Marble

I’ve been out of town for a little while and missed posting on my marble adventures.

Our bathroom windows are recessed into the wall so the panes are pretty even with the exterior of the house. Because of this, we have three 4"x24"x24" openings in the bathroom that need to be finished. Wood isn’t really an option as the tile is floor-to-ceiling and one of the ledges will be in the shower. Tile is an option but with all of the edge pieces required, it will run about $50/window. Our architect and contractor suggested marble slabs similar to the floor tile... sure, why not? Oh, also, we had been planning on using a marble slab under the door for the threshold between the wood floors in the hallway and the marble mosaic in the bathroom. Score.

Finding inexpensive 4"x24" Carrara marble slabs isn’t easy. Stone yards usually have the marble in stock but have no way to cut it and only sell by the $800 slab. Fabricators will cut to most sizes but only have remnants and most don't have what we need. We want marble that is 3/4" thick (important for the threshold), honed and with similar veining to the floor tile.

After driving/calling around to almost every stone yard/fabricator in San Francisco, I found a stone yard that owns a fabrication facility a few blocks away. The owner drove me over to look at the actual piece of marble (I know, not the safest, but it was raining and he claimed it wasn’t walkable). I talked the fabricator into squeezing our small project into the afternoon and bargained the price down almost $80. Here’s the breakdown:

•Six 4"x48" 3/4" Honed Carrara Marble $190 or $63/window
•One 4"x30" 3/4" Honed Carrara Marble $30