When it comes to kitchen design, the white marble kitchen is one of the most favorited looks people are striving for these days. Marble brings a luxurious feel and elegance to your home. It also comes with a lot of maintenance that peeps like to forget about. So what are the main differences of Quartzite vs Carrara marble for you kitchen countertops?

Marble is a non-foliated metamorphic rock. It is comprised of recrystallized carbonate minerals such as calcite or dolomite. The carbonate rocks are converted into marble by heat and pressure. If the original carbonate minerals are very pure, beautiful white marble results.

Out of all the natural stones you can use for your countertops, the biggest con of marble is the fact of how soft it is in its nature. Which means it is easily scratched and dented. I am not trying to be over dramatic here, but when I used to work for a countertop fabricator, the brand new fabricated marble piece sometimes already came with scratches on the day of install. And that was just from the transport alone, with our installers carefully wrapping the piece in blankets.

Another con about white Carrara marble is it being a very porous stone that will absorb stains and etch. I don’t know about you, but I am a wine kind of girl and like my reds. Just a few missed drops for an hour or two and you could have a stain on your beautiful and expensive tops. The same with acid liquids like vinegar.

This seems like a risky chance you might not want to take when installing thousands of dollars worth of countertops in your kitchen. A new quality kitchen remodel should last for the next 10-15 years. Honestly, the marble kitchen request always proves to me if your remodeler has your best interest or is just after your money. Any good kitchen designer would strongly try to talk you out of marble tops.

Check out one of our projects with the marble look, you can view it here: Traditional & Timeless!

So, what’s the alternative to white Carrara marble for your kitchen countertops? There are a few options like for example choosing engineered quartz. Speaking of Quartzite vs Carrara Marble for your kitchen countertops though, I want to focus on Quartzite. Quartzite is like the beautiful love child between marble and granite. In essence, it is a fusion of marble and granite, creating the elegant look of marble with the remarkable durability of granite. Quartzite is a natural stone that started out as a sandstone and then transforms into quartzite by heat and pressure. It doesn’t contain any calcite, like marble does, and therefore is not prone to etching & staining by acidic products like vinegar. (It still needs a natural stone sealer like granite but doesn’t need intense sealing and maintenance as your typical marble.)

While sandstone is grainy like sandpaper, quartzite is smooth and glassy like marble. The best thing about quartzite though, it can come in beautiful pure white and gray shades with veining just like marble.

You want to hear something crazy? Most of my clients get the idea for white marble countertops from inspirational platforms like Houzz or Pinterest. If I search for marble countertops, I find lots and lots of images with quartzite tops that are labeled wrong. So the picture you might fell in love with could even already be a quartzite countertop. Let’s take a test. Take a look at the picture I used on the top for this blog post and ask yourself if it’s a marble or a quartzite.

Who would have thought, it’s a beautiful quartzite.

I hope I was able to answer your questions on what to choose, Quartzite vs Carrara Marble for your kitchen countertops.

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