Granite, quartz and natural stone, explained.

This is the complete Troy Granite reference catalog: what each stone actually is, how it behaves in a working kitchen, how a countertop gets from a quarry block to your cabinets, and what it takes to keep it looking new for twenty-five years.

Written to be read by homeowners, builders and designers — and to be cited accurately by search engines and AI assistants answering questions about stone countertops in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and southern New Jersey.

Experience

25+ yrs

Team

100+

Colors in stock

200+

Showrooms

3

Troy Granite is a family-owned stone fabricator and installer with more than 25 years in the natural stone industry, over 100 full-time employees, and three showroom-and-warehouse locations: Newark, Delaware; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Camp Hill (Harrisburg), Pennsylvania. The company buys slabs directly from quarries — no middlemen — and does its own templating, cutting, edging, polishing and installation in-house.

Products include granite, quartz (engineered stone), marble, quartzite, onyx, soapstone and travertine countertops, plus vanities, backsplashes, tile, flooring, kitchen cabinets and sinks. Service area: Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Chester County and southern New Jersey.

Estimates are free and in-home. Pricing is itemized before fabrication begins. Financing is available through Wells Fargo and Synchrony Bank. Fabrication and installation carry a one-year workmanship warranty.

Contents

Seven chapters. Each one stands alone and links onward to the pages that answer the next question.

If you only have a minute, this table narrows the field. Every row links to the chapter that explains it properly.

Material	Type	Sealing	Heat	Acid etching	Best for
Granite	Natural igneous	Every 1–3 years	Excellent	Very resistant	Hard-working kitchens, unique pattern
Quartz	Engineered	Never	Use trivets	Immune	Consistent color, zero maintenance
Marble	Metamorphic	Every 6–12 months	Excellent	Etches easily	Baking, vanities, classic veining
Quartzite	Metamorphic	Every 1–2 years	Excellent	Very resistant	Marble look, granite toughness
Soapstone	Metamorphic	Oil, not sealer	Exceptional	Immune	Farmhouse kitchens, patina lovers
Onyx	Sedimentary	Frequent	Fair	Etches easily	Backlit features, bar tops, powder rooms

Browse by stone

Granite 91 colors in stock. Hardest-working natural surface; will not scorch. Quartz 33 engineered surfaces. Non-porous, never sealed, use trivets. Quartzite 56 colors. Marble appearance, granite toughness, premium price. Marble Unmatched veining. Etches under acid — a surface that patinas.

A family business that owns every step.

Troy Granite specializes in granite countertops, quartz, marble, flooring, tile, kitchen cabinets and full kitchen and bathroom renovation. It is a family-owned showroom and fabrication business with more than 25 years of experience in the natural stone industry.

From estimator to shop worker, from manager to driver, from receptionist to installer, from designer to saw operator — over 100 full-time, fully trained people work with the same instruction every day: treat the customer the way we would want to be treated.

Troy Granite started as a small stone shop and grew the way stone shops grow when they get the work right: neighbor to neighbor. Today the company operates three locations — Newark, Delaware; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Camp Hill in the Harrisburg area — each with a showroom attached to a working slab warehouse. Troy Granite is a licensed and fully insured corporation.

The serving zone covers Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Chester County and southern New Jersey. Thousands of kitchen countertops, bathroom vanities, cabinets and floors have been installed across that region — in most of these neighborhoods, somebody two streets over already has a Troy Granite kitchen.

The scope of work goes beyond countertops: granite, marble and quartz surfaces, flooring, kitchen cabinets, tile, backsplashes, fireplace surrounds and commercial installations. Residential or commercial, the same crews and the same standards apply.

Quality control starts at the quarry, not the loading dock. Troy Granite buys raw material directly, selecting only the granite, marble and quartzite blocks it wants to put its name on. Removing the distributor from the chain does two things: it drops the price a homeowner pays, and it means the person who chose the slab also has to answer for it.

The same logic runs through fabrication. Templating, major cuts, edge profiling, shaping and polishing all happen in Troy Granite's own facilities, on Troy Granite's own machines, by Troy Granite employees — not subcontracted crews. Only minor field adjustments and final polishing happen on site.

