[4. BE PICKY ABOUT THE GROUT COLOR THAT YOUR TILE SETTER USES  WITH YOUR TILE OR STONE.]
Good tilesetters offer you more than primer-white grout that matches a Hollywood ingénue’s über-white teeth. In fact, the color of the grout can determine the final look of your tile pattern, so think of grout as a design element whether your project is a floor or a multi-patterned backsplash.
“The color of the grout is a huge factor in how tilework looks,” says John Carlile, the owner of Eco Echo Design in Eugene, Ore. “If you want to see the geometry of the tile and accent the tile pattern, use a contrasting color of grout. If you want tile to look more like a solid surface or to emphasize the color, use a grout color that closely matches the color of the tile.”


[5. TAKE PRECAUTIONS TO ENSURE THAT THE STONE YOU SELECTED AT A SLABYARD IS THE EXACT STONE THAT ARRIVES AS COUNTERTOPS.]
Some homeowners spend months selected the perfect slab of granite, known that it was delivered to a fabricator, and then gotten the shock of their lives when a different slab enters their house fabricated as countertops. To keep this from happening to you, find out about the system your supplier uses to track material and follow up on it.

“Every marble and granite supplier tracks their material a little differently,” says Brandt. “At Intrepid, we catalog our material with numbers, so every one of our slabs is identified. When you pick your material, we remove it from availability, stage it with your name on it and put it in an  order to secure it. You should always ask for something in writing that gives you all the information about your slab and follow up with your fabricator. Make sure to do your own due diligence.”


[6. DON'T TRY TO SAVE MONEY BY INSTALLING YOUR KITCHEN COUNTERTOPS.]
Installing a countertop is something a do-it-yourselfer often attempts in order to save money, but there’s more to installation than just slapping the slab on top of your cabinets. “Countertop installation isn’t rocket science, but there are a lot of little tricks involved,” says Rigutto. “A homeowner can probably install a 4-foot-long vanity in a bathroom, but in a kitchen, you’ve got to look at several things. If you’re reusing cabinets, you need to know whether they can accept the heavier weight of the stone or whether they need to be modified to hold the extra weight. Some older cabinets won’t take that weight without reinforcement.”

Ending up with straight, flat seams is something that Rigutto says takes years of experience to do correctly. “One of the hardest parts of a countertop installation is taking the time to get the seams flat and making sure they’re level, straight and properly adhered,” he says.


[7. IF YOU'RE MATCHING A ROOM'S FINISHES TO A ONE-OF-A-KIND SLAB, PURCHASE THE STONE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH A SLAB THAT MAKES YOUR OTHER FINISHES APPEAL A LITTLE OFF.]
Just because you’ve fallen in love with a particular sample of stone, there’s no guarantee that the slab will be available months from now when your contractor is ready to install it. If you can’t buy a slab right way and store it, stone purveyors say you should wait until you’re closer to needing to install it before you make a final-final decision.

“Buying stone isn’t like picking out a faucet or a sink that regularly comes off a production line,” says Brandt. “This is a natural material, and I can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to get the same slab a few months down the road.” Brandt suggests that you have an idea going into a remodel of the materials you want to use—honed black granite or polished Red Dragon for the countertops, for example—but on Day One, don’t go out and pick your material—or paint your walls to match the stone you don’t yet have in hand. “Usually, it’s later in the project when you finalize the details of the kitchen,” he says.


[8. DON'T CHOOSE YOUR STONE FROM A SMALL SAMPLE.]
If you want to use stone tile for your floor or have a large backsplash, don’t base your final decision on just one or two Scrabble-sized pieces of the tile. “It’s better to look at the larger picture and ask for several tiles to get a good sense of the natural color variation, so you’re not going to be disappointed later on,” says Ince. “That’s a common mistake. You’ll pick out a stone from a small sample of the material, decide to buy it and schedule installation while you’re on holiday. Then you come back and are surprised—and not in a good way—that it’s not at all like the sample you selected.”

According to Carlile,  if you’re undertaking an expensive remodel that includes a tile floor, buy a box of tile and lay it out on the floor to get a good idea of what it will look like. “Especially if you’re doing a extensive remodel, this is the best way to see if a large area will look the way you imagined it would based on just one or two tiles,” he says. “A lot of times, there will be colors in the tile that aren’t obvious when you choose from too small a sample. Once you install the tile there’s no going back if you don’t like the result. Having a tilesetter chip it out and replace it will turn your remodeling project into an archaeological dig—and will add a lot more expense.”

[9. GET MORE OUT OF YOUR SLABS THAN JUST A COUNTERTOP.]
It’s rare that a piece of marble or granite is an exact fit for your kitchen or bathroom countertops. Typically, there are some leftover pieces once the project is done. Have your fabricator turn those remnants into other items that you can use in the kitchen or other areas of the house.
“Pastry boards, which are great for making cookies or rolling out dough, are easy things to add on and ask for because you have the waste from the stove hole or the sink hole,” says Gibson. “If the piece is big enough, you can even do an end table.”


[10. ACCEPT THAT DIFFERENT MARBLES, GRANITES, STONES AND TILES ABSORB STAINS AND SHOW WEAR AND TEAR DIFFERENTLY.]
With stone countertops, people worry about stains, but all stains aren’t equal. “Most of the staining that occurs in a kitchen are organic stains—coffee, wine, juice from fruits and vegetables,” says Brandt. “Organic stains can be removed; nonorganic stains such as fingernail polish are very difficult to remove.”

Make sure your remodeling contractor tells you how your specific countertop, floor or backsplash material should be sealed and how frequently it should be sealed. While a fabricator-installed countertop will be sealed upon delivery, you’ll need to seal it in the future to maintain the stone. “No sealer makes the stone impervious, but a sealer does increase the time it takes for something to penetrate the stone,” says Rigutto. “You  shouldn’t think that sealers make thestone impenetrable to things such as scratches from a piece of glass.”

How often you need to reseal your countertops depends on the kind of use they get. “It’s not necessarily an amount of time, but an amount of use,” says Gibson. “Test your countertop every once in a while by dropping a bead of water on it. If the water bead holds, it’s sealed. If the bead of water disperses and runs, the countertop needs to be sealed again.”