We all love a beautiful shower and there are a few things that can help make your bathroom one of the best places in your home. Choosing what goes on your shower walls, floors, seats, and countertops of your shower is key and if you’re considering using marble, I’m going to share with you 12 advantages and caveats of using marbles in the shower.
But first, let me address the elephant in the room. Is it ok to use marble in a shower? You can use marble in your shower as it comes with many benefits of a beautifully clean and unique look, high versatility, and durability. Using marbles in your shower will, however, come with some downsides like easy staining and etching. Nonetheless, marbles are a great staple for modern showers.
Keep reading this article to learn more.
The Pros:
Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of using marble for your bathrooms or showers.
1. Every Marble Is Unique
The next time you visit a place with a marble installation do well to take a closer look at the patterns, colors, and texture on the surface of the marble. Even without being very observant, you will notice not all marbles are the same.
Each marble will be completely different and this one of the qualities that make marble very desirable. Whatever marble installation you go for will only be unique to you. Ain’t that cool?
A natural marble will come with 100% unique patterns or veining, a different range of colors, and variety in its depth – as a result, no other bathroom will have the exact same characteristics that your bathroom will have.
The uniqueness of marble will usually depend on the type and quality of the marble you go for. Most low-end marbles will often have very visible veining and coloring as opposed to the high-end ones which usually have very faint or light veining.
2. Marble Develops Beautiful Patina
Patina is the quality that most natural materials such as leather, stone, and wood develop overtime over their surface. It a nice and subtle shiny overlay that forms on the surface of most natural materials.
This feature of most natural materials, when it comes to marbles, is also inevitable. When you install marble in your bathroom, it will develop a patina which is usually a nice warm look.
This is what makes marbles age so well and with its aging process being very unique and a beautiful transition from year to year.
3. Marbles Are Easy To Work With
If you like to DIY a lot of things around your home or you’re a professional who does marble installations, then you might be happy to know that marbles are very easy to work with.
This is because every piece of marble you pick up is essentially soft stone that can be cut or customized easily, machined, and tumbled to suit your needs.
4. Marbles Are Versatile
Marble can serve multiple purposes in a bathroom setup. You can install marble for your shower walls, curb, along lower walls if you have a freestanding tub, or vanity backsplash, countertop, ceiling, and shower seats.
This shows how versatile this wonderful piece of stone is. The only thing is you would want to be careful of is the kind of marble your choose for your floors especially if you have kids.
What you can go for is honed marble for your bathroom floors. Since honed marbles have a matte finish, it will help reduce to a large extent how slippery the bathroom is going to be while maintaining a classic marble look.
Another awesome and safe way you can create some natural traction on your marble floors is using small mosaic-like marble tiles. The grout line between the tiles will help to create traction that can help to stop slippage.
5. Marbles Never Out Of Fashion
Marbles indeed never ever go out of fashion. Marble as a material has been used time in memorials for many architectural and sculptural monuments.
Such remarkable works of art are still present till today serving as massive tourist sites attracting millions of people from around the world.
Some of the most popular monuments made out of marble are The Taj Mahal in Agra – India constructed between 1632 to 1648, The Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa – Italy, etc
This goes a long way to tell you how long marbles have been around. While trends come and go, marble has remained relevant in the architecture space for hundreds of years.
6. Marbles Are Durable
There are many buildings that have marble as part of its main material and have survived decades. Marble is a type of natural stone so it is very durable and will last you a lifetime if proper care and maintenance is done.
It is a known fact that marble is a living stone and as a result, it is going to change in terms of its look and how it’s going to stain. However, it’s simply part of its nature and the way it naturally evolves.
7. Natural Stones Increases The Value Of A Home
Another benefit to using marble for your bathroom is that it will help increase the value of your home or property when you’re ready to sell.
Marble is a really cool piece of material that will be appealing to most potential buyers. Most people will find marble installations as a valuable investment as most natural stones are wonderful selling points for most properties.
This amongst other great reasons is why you would want to incorporate marble installations not only in your shower but also in the kitchen, dining, and living room areas – not only as a functional element but to help add significant value to your property should you consider selling it one day.
The Cons:
1. Marbles Are Very Porous
This is probably one of the common downsides of marble you’re going to learn about from any professional who makes marble installations or anyone who has had marble installation in their home.
Marbles are porous and this has to do with the fact that marble is a natural stone and not only is it a stone but also one of the softest out there.
Due to marble’s porous nature, it’s very absorbent and using it in your bathroom will mean water will easily get into the marble and depending on what’s in the water, this can spell doom for your bathroom.
