Natural vs. Man-Made Stone Slabs

Finding the perfect slab for your next project has never been easier with the wide range of options and natural and man-made stones available on the market today. Whether you’re interested in family-friendly durability or a high impact statement installation, the options are nearly endless. Learn more about natural vs. man-made stone slabs in this House & Home video:

The variety of natural stone is endless. When you think of a marble countertop, you’re probably thinking of a traditional calacatta white with a gray vein, but there are many more different options coming back on trend. The variety and difference is color and pattern is based entirely on where it’s sourced, so the minerals and metals that were in the ground and were compressed over millennia are what create all the color that you see. There’s also a difference on how a block is sliced, so something that sliced across will create a different strata from something that’s sliced down. More delicate stones like an onyx or a marble tend to come in smaller slabs than granite or quartzite, but what they lack in size they more than make up for in variety.

So if you’re thinking of designing with a marble slab, you’ll want to be allowing for a seam at least every five to seven feet. When you’re making the choice between natural and man-made slabs, you also need to remember that with marble comes maintenance. These pieces will patina over time, and that’s part of their charm.

While marble has been available for thousands of years, something new to the market are semi-precious aggregates. These slabs are put together by hand from slices of semi-precious stones and then bonded with resin for a finished product. With this new technique, stones that could previously only have been enjoyed in jewelry or small furniture pieces are now available in large formats like this. Although these are man-made, because they’re made up of natural materials, no two pieces will be the same, and the way that the materials are treated allows for even greater variety. The beauty and delicacy of these materials means they’re best used as a decorative element, such as fireplace cladding, kitchen backsplash, or a foyer feature wall. Because these pieces are man-made, the slab sizing is much more predictable, with the average one being about six feet by ten feet.

Also on the man-made side, huge advances have been made in porcelain fabrication. What was just used as tile is now coming in slabs as big as five feet by ten feet. Different thicknesses in the porcelain lend themselves to a variety of applications that weren’t previously possible. A lighter six millimeter material is great for cladding walls or a large-scale floor application, while a 12 millimeter material is great for countertops or around a heat source like a fireplace. For countertop installations, porcelain is significantly more heat resistant and less likely to chip on impact than other man-made products. Just like a natural stone slab, there are options for a polished or honed finish. Porcelain slabs are perfect for showers with minimal grout lines; you can even install them on a shower floor provided you use a honed finish.