can be cut and shaped to a great degree, but without paying a premium, you aren’t going to find that consistency while shopping in a stone yard. Somebody must make the stone into the form that is desired (again, lots of waste). Typically, this is done by the installer or fabricator and sometimes it is a hybrid approach. We currently have a project underway where the client is very specific about the sizes of stones he wants in certain areas. To achieve that, we are ordering the border pieces and step treads to come precut to certain sizes with chiseled edges. The stone in the field of the floor will come from a hand-picked pallet of ashlar cut stones for the masons to pick and choose and shape the best sizes and colors available. The mason could do all the cutting on site, but masonry saws and blades are expensive, and the labor is time consuming, so we thought it best to give him a head start with some of the pieces already being at least close to what he’ll need to work with. While having the stone cut off site does come with a cost, it should work out to be less expensive than having it all done in the field.
Natural stone makes for beautiful projects, without a doubt. One just has to come to terms with the fact that it’s beauty stems from the fact that it is a natural product and no two pieces are alike.