Marbled Elegance

I had asked my mother where she got all her material for bathroom countertops and shower stalls since they were seamless slabs of some unknown material. She referred me to Marbled Elegance.

So we went on an information gathering trip. The material is cultured marble which is made from crushed stones and other stuff but it looks like natural stone. There are collections of looks that range from two colors to many colors (more colors = more $$). The mid-tier to higher tier collections look a lot more natural than the lower tier collections. One of the best things about it is that they can make large slabs of it (largest is 8' x 10') so you can get rid of grout lines in the showers. Usually people use tiles in their showers which are just a pain to clean -- too many grout lines. They can do seamless countertops such that the sinks bowls are integrated (example). You have to use their sink bowls to do that though. However, I think they have enough variety to accommodate most people.

Cost-wise, it comes to be about the same as putting up tile. For tiles, installation is the big expense ($20-30 per sq ft) while the tile itself is $4-sky per sq ft. With Marbled Elegance, the installation is $7.25 per sq ft while the material runs from $20-? (I forgot the cap) per sq ft depending on the collection you choose.

We're almost definitely going with Marbled Elegance unless there's some unknown advantage tile has that we don't know about yet.