Color has profound psychological effects on our mind and body. After the uncertainty of the past two years, it is not surprising that color experts are predicting a turn to calming neutral earth tones in 2022. Natural stone trends are also moving to timeless, sustainable materials like white marble.

Colors Impact Our Health and Well-Being

Experts understand the power certain colors have on our health and well-being. For example, earth tone colors like greens and blues tend to be calming, while red can be perceived as bold or harsh, depending on the circumstances and application.

“We are seeing many homeowners embrace earth tones as an option to neutrals and using paint to create a sanctuary in the spaces around them by incorporating nature-inspired hues,” explains Sue Wadden, director of color marketing at Sherwin-Williams, where Evergreen Fog has been named Color of the Year.

“For example, green is becoming a popular color choice as people are thinking about how plants and trees can add life to a space and want to bring that feeling inside. Because of the versatility of the color, green can be paired with any style of design and décor to help create the mood you want for each room,” Wadden adds.

Similarly, Benjamin Moore’s October Mist is described as a gently shaded sage that quietly anchors a space while encouraging individual expression through color and creates a canvas for other colors. Both of these colors pair well with a variety of natural stones, from dramatically veined marbles to bright granites or quartzites.

“As the spaces in our homes continue to evolve, we uncover more opportunities to express our individuality and leverage the power of color to design environments that serve different functions and styles,” says Andrea Magno, Benjamin Moore’s director of color marketing and development. October Mist and the corresponding Color Trends 2022 palette reflect an effortless harmony of colors, while inspiring unique combinations for any paint project, according to Magno.

According to the team at Pantone, 2022 Color of the Year Very Peri is suited to an array of different materials, textures, and finishes, providing a pop of color whether introduced through a painted wall, statement furniture or home décor, or acting as an intriguing and eye-catching accent in a pattern. Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, says that her team felt it was time to “ignite our creative spirit with a bolder color.”

A dynamic periwinkle blue hue with a violet-red undertone, Very Peri colorways can work well with a variety of natural stone types.

White Marble: A Classic Material that Complements Trends

White marble has been used for centuries for both residential and commercial properties. Peter Prvulovic, director of sales and marketing for Vermont Quarries, believes white marble has and always will be a staple in the building industry. Vermont Quarries has sponsored the Natural Stone Institute’s 2022 Stone of the Year, which is Olympian White Danby marble.

“The nice part about white marble, in general, is the different types of veining it comes with,” Prvulovic says. “Depending on what you are building and what your vision is for your project, you can always find some type of white marble to achieve your goal.”

White marble has stood the test of time because it naturally shows worn areas that can bring the activity of the past to the present, says Jan Neiges, CMKBD, a certified master kitchen and bath designer with the National Kitchen & Bath Association and principal of Colorado-based Jan Neiges CKD LLC. Think of the beauty of worn marble steps and pathways as just one example.

“White marble is warm to the touch compared to the engineered quartz marble lookalikes,” Neiges adds. “You can’t replicate the veining in real marble with manmade materials. With new surfacing applications today, there is no reason to be afraid of real marble.”

She often notices clients use large marble sheets for backsplash areas in the kitchen, especially around a hood, or as waterfall for islands. Large material for showers helps to reduce grout lines. She has also seen clients use marble as a back wall treatment behind a freestanding tub.

White marble can imbue a sense of calm and serenity—just like the trending colors for 2022. It’s the reason so many homeowners opt to use the stone to create their own personal wellness space. According to Neiges, white marble pairs well with other materials, including wood, metal, and concrete.

Neiges feels so strongly about the material that she has white marble in her own home and one of the reasons she chose it was for its beauty as it ages.

Creating a Look All Your Own

Prvulovic understands the appeal of using natural stone. It’s a beautiful material that Mother Nature created. “It is not a material that someone printed or stamped,” he adds. “The beauty is the veining and movement that was created through the settlement of the material itself. As they say, often imitated but never duplicated. The beauty of natural stone is the fact that even same material used on different projects does not look the same.”

Like Neiges, there are reasons Prvulovic himself is drawn to marble. “I appreciate the fact that you can obtain slabs with very little to no veining or something that has large wild movement,” he says. “I am one of the odd people in this world who likes to see the movement in the material.”

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Reprinted with permission from PICCO Group.

Contrary to common belief, it’s quite easy to build with stone. The use of natural stone on buildings and paving can be traced back to the beginning of civilization.

