Help selecting raised hearth stone materials

11 years ago

We're in the process of building a new home with a masonry wood burning fireplace and need some advice selecting hearth stone materials. The fireplace will be faced with Eldorado stone and will have a raised hearth. We've been considering Cultured Stone hearthstones (their color and texture better matches our stone than Eldorado's brand). However, we're concerned that logs dropping on the stones, pokers, etc. will nick through the painted surface of the hearth stones fairly quickly (revealing the gray concrete underneath). We're told nicks can be re-touched with paint but this seems high-maintenance. We've considered stained concrete but have heard it's crack-prone (not sure why since hearthstones are made of concrete as well?). We don't like the tiled look as it's a rustic style fireplace and want the hearth color to be fairly uniform and neutral in color so as not to conflict with the stone. What are anyone's thoughs on granite or quartz if we can find a color that works? We've looked at natural stone too but run into problems with varying thicknesses, lengths, and patterns. Thanks for any advice, photos, etc!

Comments (4)

adie.k
11 years ago
hi. granite would be much better than quartz to use for your hearth. quartz doesn't like a great deal of heat.a polished surface to the hearth makes cleaning alot easier, but if you got a flame textured or dolly pointed slab; it would work better with your rusic stone finish. have you considered having the base made from the same material as the breast. if so, make sure you have the minimum required projection infront of the fire to meet the regs. And lastly, look at the hearth temp of the appliance- do you need the inner hearth cut for expansion?good luck with your burning
m2day
Original Author
11 years ago
adie.k -- Thank you for your reply and encouragement to consider granite. We have been looking into it and selected a fairly dark 'honed'/ antiqued finish granite that will work well with our style of fireplace stone. It'll be nice to not worry about the hearth getting chipped from rough fireplace use. thx
Related Professionals
Hoffman Estates Fireplaces · Tahoe City Interior Designers & Decorators · Bowling Green General Contractors · Columbus General Contractors · Enfield General Contractors · Enumclaw General Contractors · Foothill Ranch General Contractors · Linton Hall General Contractors · Monroe General Contractors · Newburgh General Contractors · Panama City Beach General Contractors · Pico Rivera General Contractors · Wright General Contractors · Beech Grove Lighting · Green Bay Lighting
sue_ct
11 years ago
You might look into soap stone also, if it fits your decor. My brother had his done in granite tiles, which are less expensive than slab granite. Visit a good large stone yard/warehouse and see what types of stone they recommend. Is honed marble or marble tiles to your liking? Black marble can be nice, and there are dark greens, etc., also. I was amazed at the stones I was unaware of when I was visiting granite and stone yards for my kitchen.
sue_ct
11 years ago
Sorry I just reread your post and saw that you don't want tiles. I do remember seeing some honed stones, including limestone, that might interest you. Again, a stone yard or design center is a great place to get info. Don't know if one is available around you, sometimes a contractor can refer you if you are using one, but if you can get in contact directly with a local stone fabricator, you can usually pick from remnants they have in small pieces left over from larger jobs that did not use an entire slab of stone, at a greatly reduced price. The trick is finding and getting to talk to the fabricator directly. I was able to do that when I was ordering my kitchen counter.