Soapstone

Dave LOVES soapstone. He lobbied for a long time to have soapstone counters in the kitchen. After extensive research and searching, I vetoed it when I found out the beautiful, uniform black soapstone found in school labs and Martha Stewart's kitchen is now almost impossible to come by. Supplies of soapstone are getting low and most of the stone available now is heavily veined and rarely black.



What I wanted...



What I found...

I do love soapstone too, so ever since the kitchen we have been trying to work it into the house some where... neither of the bathrooms have counters, it is too expensive and heavy to justify for a desktop and our laundry room is just simply out of the question (there is a reason there are no photos of the basement). 
Finally we have found the perfect location to use soapstone - on the hearth in front of the fireplace!

The slabs are the perfect thickness to inlay into the hardwood flooring, the colour will compliment the brick on the mantel and anchor the black cast iron insert, and soapstone has excellent heat retention so it is ideal for a fireplace hearth. Plus we only needed a small peice so we would be able to save money by getting our stone out of remnants from other projects.

Last week I visited the remnant pile at Dauter Stone to pick out a piece of soapstone. They had remnants available in three types of soapstone - I was torn between the charcoal grey Canadian (back) and the deep black green veined Serpentine (front). Ultimately I decided the Canadian soapstone would work better with the grey accents in the brick (really I was scared to commit to the green veins in the Serpentine - too much colour for something so permament!).

Now we just have to wait for our stone to be cut and polished. Hopefully it will arrive soon so we can start the hardwood flooring!

Amy