Thanks, Staceyneil, erikanh, and other marble mavens for clarifying what etching is. I get it now. Don't think it would bother me, but then I like patina in kitchens. In anything, really. My brother spent a fortune on wood boards that had been used for many decades to grow mushrooms on! They became the siding of his house and the flooring inside. Not only gorgeous, they really told a story.

Stacey...so sorry about your wine glass etch...but, like Erika, I have nothing like that either. I've had white (and red) wine spilled and sitting for hours (party mishap) with no marks. Hmmm. Can you replicate the mark on a tile and try a poultice? I hope it's just a water ring and will dissipate. How many coats of sealer do you have?

americancolleen...my entire counters were rehoned in place by a marble restoration company. They were fabulous, reasonable, and did a very, very good job! Way better than my fabricator! It's a wet process, but they tarped, taped and cleaned up like it never happened. Sealer really helps keep stains out. I have NO staining...just some minor etching.

momto4kids- No marks at all from wine?!? Whoa. I got a sample piece (before I committed) and put wine, lemon juice, and ketchup on it, and washed it off after 30 minutes or so, and you could DEFINITELY see etch marks. Lime was the worst, then wine, then ketchup. But all 3 did change the surface somewhat... How is it possible that wine doesn't affect yours? Do you have one of those sealers that coats with an impermeable surface, or are you using Porous Plus like erika and I? What type marble? (Mine is Carrara. Are there marbles that etch less easily that Carrara?)

I would have thought wine would be a problem, for sure. But no! I have Calacatta...Porous Plus. A couple of Thanksgiving dinners ago, one of our guests knocked over a bottle of white wine on my 2nd island. It was crowded with serving dishes, etc, and I didn't know liquid was all over the place until I cleaned up. So, it had definitely been hours. I was petrified. Nothing. No cloud. No marks. Nothing. It was definitely not water, I know, because dear guest didn't even pick up the bottle! Maybe it was cheap wine??!! LOL!

I have some lemon squirts because my MIL doesn't believe in cutting boards! I've had mustard, ketchup, coffee, jelly, tea...the usual. No problems. I wonder if Calacatta just responds differently? It must. I didn't have any issues other than heavy citrus and vinegar during my "field" tests. Except lotion...it left a cloud that never dissipated. So, I am neurotic about lotion bottles on the counters.

Not to be impolite, but, um...duh.
Marble is not meant to be a countertop. It's for crypts, statues and laminating surfaces that will never be walked upon, have things set upon, or even contact unfavorable atmosphere.

I have a Carrara marble dining table. It definitely has some etch marks on it where either wine or lemon juice splashed. I recognize stacyneil's mark because I have a couple of them too - spots though, not rings. Suggestions for poultice or Porus Plus are not applicable here because that is NOT a stain - I know what she's talking about. From straight on or at particular illumination angles that won't show. It will only show at the right angles.

All I'll venture to guess about momto4kids' experience is that her marble is more heavily honed than others. Marble - Calcium Carbonate - WILL react to acids, there is no doubt about it. If she can't see the marks, then it must be that the rest of her surface has a low enough polish that the mark simply doesn't stand out. My carrara is honed, but it was also not quite as matte as I'd wanted it to be. That said, the etch marks are only noticeable when I stand just so relative to the light above.

Stacy, you'll get used to it. Your marble is lovely.

Marble is a very common flooring material. Look in any vintage university, religious sanctuary, public building, Macy's, etc....

And countertop, at least as long as people have had counters in kitchens...

Erika, to be fair, the Parthenon looks kind of ratty. ;)

Acres of white marble used in this 350 year-old structure! Billions have walked upon the marble floors, acid rain, pollution...

But isn't that kinda a crypt?

mindstorm...great point!! Yes, I meant to mention that in my post. Stacey's marble does look like it has more sheen than mine. My marble has a low sheen, kind of satin...not totally flat or matte, but definitely looks less than Stacey's. I think you're right!

Stacey...your marble is beautiful! In time, you won't notice things like that unless in you're in that particular light at that particular angle. Enjoy!!

We should have started a thread called "Do people with large kitchens with marble counters really use them?" It would save a lot of reading.

Morton, you are funny!

I do think looking at old marble floors or whatever is a good way to see how older marble looks, just to get a sense. I think it looks great--not in my modern kitchen, though, where it would look tres weird. But it is true old marble looks different from new marble. Still beautiful, though, in my eyes.

fori, hee hee, good point. Marble isn't bomb-proof. ;)

Fori, it is the Taj Mahal,and the term is Mausoleum (crypt seems too common).

Ha- this is a good thread- thanks all!!

I am happy to hear that mindstorm knows what I am talking about -whew I'm not crazy!

