I just went and picked out a piece of soapstone for our currently on-going tiny bathroom reno and I wanted to let all you Austin and Central Texas types know about a great resource.

We bought soapstone for our kitchen a few years ago from Dorado Soapstone in Austin (beautiful Beleza -- our favorite part of the kitchen). When we started on the bathroom reno I knew I wanted to include soapstone on a small counter area but I thought since the space was so small (about 24"x24") that I'd just use soapstone tiles (which Dorado also sells). But when I called Dorado to ask about the tiles the always-helpful Ashley told me about a fabricator who installs a lot of soapstone and who has a large inventory of soapstone remnants at his stoneyard.

So I went this morning and met Jason Yates of Ecofabrication (his card says they specialize in soapstone and Paperstone). He seemed to really knew his stuff regarding soapstone (unlike most Austin fabricators I talked to three years ago when we did the kitchen).

I picked out a lovely piece of Minas for our bathroom. Jason had a fairly large number of soapstone pieces ranging in size, some too narrow in one dimension even for my job and some quite a bit larger. (I also saw a bit of beautiful marble but I don't know if he usually has marble; he also does have granite remnants -- a separate company does granite fabrication -- but I didn't look at those).

Anyway, sorry for the long story but I wanted to put the info out there. I obviously can't vouch for his fabrication skills but I was impressed by his knowledge of the stone. He's going to come look at our kitchen installation and see if he can improve the one seam we have (it's not horrible but I think it could be better). And he told me he'd show my husband and I how to sand out the little dings we've gotten around our sink edge. I'm excited (as I'm sure you can tell!).

His name again is Jason Yates. The company is Ecofabrication and the phone is 512.820.0100.