Windowsill Marble or Granite?

I'm remodeling the downstairs bathroom. I have a raised ranch and on the lower level at the foundation top we have a very wide windowsill, about 8" or so. The walls will be porcelain tile up to about 5'. The present sill is wood so I'm thinking of either a marble or granite piece

3/4" thick.

Is either of these materials not suitable for some reason? One better than the other? Cost is not going to be a big factor, when spending thousands of dollars already, forty bucks either way won't make much difference.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski
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Marble is fine. I have a few marble windowsills in this house. Even have a few doorsills of marble. I like them so much when I had the bathroom remodeled I got new pieces of marble for he new room.

A little, non-pretentious touch of class.

I especially like the look of marble doorsills slightly worn down by time.

Reply to
Dan.Espen

There will be something, just not sure yet. It would give a more finished look.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Is marble more sensitive to water damage/staining/dissolving? can't believe dissolving, since marble was heated at one time. but still have to ask.

Reply to
RobertMacy

The only real differences are that marble is a tad softer and it will absorb stains a little more but these are usually not an issue with window sills. I have them under every window in this house and 50 years later they look fine.

The other thing that may be the most important is what they look like. You have different choices with granite than you have with marble.

Reply to
gfretwell

If this sill is gonna be in a bathroom, I'd definitely go with granite.

That's because marble is really nothing more than metamorphed limestone, and limestone is readily etched by acids.

And, when you think about a bathroom, there's acid used all over the place:

- toilet bowl cleaners are typically either phosphoric acid or hydrochloric acid based

- general bathroom cleaners use phosphoric acid as the active ingredient because it cuts through soap scum without attacking chrome plating.

So, if it was my bathroom, I'd go with granite because it's less susceptable to damage caused by acids. Some good intentioned person is going to put a bottle of phosphoric acid based bathroom cleaner on that sill and cause some damage. If it were a granite sill, there'd be considerably less damage.

Reply to
nestork

A few of thoughts:

Marble will probably be a lot cheaper, but neither will be as little as $40. I had to buy a 5 1/2" x

3/4 x 8' awhile back and I think that was $70. But it was also a stock threshold. Custom pieces cost more and often you have to pay for the whole sheet if the stone shop doesn't have a scrap.

Marble is more typical in baths. (Downright common.) It looks nice with something like white tile. Granite would give you more creative design options.

If you use the marble, try to set it in a fair amount of thinset. It's very brittle. I cut it on a diamond blade tile saw easily, but it tends to snap off as it gets close to the end of the cut. (You may have noticed that it's not uncommon to see broken up marble thresholds in bathrooms when people have made the mistake of just setting it on the underlayment.) Granite, by contrast, has a large percentage of quartz, which is hardness 7. That may be its main down side, in addition to cost: A child running or elderly person falling is a lot better off hitting their head on marble than on granite.

Also, a side note: You can get a grinder fairly cheap and tile places will sell different grits of grinding wheels. Grinding finished edges and roundovers on marble, should you need to, is actually fairly easy. It's so soft that there's actually a risk of overgrinding. You have to do it carefully.

Reply to
Mayayana

Water damage is a consideration as my wife may put a plant on it. Of course, I can always protect it by putting a couple of coats of paint on it.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The $40 is the difference in price, not the cost. I expect to pay much more than that.

The wall tile is white with a very slight look of marble "grain" in it. Marble would match better, but granite will contrast more.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

| > Is marble more sensitive to water damage/staining/dissolving? can't | > believe dissolving, since marble was heated at one time. but still have | > to ask. | | Water damage is a consideration as my wife may put a plant on it. Of | course, I can always protect it by putting a couple of coats of paint on | it.

I hope that was a joke. :) Marble does stain very easily, but I've never seen anything like acid damage. I was just in a bathroom where I put in a marble window sill in the shower 5 years ago. It looks like new, and I live east of the Mississippi where the water is soft and perhaps slightly acid. But if you have something like rusty metal that drips onto the marble it can ruin the look.

I'm guessing the windowsill in question is not in the shower, so it shouldn't be a big problem in terms of staining, but if it were me I'd put something like a glass dish under the plant.

Reply to
Mayayana

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Reply to
gfretwell

Huh?

If you're gonna paint over it, then don't even use stone. Use spruce lumber.

Reply to
nestork

Get a pure white marble, like thassos. Not the cheap gray streaky carrera.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

That's a threshold. You wouldn't have those beveled edges on a window sill. Nor would it be 6" wide.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

Really!? When my father fell in the bathroom and hit his face on the marble threshold he was dead rather quickly. Though the autopsy did say that clogged arteries had something to do with it.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

Very sorry to hear of you losing your father in such an abrupt manner.

Reply to
RobertMacy

That would work well if wider. I need 10 3/4"

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Thanks for the condolences. He was a month shy of 94. He very much did not want to be intubated or have other life prolonging procedures that would have kept him from having an active life. He made sure he had a copy of his living will every time he went to the hospital. So he got that wish.

But my mom will never forget the site of finding him on Christmas morning dead on the bathroom floor.

Don.

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Reply to
Don Wiss

I was just trying to get a relative price.

Reply to
gfretwell

| That would work well if wider. I need 10 3/4"

Another interesting option would be 12"+ tiles, cut down and either butted or grouted. With that approach there are gorgeous options like onyx, which is prohibitively expensive to buy in a slab. It's not quite so nice to have joints, but...just a thought.

Reply to
Mayayana

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