It's amazing what materials the earth itself has provided us, granites, marbles and travertines being among them. Although the various types of natural stones have distinct inherent properties, these properties can change slightly as the material is quarried from the earth.
Stones can have different colors or patterns depending on when and where they are mined. A "noce" travertine from Turkey will look slightly different than a "noce" travertine mined from Mexico, for example. Even a stone mined from the same quarry will have variations depending on when it was mined. Additionally, some materials cease to exist as they are mined from the earth so you might have a sample of a beautiful stone that you just can't find anymore.
Because of all of this, it is incredible important to have up-to-date natural stone samples when choosing your materials. Even if your sample is only 6 months old, it may look completely different today. Just take a look at these travertine tiles below....
These large travertine tile are called "Tuscany Walnut." They have a beautiful coloration and cloudy look to the surface.
Believe it or not....these are also "Tuscany Walnut!" Crazy, right!?! Imagine creating a flooring pattern where you mix various sizes of the 'Tuscany Walnut' material and you thought it was a beautiful light stone with some cloudy variation. Then, as your flooring is being installed- you have a mix of these two! Not exactly what you had in mind, right?
So...it is always important to have the most current samples to always to check availability. There's nothing worse than designing around something that you can no longer get.
Posted on
Fri, September 9, 2011
by cindy Aplanalp
filed under