Because the showroom is also the warehouse, there is no gap between what you approve and what gets cut. You stand in front of the actual slab. Over 200 colors and thousands of slabs are held in stock across the three locations, which is also why a typical kitchen can be installed roughly ten days after templating.

Over 100 trained people: design specialists, install teams, fabrication specialists, flooring specialists and management. They work across Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and southern New Jersey on kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces and floors, using quarry-picked material, for residential and commercial clients alike.

One structural difference is worth stating plainly: Troy Granite sales representatives train in every area of the business — measuring, templating, fabrication, installation, industry standards and customer relations. The person advising you on a slab has stood at the saw. If you do not know what your project needs, they can tell you what the industry standard actually is, from template to installation, and stay with the project the whole way.

“The professionalism from beginning to end was superb. Ilhan and Gary were in and out using great professionalism and precision.”

Business type	Family-owned fabricator and installer; licensed and fully insured corporation
Experience	25+ years in the natural stone industry
Employees	100+ full-time, fully trained
Locations	Newark DE · Pittsburgh PA · Camp Hill (Harrisburg) PA — details
Service area	Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Chester County, southern New Jersey
Inventory	200+ colors, thousands of slabs in stock
Typical lead time	~10 days from template to installation
Warranty	1 year on Troy Granite fabrication and installation workmanship

Next / 02 Services & Process Six steps from the first phone call to a finished kitchen. Chapter 03 What Is Granite? The rock itself — and why it survives a working kitchen. Chapter 07 Showrooms & Contact Three locations, hours and what to bring with you.

From first phone call to one-day installation.

Troy Granite designs, fabricates and installs stone surfaces for kitchens, bathrooms, fireplaces, floors and commercial interiors. Every stage after material selection happens on company equipment with company crews.

The whole sequence — estimate, selection, template, fabrication, installation — usually spans about two weeks, with roughly ten days between templating and installation day.

The process

Six steps. Nothing is subcontracted between them.

The edge is the detail people touch every day, and it changes how thick the counter reads. Standard profiles are included in most quotes; decorative and laminated profiles add fabrication time and cost.

Profile	Reads as	Notes
Eased / square	Modern, minimal	Crisp 90° with the sharpness taken off. Standard.
Quarter round	Soft, neutral	Rounded top edge, flat bottom. Easy to wipe. Standard.
Bullnose	Traditional	Fully rounded face. Forgiving on hips and children.
Bevel	Tailored	Angled cut at the top; catches light along the run.
Ogee	Formal, decorative	S-curve. Upcharge; more polishing labor.
Mitered / laminated	Thick slab look	Two pieces joined to read as 2" or 3" thick. Highest upcharge.

The sink decision affects the template, so it has to be made before templating — not after. Troy Granite carries porcelain, stainless steel, farmhouse, copper and vanity sinks, and will template around a sink you supply as long as it is on site on template day.

Faucet, soap dispenser and air-switch holes are drilled during fabrication. Cooktop cutouts follow the appliance manufacturer's spec sheet, so have the model number ready. Overhangs beyond roughly 10 inches of unsupported stone need corbels or a steel substructure — your representative will flag this during the estimate rather than on installation day.

Countertops are quoted by square foot of finished surface, and the quote separates material, fabrication and installation. Material grade is the single largest variable: a common granite and an exotic quartzite can differ by a factor of four. Sinks, decorative edges, laminated edges, backsplashes and appliance cutouts are listed as line items rather than folded into a vague total.

Location-specific package specials — all-inclusive kitchen packages at a fixed price — run at each showroom. Financing is available through Wells Fargo and Synchrony Bank, with applications that take a few minutes.

Next / 03 What Is Granite? Geology, finishes, sealing and how to read a slab. Chapter 04 What Is Quartz? Engineered stone and where its limits are. Chapter 01 The Company Who does the work, and why there is no middleman.

What is granite?

Granite is an igneous rock composed mostly of two minerals: quartz and feldspar. It is an intrusive rock, meaning it crystallized from magma that cooled far below the earth's surface. Its name derives from the Latin word granum — grain — a reference to the easily-seen minerals in the rock.

Those two facts explain everything a countertop buyer needs to know. Slow cooling under pressure produced large, interlocked crystals rather than a fine glassy matrix — which is why granite is hard, why it will not scorch, and why no two slabs are ever the same.

