Italian marble provides a marvelous and stunning flooring option for your home with its beautiful colors, textures, strains, and lustrous shine. It gives an amazingly soft and cozy feel to the floors, which mesmerizes one and all.
This marble comes in a plethora of textures, shades, and patterns. They come in an unimaginable number of varieties that can suit any kind of decor theme of your house. The number of varieties that these beautiful marbles can provide is simply astonishing.
Italian marble gives a unique, special, rich, and premium feel to the floor. This is the reason that many premia and ostentatious places use these lavish Italian marbles for flooring. These marbles help the places to stand out and display their premium class and style.
This marble is quite porous in nature and this is the reason that it accepts polishing material very well. When this marble is polished it gives an impressive extraordinary shine to the floor. In this article, we are going to discuss all the qualities of Italian marble in detail.
What Is Italian Marble
Italian marble is a high-quality marble that provides a lustrous shine and crystal-like appearance to the floors, it is obtained from the stone mines of Italy and exported to various parts of the world.
It is hard and quite fragile in nature and because of this reason generally, whole blocks of the marble are imported. These blocks are further cut, processed, and the finishing is done to make the marble pieces ready for the flooring.
There are several marble processing units in the country e that continuously do this processing work. Usually, a fiber sheet is attached to the back of the marble pieces to provide them support while transportation.
Types And Varieties Of Italian Marble
As we discussed earlier in the article the Italian marbles have a huge number of varieties and types that one can’t even remember all the names.
Some of the famous types of Italian marbles are Botticino Italian marble, Carrara Italian marble, Crema Marfil Italian marble, Dyna Italian marble, Portoro Italian marble, Pavonazzo Italian marble, Silvia Italian marble, Perlato Italian marble, and Siena Italian marble.
Italian Marble Textures
Italian Marbles are available in many colors, shades, and textures. This is one of the reasons that these marbles are very famous in the flooring industry.
They can be easily matched with any of the home construction and floor plans. Some of the most popular textures are available in beige, white, grey, and black colors.
Italian Marble Price
The price or cost of this marble depends on a lot of factors like the quality of the material, thickness of the marble piece, consistency of the pattern, color of the piece, and other such factors.
We are listing here the approximate starting price of some of the varieties of Italian marble that are easily available in the country so that you can get an idea of the prices and costs of different Italian marble varieties.
S.N. | Italian Marble Variety | Approximate Staring Price |
1. | Arabescatto Marble | Rs. 250 per sq. ft. |
2. | Botticino Marble | Rs. 200 per sq. ft. |
3. | Calacatta Marble | Rs. 250 per sq. ft. |
4. | Carrara Marble | Rs. 150 per sq. ft. |
5. | Crema Marfil Marble | Rs. 200 per sq. ft. |
6. | Dyna Marble | Rs. 200 per sq. ft. |
7. | Pavonazzo Marble | Rs. 120 per sq. ft. |
8. | Perlato Marble | Rs. 220 per sq. ft. |
9. | Portoro Marble | Rs. 250 per sq. ft. |
10. | Silvia Marble | Rs. 120 per sq. ft. |
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Italian Marble
Italian marble has many advantages and also a few disadvantages about which you should have proper information before using them in your home. Let’s have a look at some of the main advantages and disadvantages of Italian marble for use in the home.
Advantages
Pure Patterns
These marbles provide miraculous pure patterns that exhibit the art of nature. They do not have any kind of impurities and stains within them and this is the reason they look so beautiful.
Durability
The Italian marbles are highly durable, they can last for a long period of time. They not only last but also continue to shine and maintain their beauty for long.
Less Maintenance
It is quite easy to keep these marbles in proper conditions once they have been installed properly. All one needs to do is regularly broom and mop these marble floors.
Limitless Varieties
There are so many varieties of these marbles that even after days of exploring you won’t be able to cover all of them. They provide you so many options to choose from that you will be spoilt for choices.
Premium Feel
These marbles give your home a very rich and premium feel that is not very easy to get from any other type of flooring. This is the reason the high-class opts for this choice of flooring.
Versatility
These marbles are so versatile that they can be used for embellishing any part of your home. You can use them in the kitchen, living room, bedroom, kids room, or any other place of your choice.
Disadvantages
Premium Treatment
This marble is a premium segment marble and as such it requires a premium treatment even while laying down on the floor. For this, you require skilled and experienced labor to execute the work properly.
Quite Fragile
These marbles have to be handled quite carefully as they are quite fragile in nature. They have to be packed cautiously or as they can crack and even break while transportation.
Stains Easily
These marbles are very porous and are quite absorbent in nature. And because of this, they can easily stain when any dark color liquid material spills on the marble.
Scratch Prone
The Italian marbles have a soft top layer and because of this, they are quite prone to scratch. So one should avoid dragging heavy objects on this type of marbles in order to avoid scratches and marks.
Important Points Regarding Use Of Italian Marble
- Italian marble is pretty porous in nature and because of this it can stain very easily and this is the reason it is not usually used for making countertops and kitchen slabs.
- During laying down the floor one should ensure that a layer of white cement is spread before laying down the light color Italian marbles. Otherwise, the light color marble may the dark color of grey cement.
- While laying down on the floor the different pieces of marble should be joined properly with the help of adhesive so that they can give a seamless finish.
- You should not take any risk regarding the choice of correct labor for installing the marble in your home. To be fully sure about the skill set of the labor you must see the previous works done by them.
- After the installation of the these marble proper treatment on the top layer has to be done to ensure that it maintains a proper shine. Many people also use a protective epoxy layer to increase the life of these marbles.
Why Is Italian Marble Expensive?
Italian marble is a naturally occurring stone that is quite unique and costly in itself. But other factors like transportation, duties and taxes, processing, and finishing contribute a lot in making it more expensive.
Blocks of Italian marbles are extracted from the stone mines of Italy and a few neighboring countries in Europe. They are then exported to various parts of the world and this results in huge transportation costs.
Further, the blocks of these marbles have to be cut, processed, and finished for the final utilization. This also results in increasing the overall cost of these beautiful marbles.