Costa Esmeralda is such a gorgeous stone!
IMO, it would be a shame to hone it...

Don't get me wrong -- I do like honed granites.
But what honing does do is mute the stone's coloring and pattern. So a black stone goes grey. A dramatically-patterned stone is toned down. But a subtle stone could easily go all the way from 'subtle' to 'drab'.

Look at a stoney creek bed, and compare the areas that are wet to the areas that are dry.
THIS is what honing does to granite.

If you want something with the general coloration of Costa Esmeralda but are thinking you want a honed surface, save yourself some serious bucks and look at Verde Fontaine, Tropical Green, or other lighter green stones. (Many of them also perform better under the stress of kitchen use.) Or consider a serpentine or green quartzite.

i have costa esmerelda...polished. i REALLY thought i wanted honed so the granite yard honed a piece for me and sweeby is right.....seemed drab. i would keep this stone polished....

Here's your earlier post KC --
No one deleted it; it had just scrolled onto the second page.

I don't know why I could not find this post. Thank you all so much. I have a picture of the color I want and do not know how to upload it to a post. I am looking for a light green color. I will try the colors you recommended sweeby. Thank you so much.

kc2....here's my ce....it's seems to be much more gray than other ce photos i have seen....

I have seen your kitchen and saved it on my cp. It is just beautiful. I love that wall tile over the over. Very pretty.

We have polished costa esmerelda too. To me, so much of the beauty of this stone is in the glazey-marble look of it, that I can only think honing it would detract from that. Here are some pictures or ours,where I've tried to capture the overall effect of it...

Thanks for the pictures. I think its a lovely color and have decided to stick to the polished. I am so nervous about making the wrong decision. Do you have any regrets about the color choice? Costa's can be so different but I am looking for one like yours, bestyears. My small Island will be calacutta I think. BTW, is that a pencil edge?

Also, I was thinking about either doing a marble backsplash like robinst or just a paint color that I can change when the mood hits me. What do you think?

Happy New Years, everyone! Kitchen demo starts on the 11th of January.

Not one regret about using CE. In fact, I am so pleased that I stuck with it because it made my heart sing -even though I worried I might tire of it, etc. My kitchen is so, so neutral, but (at least to me LOL) not boring. When I decorated it for Christmas, I loved that everything worked -no clashes anywhere! I can literally put almost any table linens or dishes in and they seem to work.

The edge is a bevel edge actually. Very small, but also something I love. It slightly softens the look, and I was advised that it would be more difficult to chip than a pencil edge. One big decision for me was the thickness. I don't know whether CE ever comes in varying thicknesses or not, but the ones I found were all about 3/4 of an inch thick. I really liked the thicker look, so decided to have them done that way. (the front edge is 'booked' so that it appears the granite is twice as thick as it actually is.) When I first had them done I really thought I'd made a mistake. The horizontal line where the two pieces came together seemed to leap out and thump me in the middle of my forehead every time I entered the kitchen. We have granite in two bathrooms, done the same way, except with a bullnose edge, and it is barely noticeable there. I was a bit sick over this possible mistake. Butttttt, once everything else was put in place, the line seems to have disappeared. Obviously it is still there, but once you get everything else back in the kitchen, it just isn't particularly noticeable. So now I'm glad I went with it. But I've also seen the thinner look, and that looks great too. Have you found your specific slabs yet?

I've attached a picture which shows a bit of our backsplash, which is a handmade creamy, crackled subway. I think marble would be incredibly exquisite with the CE!!! Your idea of changing paint color with your mood was a driving force for me. I love fabrics and dishes and wanted to be able to incorporate lots of different ones in my kitchen over the years. I really feel the CE lets me do that. We painted our walls BM Coastal Fog which I have also been really, really happy with. Good luck!

Thanks for all the information. I am in the process of narrowing down slabs. Will decide within the next two days. My husband still wants the darker verde vecchio but I like a softer clean country look for this kitchen. So nervous about making all these decisions! I am also working on my sink and faucets today! This site is amazing. Everyone is so helpful.