Design & Color Selection

•availability (stone is natural and not all colors, shapes and sizes come in all varieties of natural stones)
•different varieties of stones have their unique "look" about them that may or may not appeal to your intended design.

Durability & Performance
• Some stones are harder than other. Some stones are chemically reactive and some are not.

Costs & Maintenance
•Quarrying and production costs vary from factories around the world and with different varieties of stone. Diamond tools are used to process stone and generally harder stones such as granite are costlier to cut and polish.
•Some stones are easier to care for than others and will require different maintenance budgets.

With natural stone, design is normally the leading and most critical criteria. We suggest that you start your project by looking at the many samples of colors and textures to find something that will suit your design. Then you can consult with Instile about the expected performance characteristics of that stone in your application and determine if that is suitable for you. Instile can often point to many existing examples of completed projects and even arrange to speak directly with previous customers that had to make similar decisions and get their direct input about the outcome of their decisions.

Instile provides free Reference Color Sample Binders to professional architects and designers for their reference libraries as well as individual Color Sample Cards showing actual pieces of stone. Sample cards and full samples can be signed out or purchased.

Please contact a location nearest to you with your requirements.

You can also see a picture of these stones in the "products" section of our web site.