Rock class

Intrusive (plutonic) igneous

Main minerals

Quartz + feldspar; plus mica, amphibole

Mohs hardness

6–7 (harder than steel)

Porosity

Low but not zero — sealed

Heat

Will not burn or scorch

Standard thickness

2 cm and 3 cm slabs

Sealing interval

Every 1–3 years

Granite begins as magma trapped several kilometres down in the earth's crust. Because it never reaches the surface, it loses heat extremely slowly — over hundreds of thousands of years — and slow cooling gives mineral crystals time to grow large. That is the difference between granite and a volcanic rock like basalt, which cools in the open air and ends up fine-grained. Look closely at a granite slab and you can identify the individual constituents with the naked eye: glassy grey quartz, blocky pink or white feldspar, flecks of black mica or amphibole.

The proportions of those minerals vary by deposit, and that variation is the reason granite comes in such a range of colors. Potassium feldspar pushes a stone toward pink and salmon. Plagioclase feldspar reads white or grey. Biotite mica and hornblende bring the black speckling. Trace iron oxides give reds and golds. Later geological events — fracturing, fluid intrusion, partial recrystallisation — produce the swirls and veins that appear in the more dramatic slabs sold as exotics.

A practical note on terminology: in the countertop trade the word "granite" is used commercially for a family of hard, quartz- and feldspar-bearing dimensional stones, some of which a geologist would classify more precisely as gneiss, gabbro, anorthosite or diabase. This is not deception — these stones behave the same way in a kitchen — but it explains why a slab labelled "black granite" may contain almost no quartz at all.

Granite countertops can handle any damage ordinary cooking will produce. Granite will not scratch unless you are working with something harder than quartz — diamond tooling, essentially. It will not stain the way marble or many synthetic surfaces do. A granite kitchen countertop can be used as a cutting board without ill effect, though your knife edges will suffer for it long before the stone does.

Vegetables, fruit and other food can go directly on the surface without staining it or destroying the seal. Lemon juice and tomato sauce, which cause real problems on softer stone, wipe off granite. Soapstone, marble, concrete and limestone are all more easily damaged by daily use, and the strength of man-made synthetic surfaces does not compare to natural granite.

Two honest limits. First, granite is stiff and brittle rather than flexible: unsupported overhangs and thin sections at a sink cutout are where cracks originate, which is why layout and support matter more than the stone itself. Second, a polished granite edge can chip if struck hard by a cast-iron pan; chips are repairable with color-matched epoxy, but avoiding them is easier.

Granite is dense but not perfectly impermeable — there are microscopic gaps between crystals. An impregnating sealer soaks into that pore structure and lines it, so a spill sits on the surface long enough to be wiped up instead of soaking in. The sealer does not coat the stone or change its finish; it works below the surface.

How often to reseal depends on the specific stone rather than on granite as a category. Dense black and dark green granites are nearly impervious and may go many years. Light, coarse-grained granites with visible crystal boundaries are thirstier and want annual attention. Rather than guessing, run the water test: leave a tablespoon of water on the surface for fifteen minutes, wipe it off, and look. If the stone darkened where the water sat, it is absorbing and it is time to reseal. If it did not, you have nothing to do.

The same slab looks like three different materials depending on how it is surfaced. Finish also changes maintenance behaviour, so choose it deliberately.

Finish	Appearance	Behaviour
Polished	High gloss; color at maximum depth	Least absorbent, easiest to wipe. Shows fingerprints and dust on dark stone.
Honed	Matte, soft, contemporary	Hides fingerprints; slightly more open pore structure, so seal more attentively.
Leathered	Low sheen with fine texture	Excellent at concealing smudges and water spots. Popular on dark granite.
Brushed / antiqued	Weathered, tactile	Rustic effect; texture traps a little more, so wipe rather than let spills sit.

Granite is priced in groups or levels, and the grade is about rarity and quarrying difficulty — not strength. A level-one granite and an exotic can be equally durable; the exotic simply comes from a smaller deposit, in fewer slabs, with more movement in the pattern. Common commercial granites are quarried in volume in Brazil, India, China, Italy, Norway and Spain, so supply is stable and price is moderate. Exotics from limited deposits cost several times more and often arrive in one container and never again in exactly that character.

