Stone products have been widely used for home decoration in recent years. Unique veins and beautiful color of natural stone provide many creative elements for home designers. More and more people are using natural stone products to decorate their house. But many people do not know how to choose stone products that fit and they do not know how to do regular maintenance after they are installed. Actually, there are a lot things you need to know about natural stone selection, installation and regular maintenance.

How do you know the stone is good or not?

The quality of raw material and fabrication workmanship decide the quality of natural stone products. Stone is a natural material. The color of the raw material can not be changed even after they are polished. So, the color of surface is a very important standard to judge the quality of a stone product. The surface of good quality stone products shall be in uniform color and little color variation. The inferior stone products can not cover this "defect" even after they are repair and re-polished. The other aspect that influence the quality of stone products is fabrication workmanship. If the stone is not fabricated properly, the stone products may be warping, concave or have spot, dirt, color variation, crackle. So fabrication workmanship is important for good stone products.

Choose the right stones

When using stone to decorate your house, do not use dark color stone for flooring and wall cladding which will make your home a dark feeling. Use light color and bright stone for flooring and cladding giving people a warm and peaceful feeling and also make your home look more spacious.

There are many types of stone in the market such as granite, marble, sandstone, travertine and so on. We had better choose those hard, wear-resistant, acid-resistant and alkali-resistant stones such as granite and marble. In terms of price, light color granite is fairly low price and is a ideal choice for home décor. It is very to find a replacement in the market when it needs repair and replace. When come to size, we suggest to use thin granite tiles (10~15mm) for flooring. But it depends on your floor intensity and load bearing.

Color for tables

Nowadays, stone furniture, such as stone tables or table tops, become more and more popular for home décor. When choosing a stone table and table tops, we had better choose the dark color stones, like black, blue, green, or red granite or marble. The marbles that have big veins are ideal choice for table. We had better choose granite for thick kitchen (25mm) counter tops and worktops because granite can be durable in use in the acid and alkali environment of kitchen.

Installation and maintenance

Because stone is a natural product, the veins and color are different from one tile to the other. Before installation, we need to put all tiles on the floor and then move the tiles around to make the overall veins and color looked harmonious and smooth. When the whole looks good, then we should mark the position of each tile. Please note do not write directly on the tiles in case the paint gets into the stone. You can write it down on a paper tag and paste it on each tile.

Before we install the stone, we should mix water and cement and paste them on the floor, and then put concrete onto them as a base. We need to flatten the concrete before pave the stone. After the stone is paved on floor, we have to level the stone with a level meter. This is very important because if it is not level it would cause a lot trouble in future. Tips: the thickness of concrete had better not exceed 20mm; do not walk on the floor and let it alone for 8 hours; some stones have grid on the back, we have to remove them before installation.

When the installation is done, we had better coat some white wax on the surface of the stone. Do regular maintenance every two weeks is enough. We will provide detailed maintenance tips later or you can visit our website for more information.

Price for stone:

The price for natural stone tiles range from $1 per square feet to $15 per square feet. As mentioned above, the light color granites have the lowest price and the dark color granite and some marbles that have unique veins have higher price.

The stone price is different from country to country. In some stone import countries, like the USA, the stone price is much higher than stone export country such as China and India.