There are countless buildings, monuments, and structures dating back thousands of years that have stood the test of time and left generations in awe—like the great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Mayan Temples in Mexico, the Parthenon in Greece, and the Coliseum in Rome. Many of these structures were built with no mortar; the stones were simply cut, tightly fitted together and laid atop one another—a method of stone installation mimicked in modern-day construction and referred to as “dry-stacked stone.” In many ways, our ancestors in the building industry applied sustainable practices by using the larger quarried blocks for building construction and smaller waste pieces for erosion control and walkways. They also used the gravel to pave small roads from town to town.

However: we have moved beyond the stone age! Few cladding materials last as long or perform as well as natural stone when it is properly specified and installed. Not only is natural stone beautiful; it is also a low-maintenance, sustainable material. A project that uses stone is simply borrowing it from the earth; at the end of its long-life cycle, stone can be returned to the earth where its creation process began.

Here are five reasons to #UseNaturalStone for your next project:

1. Natural stone is a green material.

Natural stone’s inherent characteristics make it Mother Nature’s original green building product. It can be used without any additional finishes or wall coverings, has low maintenance needs, and is highly durable—and recyclable. Unlike the many cladding materials available on the market requiring extensive manufacturing energy, natural stone is extracted from the earth and processed by cutting and finishing.

Since building designs may be using more materials (and/or more carbon-intensive products) to achieve lower energy use, an increasing proportion of the total energy use and carbon emissions for high-performance buildings comes from its materials and products. By taking embodied energy into account, a project team can ensure it is designing for net carbon emission reductions. In the case of natural stone, this may consider the CO2 required in quarrying, transport to the plant, energy required for slabbing and fabrication, delivery to the site, and installation. Based upon most life-cycle analysis studies and comparisons, natural stone is consistently rated as one of the building materials with the lowest embodied energy across many metrics.

“The natural stone business in general is really focused on sustainability. The stone itself is a sustainable product as it is a very long-lasting building material. The manufacturing techniques and processes we use are always improving to reduce or reutilize waste, to reduce energy consumption, and to recycle water.” –Mike Picco, 2021 Natural Stone Institute board president

2. Natural stone is readily (and globally) available.

Stone is available regionally and locally, with quarry sites within 500 miles of nearly any building site in the United States and Canada. It’s also abundantly available in nature.

At the time of this post, a Google search for “natural stone slabs” yielded 42,000,000 results. No matter where you go, around the world you will find beautiful buildings and structures that are characterized by their use of natural stone. The variety and diversity of stone is unparalleled by other hard surface materials. Even if natural stone is not the right selection for every project, it continues to offer limitless uses.

3. Natural stone is varied.

By applying different finishes to the same native stone, designers can create an aesthetic variety without having to introduce a new material into the project. Unique finishing techniques applied to natural stone can create a range of tones and shades—varying from light to dark or muted to bold—achieving interest and contrast.

Every slab is unique. The finish applied to natural stone will have an important effect on how the material looks. While some choose a stone based on color alone, it’s important for the client to understand they are buying all the stone’s attributes—perceived flaws and all. Therefore, it is imperative during the selection process that the material be examined not only for color and pattern, but the surface looked at from all angles to evaluate its surface characteristics. Evaluating a stone’s composition will further introduce options for its use. The range in density, flexural and compressive strength, coefficient of friction, and other properties help define suitability for stone use as pavers, columns, lintels, and facades. Despite how much we know about stone through history and experience, we are learning more about its potential as a purely structural element, or its heat absorbing capability, sustainable merits, and its true abundance.

4. Save money using natural thin stone veneer.

Natural stone use is not defined by trends. It is ubiquitous; although like fashion, some colors are more desired than others through time. Also like fashion, sometimes premium products get repackaged and repurposed to be made more affordable. Natural thin stone veneer is a form of natural stone veneer that has been sawn to approximately 1” thickness with a ¼” tolerance allowed. To be classified as thin stone veneer, each piece must weigh less than 15lbs per square foot. The introduction of these sawn, lighter-weight pieces create ease of installation and provide the appearance of full-depth stone without sacrificing any of its beauty—typically used in exterior stone cladding, outdoor living features, and natural stone walls.

Natural stone ages well and retains its value. Whereas many building materials become unsightly over the course of many years, natural stone will transform with a natural patina. As an added benefit, it holds 93% of its original value at its peak, which is a higher percentile than most other cladding options.

5. Natural stone offers a Return-on-Investment (ROI).

Did you know natural stone can be designed to last for 100 years or more? It offers many benefits such as longevity and quantifiable ROI when applied to flooring. Being the most long lasting material available, natural stones like marble are often used in office towers and hotel lobby areas where frequent disruptions to repair or replace a floor would have an adverse impact on customers. In the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills hotel lobby pictured above, PICCO coordinated and produced the stone shop drawings and fabrication tickets for the contrasting Italian marble inlaid with bronze, along with all the interior public spaces, presidential suite, counters, bases and tubs, and miscellaneous stone elements.

