Can someone please recommend a nice white/light colored quartz (brand and style) that does not look too fake?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all. I will look into these. I may have to revisit marble yards as well. Anyone know where I can see slabs of Vermont Imperial Dabney marble in person in the DC area?

I think it’s really tempting to be able to look online and focus on the brand names or quarries of different stones, but it’s more practical to just show up at a stone yard and look at the slabs in front of you.

+1. The stone yards turn over their inventory constantly, so you have to visit them frequently and see what comes in. Post a photo of the type of marble you like. There are a myriad of quartz options, but there are also quartzite options that do look like marble.

If you are looking for taupe tones, Taj Mahal is very durable and comes in many tones, so you have to be patient and look for what you like. Whiter quartzites that look like marble include blanco superiore, mont blanc, azurra bay, etc etc.

Quartz can also deviate from the sample, so it’s important to look at the whole slab and choose specific slabs. Choosing stone is more like choosing a puppy that choosing a paint color. You have to like the specific slab.

Thanks. What stone yards in Virginia would you recommend if I wanted to see a bunch of different types of stones?

[Anonymous]

Calcutta gold I would’ve got if it was in budget. Several of the ones with gold veins looked good with my cabinet color (medium brown)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all. I will look into these. I may have to revisit marble yards as well. Anyone know where I can see slabs of Vermont Imperial Dabney marble in person in the DC area?

I think it’s really tempting to be able to look online and focus on the brand names or quarries of different stones, but it’s more practical to just show up at a stone yard and look at the slabs in front of you.

+1. The stone yards turn over their inventory constantly, so you have to visit them frequently and see what comes in. Post a photo of the type of marble you like. There are a myriad of quartz options, but there are also quartzite options that do look like marble.

If you are looking for taupe tones, Taj Mahal is very durable and comes in many tones, so you have to be patient and look for what you like. Whiter quartzites that look like marble include blanco superiore, mont blanc, azurra bay, etc etc.

Quartz can also deviate from the sample, so it’s important to look at the whole slab and choose specific slabs. Choosing stone is more like choosing a puppy that choosing a paint color. You have to like the specific slab.

Thanks. What stone yards in Virginia would you recommend if I wanted to see a bunch of different types of stones?

Sorry, I’m not in the area. Google or ask your fabricator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all. I will look into these. I may have to revisit marble yards as well. Anyone know where I can see slabs of Vermont Imperial Dabney marble in person in the DC area?

I think it’s really tempting to be able to look online and focus on the brand names or quarries of different stones, but it’s more practical to just show up at a stone yard and look at the slabs in front of you.

+1. The stone yards turn over their inventory constantly, so you have to visit them frequently and see what comes in. Post a photo of the type of marble you like. There are a myriad of quartz options, but there are also quartzite options that do look like marble.

If you are looking for taupe tones, Taj Mahal is very durable and comes in many tones, so you have to be patient and look for what you like. Whiter quartzites that look like marble include blanco superiore, mont blanc, azurra bay, etc etc.

Quartz can also deviate from the sample, so it’s important to look at the whole slab and choose specific slabs. Choosing stone is more like choosing a puppy that choosing a paint color. You have to like the specific slab.

Thanks. What stone yards in Virginia would you recommend if I wanted to see a bunch of different types of stones?

Sorry, I’m not in the area. Google or ask your fabricator.

Or look on page 1 of thread.

[Anonymous]

It is really easy to overthink this, FYI. Just pick something neutral.

[Anonymous]

Go to Marble systems in Fairfax.
Tons of granite. I would do granite.
You Can even go to the Home Depot and see a lot of “examples” just to kind of get more ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was looking for a marble dupe and did Caesarstone London Grey and loooooved it.

Me too. Love this one.

[Anonymous]

We went with LG viatara muse when we renovated 5 years ago. We get a lot of compliments on it and it looks nice.

That said if I was doing it again, I’d just do marble in my kitchen. I have marble in my primary bath and there’s just no replacement for the real thing.

[Anonymous]

Our kitchen designer found a great honed marble for us at Petra Stone Gallery in Fairfax/Merrifield area. We also found the MSI showroom slabs to be too fake looking in comparison to the real marble.

[Anonymous]

We just did MSI Calacatta Izaro and I think it looks nice. Marble-y veins of gray and taupe without the weird yellow a lot of the "Calacatta" quartzes seem to have (you'll see it called gold in the descriptors but it's mustard yellow). Quartzite is beautiful but hideously expensive - we got a quote on a slab marked 'Clearance' at Cosmos and it was still 2x the price of high-end quartz. You will not find a granite that looks like marble no matter how many showrooms you visit, trust me, I just went through this. The 'white' granite options all have purple specks in them, and none of them are marbled.

[Anonymous]

This is the Izaro PP - Cambria's top line quartz is very pretty and [I think] looks less fake than most. None of the colors were quite right for us, but they had a lot of samples at Pyramid Granite in Springfield.

[Anonymous]

We have Silestone Lagoon and I like it. The veining is discreet and I feel it doesn't try TOO hard to imitate the real marble.

[Anonymous]

We went everywhere looking for this too and it all looks fake. We ended up just getting real marble. It’s not nearly as bad as claimed to care for.

[Anonymous]

NP. Do stone yards install the slabs as well? I need to replace the marble countertop in my powder room that has brown permanent stains (since the previous owners did not seal/maintain correctly). So it would need to have the same holes cut out for the existing sink.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you all for your suggestions. Very much appreciated. We have decided to go with a honed marble. I may very well come to regret this decision, but I don't mind patina and some etches. I will report back a few months after it is installed to provide my thoughts.