Choosing stone: a short guide

Stone is the one material in a house you can’t easily change your mind about, so it’s worth slowing down over. Three come up again and again in our work.

Travertine, limestone, marble

Travertine is warm, matte and forgiving — its natural pitting hides wear, which makes it our default for floors and heavy-use surfaces. Limestone is quieter and more uniform, good for walls and thresholds. Marble is the show material: beautiful, cold underfoot, and unforgiving of a spilled glass of wine.

Whatever you choose, see the actual slabs before you commit. Stone varies wildly batch to batch, and a sample chip tells you almost nothing about how a full floor will read.

Living with it

Seal it once, wipe up spills promptly, and accept that it will patinate. A stone floor that looks exactly as it did on day one has usually been over-sealed into looking like plastic.