Natural stone is versatile enough to achieve the aesthetic, performance, and cost goals on both the exterior and interior of your project over the long term. While it may seem that an engineered material might be lower maintenance than marble, it will never have the same depth, versatility, and range of color as natural stone. Natural stone is more resistant to scratches and staining than other materials. Applying an annual sealing process, combined with routine cleaning, will help to preserve its beauty and quality.

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Kat Coleman, owner and principal of Long Beach, California-based Topkat Design Group, had a client who loved Carrara marble and wanted her entire bathroom to feature natural stone: main bathroom floor, shower floors, and walls with a decorative feature wall behind a claw-foot tub. “We are talking Ritz-Carlton style,” Coleman says.

Carrara marble. Photo courtesy of Kat Coleman, Topkat Design Group.

Coleman’s client was concerned the natural stone would be too high maintenance and possibly cost prohibitive. To try to meet her client’s aesthetic, Coleman searched for alternatives, but they were unsatisfied since those options just didn’t look or feel like the real thing.

The reality is genuine natural stone, like Carrara marble, cannot be mimicked. Coleman knew it was her job to educate her client and remind her that marble has been used for centuries. Many commercial settings use marble throughout high-traffic areas and hotel bathrooms successfully, and the sealers on the market have improved substantially over the last decade. She convinced her client that Carrara marble was the best choice for her bathroom.

“This was close to 10 years ago and her bathroom still looks like new,” Coleman adds.

Sealers and Grout for Natural Stone

Whether going for a polished, honed, or leathered finish, choosing the proper sealer and maintaining the sealing process is probably the most important thing clients need to consider when using natural stone in their spaces, according to Coleman.

“Some softer stones such as marble are more prone to possibly show wear over time, although I have a few past clients who have all-Carrara marble bathrooms that still look pristine after many years,” she says.

One trend she’s noticing is that clients seem to want as thin a grout line as possible. Selecting a stone with a straight edge versus a slight bevel is best to achieve this. She reminds clients that stone is a natural material so there needs be some tolerance. What some clients may view as imperfections in natural stone, Coleman calls “character.” “Nature is perfectly imperfect,” she reminds clients.

Fresh and New Natural Stone Finish Trends

Coleman finds that most clients still think a polished finish is their only option. It’s often their designers, who are well-versed in what’s happening in their industry and what’s available, who turn them on to other options or educate them on what they may actually be looking at when they present inspirational images.

Premium Absolute Black granite with natural finish. Photo courtesy of Kat Coleman, Topkat Design Group.

She admits polished countertops are the norm in the United States, but matte-type surfaces seem to be having a moment in the natural stone space right now. “I have the occasional client mention a desire for a honed (or leathered/suede) countertop but usually it’s me, as the designer, making the recommendation in the design,” she says.

Manufacturers are constantly creating new options in finishes, which is exciting for Coleman and her clients. She’s recently learned of a brushed countertop surface finish. “This surface has a matte look with a brushed texture,” she explains. While she’s not yet had the chance to install this finish in one of her projects, she admits she’s intrigued and looking forward to doing more research to learn the pros and cons of using it in one of her designs.

A finish she does love to use for kitchen countertops is honed. Honed is the original matte-type surface. In bathrooms, she enjoys mixing honed and polished stone. For example, she’s combined honed floors and niches in a shower with polished stone walls.

Leathered finish on stone has been around for some time and Coleman says it has a sexy but classic look and feel that men seem to like.

Updating Natural Stone Countertops

For those who want to refresh or update spaces like a kitchen and keep their existing cabinetry, one option is having them restored to a different finish. “A perfect example would be if you had the popular polished black granite countertops that were all the rage around the early 2000s,” says Coleman. “You can have a fabricator put a honed finish on these, replace the backsplash, and you would have a completely different and more current look!”

Choosing Natural Stone for Its Beauty, Strength, and Longevity

There are many reasons why clients choose natural stone for their projects and there is something to be said about the beauty of the real material versus something that looks like stone. Coleman knew her client from 10 years ago wanted marble and while she could have settled for a non-marble look-alike, the reality is she wouldn’t have been happy. Instead, advising her client on how to care for her marble means her client was able to include the stone she wanted in her bathroom and is still happy a decade later. Nothing beats the real thing.

Polished White Macaubus quartzite. Photo courtesy of Kat Coleman, Topkat Design Group.