A good example is, if you dye your hair or try to wash it off in a shower that has been installed with marble, the dye can easily seep deep into your marble and cause it to stain.
This is why you will find that most professionals will advise using other durable materials like porcelain tiles to go with the marble to help take care of such situations.
2. Marbles Can Easily Etch
When you use marbles in your shower, chances are, a lot of the hygiene products you often use like hair products, dental products, oils, perfumes, body lotions, cleaning products, etc may contain some form of acids or bases that can easily etch and turn your marbles installations very ugly real quickly.
Because marbles etch easily there are a few things you need to learn very quickly and that is what type of marbles you pick out for your shower, the type of hygiene products you go for, and how you stored your hygiene products in the shower.
Firstly, you need to choose the right kind of marble for your shower if you want to maintain the nice clean look of your marbles all the time. While polished marbles will easily show etch marks and wear, honed marbles are great due to their soft, satin, matte finish surface and will not make etch marks too obviously.
Before you settle on a kind of marble no matter where it is installed in your shower, you also want to make sure to take a piece of the marble home and test it out with your regular shower hygiene product on it to see how it reacts with the marble.
Finally, if you already have your shower installed with marble you might want to consider where you store or keep your hygiene products in the bathroom to help prevent the marble from etching or staining.
3. Marbles Can Discolor With Time
Another common downside to using marbles in your shower is the risk of the marble discoloring with time. Marbles are naturally heat-resistant but all the moisture, humidity, or steam that will come from the hot showers will cause havoc on your marble.
This will happen due to the fact that marbles are porous and will allow water to seep through causing the moisture to react with the natural minerals such as iron that is contained in almost every natural marble.
And the moisture reacting and oxidizing the marble can turn orange, brown, or yellow and can leave a very clean shower looking like a total mess.
4. Requires Constant Sealing
If you do not want your marbles to discolor and would like to maintain the look of your marbles then you would want to constantly seal it.
The downside to this downside is that you will also have to avoid using your shower after sealing your marbles for about 24-48 hours so that the sealer can offer your marbles optimal protection.
I know this is definitely a bummer. However, if you care a lot about having a really clean look on your marbles, then you have no choice but to seal the marble in your shower every 3-6 months – which can be a serious maintenance difficulty for most people.
This is because you’re not going to simply seal the marble but you will also have to do it very well. What you will be doing when it comes to sealing your marble is carefully and thoroughly sealing the pores on the surface of the marble to help slow down any form of absorption that the marble will naturally have – giving you a lot more time to clean in case of a stain or etch.
Pro Tip: You would want to make sure you’re sealing your marble from time to time even if you’re told your marble installation comes with a multi-year warranty.
17 Tips On How To Maintain Marbles In Showers
- The first rule of thumb when it comes to maintaining marbles in showers is to seal them constantly – usually between every 3-6 months.
- Set some sort of a reminder on your calendar to help you seal your shower marbles on time.
- Make sure to seal your marble with a good quality sealer.
- Avoid using acid-based cleaners on your marbles to prevent them from damaging the protective sealer on the marble.
- A good marble or natural stone-specific soap, ordinary water (or warm water), and a good nylon scrubbing brush are all you need to maintain your shower marbles.
- When picking out a seal for your shower marbles, you would want one that allows water to get on and off your marbles without reacting with the natural irons of the marble which may cause stains.
- Also, avoid sealers that can potentially change the color of your marbles. Test out the sealer first and if you’re unsure. Research or talk to your seller for more information.
- When you seal your marbles make sure to get about 2-3 coats of sealer on them.
- Make sure not to use the shower after sealing for at least 24 hours. If you have another shower, use that instead.
- Clean your marbles often – about once a week.
- Always use marble or natural stone-specific soap for your marbles.
- When you notice a stain on your shower marbles, you can make a natural poultice (by mixing baking soda and water) to remove stains. Allow the poultice to sit on the stain for 12-24 hours before cleaning it off. Works like magic. Do not use any acid-based products to clean stains.
- Don’t allow water to sit on your marble shower seats, floors, etc. Ensure you squeegee any water sitting on your marble surfaces.
- Always go for honed marble for your showers if you do not want to have etched marks visible all over your marble surfaces.
- Get this etch mark remover if you have etched marks you would like to remove.
- When it comes to the type of hygiene products you use, you would want to go for the more natural and gentle ones. Go for natural body wash, natural shampoo, natural conditioners, etc. – mainly for your health but also with a side benefit of a great looking marble.
- When in doubt about marbles for your shower, go for porcelain tiles as they look like marbles and will offer a lot more durability and resistance for your showers.