Honed Marble DIY

Did you know you can hone marble yourself at home?

And it’s pretty easy to do.

When we were choosing tile for our Guest Bath,

we fell in love with this honed Carrera marble for the wainscot on the walls:

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But when we went looking for a matching pencil liner tile to finish off the top,

all we could find at a reasonable price had a polished finish.

You can see here how the finish of the liner is much shinier than the honed marble 2 x 4 wall tiles, so it’s just not going to look right.

So I did a little research and discovered that honed marble is a very easy DIY project.

Here’s how to get that nice honed, matte finish on marble:

ETCH THE SURFACE

Soak the marble in white vinegar for a few hours

The acid in the vinegar will etch the surface of the tile and remove the shine.

WET SAND

Sand the marble to remove any remaining shine.

Use 400 grit wet-sanding paper to wet-sand the tile while the vinegar is still on it.

This should completely hone the surface of your piece.

Then rinse and dry and

that’s all there is to it!

Here’s what the honed marble pencil liner looks like installed on top of the wainscot in our bathroom:

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(Be sure to seal your honed marble with the appropriate recommended sealer and keep in mind that honed marble will need to be maintained and re-sealed more often than polished marble.)

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Read more about our bath renovation HERE and HERE

This honing method works very well on small pieces but I’m not sure I would attempt to do a large area like a counter top because I think it would be too hard to get it to etch evenly.

This is our Quartzite slab that’s going to be installed on our kitchen island:

You can see it has a polished finish

but I’m a ‘matte-stone girl’ all the way

so we’re going to have the fabricator hone it —

we think something that big is better left to the pros!

But for something as small and simple as a marble pencil liner —

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I say definitely DIY that honed marble!

Heb. 4:16