I also have an old (1950's) Florence Knoll Calcutta marble coffee table that no one has EVER babied... so I definitely knew what "lived-in" marble looks like before I committed.

Perhaps my marble does have more of a sheen to it? That's why I was theorizing that after it gets used a bit -and gets more worn, light scratches everywhere?- these marks won't stand out so much. But basically I just wanted to show/tell other folks who might be considering marble....

As an aside, if anyone was following my concerns about the seam: the fabricator is sending someone up on Monday to look at it. They were GREAT about it, even though I said I could probably live with it, and they're 2 hours away :)

And by the way, morton5, I have a TEEENY house and kitchen! ;)

I don't know, you guys...why aren't we also talking about how awful honed absolute black is? That should go in Morton5's post - do people with huge marble and black kitchens really use them? And, furthermore, does the amount of radon in your marble and granite impact your carbon footprint vis-a-vis the amount of take-out-food that you eat?

(yes, I'm kidding!) The marble kitchens around here are gorgeous and delicious :)

Read somewhere that when Meg Ryan got her marble counters installed she cut a bunch of tomatoes in half and wiped them all over the counters.....

Now if she could only have that attitude about her face...

Thanks, morton. Now i need to clean the monitor!

The etch in the picture looks darker because it is not reflecting light back the way a honed/polished surface would. The diffuse nature of the light reflection would indicate that the marble in that picture is honed.

Also - as momto4kids mentioned - refinishing your marble tops in your home is a very much do-able procedure IF you can manage to find a really good stone restoration guy to do it for you. Services of such companies often also include changing the finish of your stone surfaces. If you have a badly etched polished top they could grind out the damage and finish it to a hone. They could also offer sealing and other maintenance related services like stain removal.

Waxing marble in order to prevent etches is not a great plan - especially if your marble is a food prep surface. The wax layer could trap dirt and grime leading to some nasty consequences!

And marble, if you are properly informed and prepared for it, is just an awesome counter surface :D

morton5 that is cold, true mind you but still cold.

Stonegirl will correct me if I'm wrong, but, we had 'honed' marble countertops installed and they definately had a slight sheen to them. When I asked the installer why they were not completely flat (non-reflective) he told me that they had been chemically honed, rather than honed by an abrasive stone.

The pic above certainly seems to have a similar sheen to what ours started out as.

2 years later, they are now uniformly without any sheen at all. There are plenty of etch marks, including a perfect 'mirror' image of half a lemon placed cut side down on the counter (even to seeing where the seeds were) that ate some of the surface down.

Other than that, you would have to look hard to find any specific etches, they have all blended together to form a patina that looks beautiful to me, at least. Our kitchen is teeny (64 sq ft) but modern (European) in style and the patina in no way detracts from the clean lines.

Every six months or so, I rub the counters down with a fine sanding block for a few minutes and that evens out any standouts. I don't find this at all onerous, more like just giving the counters a good 'scrubbing'.

We have no staining, although we discovered that olive oil will darken the stone, but slowly evaporates leaving no remaining mark.

We love our marble and use our kitchen vigorously every day, would do it again in a heartbeat.... :p

Scottbeth-
Thanks so much for your post!! It definitely confirms my theories and makes me feel even better about our decision. Do you use one of those foam sanding blocks? What grit? Sounds like a good idea.
Stacey

scottbeth, that's so interesting, I didn't know there were different sheens for honed marble. Mine is very, very matte, so I guess that means it was machine-sanded?

I'm so glad to hear you get nice results from sanding a couple times a year. I've been having good luck just using a soft scrubbie to even out the more noticeable etch marks. If my surface were shinier, I'm assuming that might not work well.

Your kitchen sounds lovely ... have any photos to share? =)

Yes, erika, I would not classify my marble as "very, very matte" at all. It definitely has a sheen to it. It came that way from Marble & Granite in MA... i.e. the fabricators did not hone it themselves. So perhaps mine is chemical etched and yours is machine etched? A pink scrubby pad does nothing at all to blend my etch marks. It doesn't do anything at all to the marble surface.

Again- to anyone following this thread, I want to point out that I am not at all upset about the etch marks, which I expected, and am in fact weirdly happy about them as they accumulate. I'm hoping that more use will blend it all to a more even patina though.

scottbeth- I would also love to see pics!

Hi all.

I am reading with interest as our honed marble will be installed pretty soon (also from Marble & Granite in Westwood, MA).

I'm prepared for the etching mentally, but here comes my dumb question:

Exactly what is a "soft scrubbie" everyone is referring to?

Thanks.

