Marble Entry and Fireplace Walls

The entry floor is the piece worth studying. A dark, heavily figured stone runs the length of the hall with a pale medallion inlaid into the middle of it, which means the two materials had to be cut to meet each other exactly, with no filler and no forgiving grout line to hide behind. An inlay like this is set out full size before anything is cut, because there is no adjusting it once the pieces are down.

The fireplace walls in the same house show the other half of what a slab can do. One is a full height run of white marble with the veining carried straight up the wall and across the firebox opening. The other wraps a column in a wood grained porcelain with a linear firebox let into it. Same principle in both: the material runs continuously and the joints land where they were planned to land.