While marble remains a favorite among her clients, Coleman has been installing more quartzite lately. She appreciates that quartzite is harder than granite and can sometimes even be non-porous, although she highly recommends testing the porosity level if that feature is important to a client. White quartzites have the look of marble with the durability of granite, she says, which makes them attractive to clients.

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Photos provided by Jan Neiges CMBKD; Photographed by: Virtuance.

Jan Neiges is a certified master kitchen and bath designer with the National Kitchen & Bath Association and principal of Colorado-based Jan Neiges CKD LLC. She has been helping her clients define and realize their visions for beautiful and functional high-use living spaces for over two decades. Neiges sees natural stone as a go-to material because “every piece is unique, especially if one selects the stones that have more colors, movements, and patterns.”

A client recently asked for a white-on-white-on-white kitchen but knew they needed some color in the space. Neiges encouraged her client to explore different natural stone showrooms to see if something might appeal to her and she fell in love with a white quartzite with gold veining for the island countertop.

“The island countertop is the pièce de résistance,” Neiges says. “It’s such a large island and because everything was somewhat sterile and flat in shape, except for the island which is curved, I suggested that we go with something very fluid for the light fixtures hanging over the island.”

Neiges suggested a gold-tone faucet for the island to help accentuate the gold in the quartzite.  The result is a stunning white kitchen where the natural stone plays a starring role.

For Neiges, the act of discovery and finding out what is drawing the client to a particular piece of natural stone is part of the fun when working on a kitchen with a client.

Choosing Natural Stone for a Kitchen

Neiges often recommends clients visit showrooms with their designers because “there’s more to it than just pointing your finger and saying, ‘I like that’ when it comes to natural stone.”

Showrooms allow clients to see what’s available and possible. In the Denver area, Neiges recommends her clients visit one of the three major showrooms and prepares them in advance by telling them it’s like walking into Tiffany’s. It’s an exciting part of the process and one that opens up the possibilities of finding natural stone they might not have considered or seen before in other places or in magazine spreads.

Most natural stone showrooms have a template available to show the depth of a countertop dimension. “It could be five or six feet long and 26 inches wide and it could be made out of some kind of plastic or metal,” Neiges explains.

They then take the template and walk around with it, placing it in front of natural stone slab options so clients can see patterns, movement and how it might look next to other design elements they’ve selected such as the finish of a cabinet or paint color.

She’ll ask them questions to find out what they are seeing and what is standing out for them. Once they’ve found the stone they love, they’ll discuss any questions they might have about caring for the stone.

When someone wants natural stone, Neiges says, they’re usually looking for stone to be that “wow element” in their space. She tries to find the right natural stone based on how the family or homeowner will use it. “If this [stone] is really something that turns you on, and you really want to see it a lot, let’s find a vertical application for it,” suggests Neiges. Since vertical elements are the first things we see when we walk into a space, why not use natural stone there?

One homeowner wanted something spectacular for the wall behind their cooktop. They decided to make that area the focal point of the space—“Grand Central Station” of the kitchen. As a result, they were intentional with the rest of the kitchen design, choosing more subdued elements until they found the piece they were looking for.

The homeowner fell in love with Tempest Blue granite with a leathered finish from The Stone Collection, an “amazing granite with wild colors,” according to Neiges. They decided to use the stone both in the space above the cooktop and for the countertop itself. The busiest section of the slab was chosen for the area behind the cooktop because it would allow for easy cleanup (no grout) and would be fascinating to look at while they are cooking. They can now see and enjoy the beauty of the natural stone as soon as they walk into their kitchen.

When to Remodel vs. When to Refresh a Kitchen

Neiges works with many clients who are remodeling their entire kitchen. Her recommendation on whether to remodel or refresh a space by making minor changes differ based on a client’s short and long-term plans.

“If they’re going to live in their house for some time and they can’t stand their countertops and want to replace them with a natural stone and they know they’re likely going to remodel their kitchen at some point, I encourage them to wait to replace the countertop because it’s like putting lipstick on a pig,” she advises.

Part of the reason, she says, is because the stone will look gorgeous but the rest of the kitchen will look dated and when they go back to remodel the kitchen a few years later and the countertop may not fit the new cabinetry, the client will be upset because they’ll need to figure a work around and it won’t look the same.

“My attitude is to do your project from A to Z, don’t piecemeal it,” she recommends.

The only time she recommends replacing just the countertop or other minor spaces like a backsplash area is if the homeowner plans to sell within a year. Otherwise, “just save your money and wait,” she advises, and enjoy the process of finding things that will make your kitchen functional, enjoyable, and fun.

TAGS: trends design megy karydes inspire

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Botanic Green quartzite. Photo courtesy of Artistic Tile.