Hi katieob,

I'm referring to one of those sponges that is a sponge on one side, and a plastic scrubby pad on the other. The kind I have is for "delicates" and is pink and white. The more common kind is usually green and yellow, or blue and white. Erika, is that also what you mean?

Which marble did you choose from M&G? We need to see pics :)

Yes, that's the kind of scrubbie I meant.

Okay, thanks.

I'm not a sponge person so I'm not familiar, but I'll find them.

We chose a calacatta slab for our island-no photos since I forgot my camera when I chose it & it's now with the fabricator.

I'm hoping it is installed by next month-I'll post photos the minute it arrives!

My honed carrara counters are 3 years old and I still love them. They get heavy use and I don't baby them. They were sealed with 511 Porus Plus after installation but I haven't sealed them since. I simply wipe them with my dish sponge - the green/yellow kind - when I clean the kitchen. Here are some pics of the etch marks near my stove. They are visible in the reflection of the undercabinet lights. You may notice white marks in the second photo. I call them divots. We made those before we kicked the habit of dropping our car keys on the counter every day. I assume they'll turn into chips eventually, which won't bother me.

Here's a picture without the undercab lights. You can't see the etching, but the little white marks are visible if you look closely.

I also have two small chips where I dropped a big bottle of olive oil on the counter. The item at the top of the pic is a glass salt shaker. The chips are less than 1/2 inch in diameter. You'll also see a few more of the little white "car key divots" here ;-)

Good pics, and pretty counters! It's good to see the bottles of oil and ketchup on the counter... I have been keeping bottles on a cutting board but maybe now I will be brave enough to just set them on the stone! (by the way, Annies and Muir Glen ketchups were a revelation when we started using them a few years ago. Sooooo much better than normal ketchup!)
Thanks for posting these photos. I think there are lots of people wondering whether marble is the right choice for them and these real-life shots should help!

i have crema marfil honed subway tiles on my backsplash from Sonoma Tile. my DH was frying shrimp the other day and splashed grease. He is such a messy man! Anyway i will save to rant for another type of forum.

It left a big stain in one area in particular. It had been there for awhile by the time i saw it and was set/soaked in. these tiles were sealed when they were installed but that did no good in this case. I put some of my cooktop cleaner for smooth cooktops on a dishcloth and scrubbed. It did not do any good. I then got some powder form of barkeepers friend and tried that. It did get most of it off to where i almost could not see it. I also sprayed 409 on it too and scrubbed. the more it dried, the less of it i saw. its been days now and i can still barely see it.

I love the look of marble. I have it on several pieces of antique furniture, but i am someone who obsesses about keeping things 'just right'. as much as i have been oooing and awing over marble and soapstone kitchens around here, i am glad that i got granite in mine now. i do love that black and white classic look and went as close to it as possible with polished AB granite on my island and a granite with a white background with grays and black in it for my perimeter cabs. it not soapstone and marble, but it has no marks or stains. with my husband being so messy this is best for us. Look what he's done already to the backsplash.

i have extra 3x6 tiles of the honed crema marfil if anyone wants some abuse tests done with ketchup or mustard or anything. i would be happy to perform this and take photos of it and how it fared.

If the marble is honed, which is what I always recommend for kitchens, go to www.vermontquarries.com and find the document on care and maintenance. You can get out etching with comet cleaning powder and a scotch scouring pad. Very easy and it looks beautiful. Regarding this comment: "Not to be impolite, but, um...duh.
Marble is not meant to be a countertop. It's for crypts, statues and laminating surfaces that will never be walked upon, have things set upon, or even contact unfavorable atmosphere" - Ignorance must be bliss but it is still ignorance. Marble has been used in kitchens for hundreds of years. Granite less that 70. All marble does not make for a good countertop but neither does all granite. Know the physical characteristics of the material you are choosing such as absorption rate, (Danby marble is very low), and your countertop will be beautiful forever.

Just thought I'd add my 2 cents, FWIW...

I have a fairly large, very very well used honed (very little sheen) calacatta marble island and backsplash tile. My main sink is in my island and I have a family of 7 (5 teenagers). Even if I wanted to baby my marble, there's no way I could with our crowd :).

We are big red wine and hot tea drinkers. It flows, drips, and spills....ummm....several times a week. I've had exploding ketchup bottles and knocked over lemonaid. You name it! Most spills, of course, are cleaned-up right away. Some things that have spilled haven't been noticed for many hours; sometimes overnight. I have not ONE STAIN on my marble. NOT ONE. There are a few places that show minor etching when the sun comes in the window just right and I lay my head sideways on the counter. These etch spots are invisible unless I am literally cheek to counter.

I purchased my marble with full awareness of my family's habits and the "realities" of marble in a kitchen. It was a decision I fully embraced. It's been well over a year and there isn't a single day that goes by that I don't stand back and admire it, softly running my fingers along....

