Marble and Granite's Blog

During the holiday and winter season, it seems that no matter where you start a gathering, it always ends up around the fireplace. That's why now is the perfect time to consider updating your fireplace in time for friend and family gatherings this season. To provide inspiration for a fireplace design that you and your guests will enjoy for its warmth and beautiful aesthetics, here are five of our favorite fireplace designs that have been featured in Architectural Digest. 

Simple yet sleek, this transitional style, two-part fireplace has a place for the both building a fire and storing firewood. 

A stunning contemporary stone tile fireplace adds the perfect cool-color contrast to this warm living room with wood walls throughout. 

Inspired by both English and Japanese design, the focal point of this light and airy living room is a beautiful floor-to-ceiling fireplace with stone fireplace surround seat. 

This modern limestone tile fireplace ties the living and dining areas together for a sleek yet earthy look.  

This granite fireplace with steel backdrop surround adds incredible texture and earthiness to this sleek, modern space. 

Any one of these fireplace designs could be achieved with a granite, marble, limestone, Neolith or Caesarstone slab from Marble and Granite in New England. In fact, some of these designs could even lend themselves to a DIY fireplace project. Once you have found the perfect natural stone or engineered stone from the Marble and Granite website or from one of our New England showrooms, you can use this link to find helpful how-to articles on installing stone hearths or replacing fireplace surrounds from the DIY Network. Have you ever successfully updated your own fireplace? Share with us your experience or any tips in the comment section below! 

Onyx is a truly unique stone. As a banded calcite, onyx has distinctive patterns and incredible color variegation that can feature tones of gray, white, yellow, gold, orange or even deep amber. Because of its intriguing aesthetic appeal, this natural stone is used in various ways throughout the home do add elegance and drama. 

Onyx can be used to design a striking wet bar. 

You can dress up doors to create an inviting entrance with door panels mad of onyx slabs or onyx tiles. 

Onyx can extend from vanity or countertops to make an eye-catching accent wall. 

While these designs are certainly stunning, one of the most popular ways to decorate with onyx is to take advantage of its translucent qualities to create beautiful, illuminated surfaces. When a slab of onyx is cut to a 3 to 5mm thickness, it can be lit from behind to create a gorgeous glow as light filters through its warm colors and swirling or rippling patterns. This lighting and design technique is commonly used to achieve...

... glowing backlit onxy furniture;

a fiery backlit onxy fireplace surround;

a brilliant backlit onyx kitchen island;

Amenities such as fireplaces are a luxury, which means they should reflect luxury. Marble tiles are a common way to add sophistication and beauty to fireplaces. While marble is known to require more maintenance than other natural stone surfaces, it is an ideal material for low traffic areas like fireplace surrounds. Marble tiles offer both resistance to stand up to the heat and endless design options to stand up to the most distinctive interior designs. Let's take a look at a few design examples of high-end interiors with marble tile fireplaces. 

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No two slabs of marble are alike, and neither are the companies that manufacture them. Based in New England, Marble and Granite is one of the leading manufacturers of high quality natural stone in the industry; and architects, designers and homeowners can find some of the world's finest marble tiles right here on the Marble and Granite website. Browse the online catalog and shop from thousands of marble varieties, all of which can be ordered directly from the site and shipped anywhere in the world. Contact Marble and Granite at 877-39-STONE with any product or shipping inquiries.