Rose Kallas and Christine Morgan, partners and principals of Chicago-based Two Girls and a Hammer LLC, have seen residential design trends come and go. While many classics, like marble, remain popular, the duo is noticing clients asking for more color. Natural stone is delivering.

“When people think of marble, what often comes to mind is white Carrara,” says Kallas. White Carrara is a beautiful natural stone that is popular in bathroom projects featured in magazines spreads and online. Some clients are stepping out of the box and choosing stone with more color and movement; Kallas has seen clients leaning towards bolder choices, such as black marble with white veining.

Photo courtesy of United Marble.

“For the past 10 years or so, white and grey have ruled bathrooms and kitchens and now clients are wanting more color in their homes,” Kallas says. She’s seeing more requests for jewel tones including sapphire blue, emerald green, and bright oranges and yellows for cabinets. With that comes the desire for more interesting countertops, backsplashes, and walls.

As a result, Kallas and Morgan admit they’re constantly on the hunt for beautiful natural stone to complement bathrooms with strong colors and features.

For a recent bathroom project featuring wallpaper with a bold design of varying hues of blue, white, grey, and black, they installed a blue vanity with a grey and white veined Carrara marble countertop and blue veined polished Carrara marble flooring. The natural stone doesn’t detract from the focal point of the wallpaper, but it does add to the overall elegant feel of the space.

Carrara marble. Photo courtesy of Two Girls and a Hammer.

Color doesn’t always have to be bright and bold to be striking. In another bathroom design featuring more white tones, the team and homeowner opted for natural Mother of Pearl hand cut tile for a feature wall and inside the shower niche, polished white and grey veined Carrara marble was installed for the shower walls and main floor. The shower base features small hexagon grey and white veined Carrara marble.

“The selection of Mother of Pearl was made because of the color variation: grey, white, hints of blue and light beige, which accent the colors of the Carrara [marble],” Kallas says. Since Mother of Pearl comes from the sea, the tiles have shine and reflection that make the shower stand out.

Carrara marble and Mother of Pearl tile. Photo courtesy of Two Girls and a Hammer.

Choosing natural stone for a bathroom

When clients come to Two Girls and a Hammer, they usually have a general idea of their design preferences or features they want to incorporate.

“For the blue bathroom, we selected the blue vanity before we chose the flooring material,” Kallas says. “Shortly after we selected the vanity, our supplier started stocking the blue veined Carrara marble. Once we saw the marble sample, the choice of the blue marble was the best fit for the bathroom project.”

Don’t assume that you can’t afford to include natural stone in your project. Kallas and Morgan recommend having a discussion with your designer or contractor: tell them what you love and see if they can source something that will work with your design and budget.

Maintenance shouldn’t be an afterthought when choosing a stone for your bathroom project. Your designer or contractor can make recommendations based on your lifestyle and cleaning preferences. Understanding your stone’s maintenance needs will help ensure that you love your bathroom project for years to come.

Trends in natural stone bathrooms

The biggest trend Kallas and Morgan are seeing is the use of colored marble in bathrooms. In addition to more colors being used, clients are choosing larger format tile on the shower wall or floor, which helps make the shower and floor space look larger. “Tight grout lines make your stone appear as if you have one large sheet of stone as well as easier to clean,” Kallas says.

Some clients who want less maintenance overall are opting for solid sheets of marble for their shower walls so they can avoid grout lines altogether. “Grout tends to hold dirt and appear darker over the years,” Kallas adds.

While more clients are asking for marble and quartzite in their bathrooms, granite still holds a fair share of the marketplace.

How to upgrade a bathroom without a complete overhaul

An easy way to update your space is by replacing your vanity top. Kallas offers this budget-friendly tip: “Many stone fabricators have what we call a ‘bone yard’ where you will find smaller pieces of stone from previous projects. If you are lucky, you will find a beautiful piece of remnant stone perfect for your project at a cost much lower than a regular retailer.”

There is no shortage of places to find inspiration for a bold bathroom design. Kallas recommends homeowners embrace and enjoy the process by going online and checking out design websites. She also recommends walking through big box stores and bath and kitchen showroom displays.

“I highly suggest, before starting a big renovation project, you assemble a mood board with your color palette,” Kallas says. “The paint stores offer color swatches that will make selecting the colors of walls much easier. Check out fixtures, layout ideas, review your selections months before your initial meeting. Keep adding and subtracting ideas until you finally settle on your ultimate wish list.”

By going through this process in advance, whether the project is small or large, you can present your mood board to your designer or contractor, which will help them better understand the scope of your project.

TAGS: design trends megy karydes inspire bathroom

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