We have stone surfaces in our stores that get a lot of traffic. We have them repolished every couple of years. There are several companies in our area that do it onsite, and we have been very happy with the firm we use.

About 48 hours after they have done their thing, it's possible to see new spots, but I don't think anyone really cares. It is certainly not unsightly and I think it's nicer to see a natural surface than something artificially glossy and 'perfect'.

I plan on using polished marble tiles for my backsplash. Can someone tell me what I should use to seal them? I figure they won't be subject to too much damage on a backsplash, but at some point something is going to splatter. Should I follow the advice about a soft scrub pad for etching or is that bad for polished marble? I supposed with enough etching I'll end up with honed anyway!

Lagrant - I love, love, love your beautiful kitchen!

This is such a great thread...I keep coming back to it and viewing the pictures to see if the etching bothers me more or less each time I view them. I figure if they bother me less, than maybe I can deal with the etching if I put them in my kitchen! My DH thinks I am crazy for even considering this.

Maybe some of you have experienced this but I LOVE the all white and gray color--while I keep looking at all the granite choices that come close, like Andromeda Granite and Kashimir White Granite, I still keep pining away for marble.

A friend who installed marble said that about once a year she hired some marble guy to come out and polish her counters (mentioned in one of the threads above). It costs $300 and they fully take out every etching. She did this for 5 years before she moved and she said that she thought the $300/yr was well worth the cost of pristine counters.

P.S. How do I find lagrant's lovely kitchen???

We needed to turn some polished Carrara into honed for the bathroom (long story). Got some "Knockdown" powder and DH honed them -- was able to control the sheen and make it match the other honed pieces we had. Then we honed a marble pastry board for the kitchen and sealed it. We are beating it up as a trial. It seems to me that you can go back after a few years and renew the surface. From what I've seen, no reason to be afraid of marble. Suspect that after 10 years or more, with a little renewing from time to time it may well look much better than a surface that cannot be renewed.

crzy - thank you so much! The finished project was so worth the effort!

firsthouse - here you go...

Hello from a person with a large kitchen and marble (Danby VT marble) island counter that is very etched and gets well used (I'm posting this here for fun, bc in another thread where I was trying to help out with a drawer width question, people got a kick out of seeing how casually some people treat their marble counters. I was just tired of cleaning off every surface prior to taking a picture - as if I live so perfectly tidy!)

Wow, smarge, you even bought a dog to match your island! That's impressive decorating. And what a beauty s/he is!!

I had been told by a contractor that Vermont marble is denser. Do marbles from different quarries vary in stain resistance? Does anyone know if marble is rated for various qualities? I love how marble looks and am considering it.

Momto4kids - Hopefully you're still following this thread. I remember way back when you got your counters rehoned on site. A couple of years ago, DD made a batch of "lemonade" on our island, squeezing an entire bottle of lemon juice on it in the process. I have lived with it, but I had a marble restoration company come out to give us a quote - we are replacing the mantle on the fireplace in our DR and need to have the slate refinished - so I figured while we were at it, we'd do the counter. I recall you saying it was fairly inexpensive to do - the first company, who apparently does a lot of work for an Ivy League college, came out and quoted us $2000 for the job (and told us it was a 2 day job). My jaw hit the floor. The next company quoted us $450 for both the fireplace and the counter and said it would take 3 hours or so. Do you mind telling me how much it cost you? I want the job done right, but I don't want to get taken, either. TIA!

I'm not Momto4kids, but I paid $1,000 to have the master bath floor, master bath counters, and laundry room floor honed by a marble restoration company (they were all originally polished). Price included sealing everything, including the shower. I live in Silicon Valley, where everything is $$, though.

Thanks ella - That sounds more in line with my 2nd quote, based on the amount of counter I have to do. Although it is a good sized island. After I canceled the appointment my DH made with the first people, they called to "discuss" it but I haven't called them back. I just hope it all turns out well.

Still hoping to hear from you, Momto4kids!

By the way, part of the reason I wanted to hone the floors was the huge etch mark left behind when my cat vomited on the master bath floor! If you think etch marks on honed are noticeable, imagine them on polished!

kippee - I don't know if various marbles are rated somewhere, but my fabricator gave me a brochure when we were considering Danby Vt. marble (which I bought) that claimed that it was more dense than most granites and particularly well-suited for use in kitchens. What this means, I'm not sure, but I think it means it will not stain easily. It certainly doesn't mean that it won't etch bc mine sure gets etched easily. (although I spilled coffee on it this morning and was certain it would have etched before I could wipe it up and it hadn't!)

What etching looks like