I wouldn't do it. It's like you're trying to match a beige pair of pants with a beige shirt and the undertones of one is pink and the other is yellow. It's worse to miss a near match than it is to choose to deliberately contrast. If you want your island to be a feature, choose something like a lighter calmer quartz for the perimeter. Or, pick the pretty stuff for the perimeter and maybe a gorgeous wood top for the island. There's a lot of ways to mix it up, but choosing two that are close together in tone really isn't one of them.

I agree. I loved Lemurian Supreme. The blue is beautiful, but there is too much brown-gray in the rest of it. Volga blue is very different and doesn't have the brown-gray.

Definite no, IMO. Blue/iridescent rocks are such a novelty, having more than one of them sounds like overkill. The partner for something like Lemurian Blue can be a calm one that does not compete with the star of the show.

I just looked up Lemurian Blue! Fabulous! Volga Blue is gorgeous as well.

I would hesitate to mix it with anything though,unless it was a basically solid such as Black Galaxy as it would literally confuse the eye. This would destroy the beauty of each granite.

How many slabs do you need? Is it possible to pick out the most striking part of the slab for the island and make the perimeter out of the balance? This would be great, but it can be costly unless you have more than one slab. Or you could do a honed finish on either the island or the perimeter which would give the impression of a different kind of granite.

Personally, I would do the whole thing in the Lemurian Blue. I had never seen that granite. It would give your kitchen the "BAM" you are looking for.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. We have a large island and a lot of perimeter spaces, so we are looking at around 100+ sq. ft.. (Most of the perimeter has a 6-7" backsplash of the stone, which goes up to meet some proper backsplash tiling.) Doing the whole thing in LB is probably out of the question for cost, but also it might be more "BAM" than we really want.

The comments so far are making me think that we should either do (a) VB everywhere, or (b) LB for the island and perhaps some lighter-colored solid quartz for the perimeter. Any more opinions on those two options? The comments are definitely helpful!

This post was edited by Phaedrus29 on Thu, Sep 26, 13 at 16:45

I just looked at that fabulous piece of rock.
I agree that you'll want to pair it with something more quiet.
You might try Blue In The Night Granite.
It has the same background color as your stone and has an occasional fleck of blue mica which should compliment your LB.
I'm attaching a link below
HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: Blue In The Night Granite

This post was edited by willtv on Thu, Sep 26, 13 at 22:37

The Blue in the Night is an interesting idea. I'd be worried that there isn't enough contrast between that and the LB. Are there any very subdued/plain light gray (or light bluish gray) granites that might work?

I'm attaching a link to Borelli Marble & Granite's website.
They claim to have 1000 colors of granite.
It may help to peruse their selection to give you an idea as to what may be available.

Here is a link that might be useful: Borelli Marble & Granite

Have you gotten a sample of the Lemurian Blue to take home and look at in your space? The reason I ask is, when I was looking for bathroom vanity counter, I found a great remnant piece that had iridescent blue flecks in it that I really loved (I don't know the specific variety, not necessarily the same as yours, just know it had the iridescent blue bits). But, when I got the sample piece home, I discovered that in my bathroom, in the indoor lighting, you couldn't see the iridescence at all. It just looked like plain dull mousy brown stone. I had to take it outside in the natural light, and hold it at an angle (just like it had been standing on its edge outside in the granite yard) to see that beautiful iridescence again.

So, that's a long roundabout way of saying, don't fall in love and plan a whole look around something that might not be what you imagine. Definitely get a sample and see what it looks like in your space, with typical daytime and evening lighting.

Bethinnc

Was the piece you brought home Brown Shada? I love that stone, except that it loses all it's color when the light isn't right. In the showroom of one stone yard it pops, everywhere else I have seen it, no pop. In fact, one daughter stated it looked like a piece of raw meat. It didn't help that the sample looked like a T-bone steak. LOL so, I chose Blue Pearl. I can't afford any of the stones I really, really like.

Karen

Karen.ohio, I just googled that and it definitely could have been it. The blue flecks were so beautiful outside, completely invisible inside. Our sample piece was a large triangular one too! Anyway, it was a good early-on lesson to me not to expect things to look the way I imagined it would when I was standing in the granite yard.

Don't want to discourage you Phaedrus29! I'm sure you'll find something great for your space

duplicate

This post was edited by bethinnc on Sun, Sep 29, 13 at 9:50

Thanks again for all the help. At this point we are taking most of the advice here and just going with Volga Blue on the perimeter AND island. We decided to redo the backsplash as well...at this point we are leaning towards a glass tile called "Morning Mist".

The tile looks white in the pic but it's actually green/blue/gray-ish. We had originally picked out a bluer glass tile ("Blue Seafoam") but this one seems to match everything better. Thoughts?

My taste runs to subdued, therefore, I would probably look at tile that has a matte finish or at least is not all shiny glass. You might have competing reflections with the glass against the polished granite.

Buy what you feel is the best for you.

Karen

Thanks for bringing up the point about shiny glass together with the polished granite. Today we looked at some matte tile options but they didn't speak to us as much as that glossy glass. So we are doing the Morning Mist glass tile paired with a pewter grout. Tough decisions, but I think it'll look great. Thanks all for the recommendations along the way and I'll be sure to post pics when it's installed in a week or so.