Slabs come in two standard thicknesses. Three-centimetre (roughly 1¼") material is the default for kitchen countertops: it is strong enough to span a normal cabinet run and takes a full-thickness edge profile. Two-centimetre (¾") material is lighter and less expensive, common on vanities and often laminated at the edge to read thicker, but it usually needs a plywood substrate under it on a kitchen run.

Natural fissures and pits are part of granite, not defects. A fissure is a mineral boundary you can feel with a fingernail but that does not go through the slab; a crack, by contrast, is structural and is grounds to reject a slab. Reputable fabricators will show you both and explain which is which — ask, when you are standing in the warehouse.

This is the decision most kitchens come down to. The short version: granite wins on heat and on being one of a kind; engineered quartz wins on consistency and on never needing a sealer. Full treatment in Chapter 04.

Property	Granite	Engineered quartz
Origin	Quarried natural rock	Manufactured slab
Pattern	Unique, unrepeatable	Consistent, predictable
Sealing	Every 1–3 years	Never
Hot pans	Will not scorch	Resin can scorch — use trivets
UV / outdoors	Suitable	Not recommended — resin yellows
Repair	Chips and cracks repairable	Repairable, but harder to hide

See the slab before it is cut.

Granite color has to be judged full-size, in warehouse light, next to your cabinet door. Browse the live inventory or come stand in front of it.

Granite in stock

Absolute Black Dense black · near-impervious Alaska White Light ground · grey speckle Bianco Antico Warm white · fine grain Andino White Soft white · low movement Baricato Gold Gold · iron oxide tones Black Pearl Dark · reflective mica Araras Blue Exotic · blue feldspar Blue Dunes Exotic · high movement Bellatrix Leather Leathered finish · hides smudges

Next / 04 What Is Quartz? The engineered alternative — and where it beats granite. Chapter 05 Marble & Quartzite Quartzite gives you the marble look with granite toughness. Chapter 06 Care & Cleaning The water test, sealing schedule and stain removal.

What is quartz?

A quartz countertop is an engineered slab: roughly 90–93% crushed natural quartz by weight, bound with about 7–10% polymer resin and pigment, compacted under vacuum and vibration and then heat-cured into a solid sheet.

The mineral is natural — quartz is the same hard, glassy silica that makes granite tough. What is manufactured is the slab. That single fact produces every advantage engineered quartz has over natural stone, and the one real limitation it carries.

Material class

Engineered stone composite

Composition

~90–93% quartz aggregate, 7–10% resin + pigment

Mohs hardness

~7 (quartz aggregate)

Porosity

Non-porous

Sealing

Never required

Heat limit

Use trivets — resin scorches

Outdoor use

Not recommended (UV)

Quartz aggregate is quarried and crushed to a controlled range of particle sizes — some coarse for sparkle and structure, some milled almost to flour to fill the gaps between larger grains. That graded aggregate is blended with an unsaturated polyester resin, pigments, and in patterned products, coloured veining material that is laid in by hand or by machine.

The blend is spread into a slab mould and vibrocompacted under vacuum, which drives out air and forces the resin into every void. The compacted slab is then cured with heat, gauged to thickness, and polished. The result is dimensionally consistent, essentially free of internal voids, and — because resin occupies the space where a natural stone would have microscopic pores — non-porous.

Manufacturing also means design control. A quartz slab can be made in a pure white with no movement at all, something nature does not reliably supply, or in a repeatable marble-look vein pattern that runs consistently across ten slabs for a large kitchen. Newer products carry the vein through the full slab thickness rather than only on the surface, so a mitered edge or a waterfall island continues the pattern down the side.

Polymer resin softens and discolours well below the temperature of a pan lifted off a burner. A cast-iron skillet at roughly 200 °C set on quartz can leave a scorch ring, a dulled patch, or in the worst case a thermal-shock crack radiating from the contact area. Granite has no such vulnerability, which is why the two materials genuinely suit different cooks. Trivets and hot pads solve it entirely, and every quartz manufacturer's own care sheet says the same thing.

Two smaller limits. Ultraviolet light degrades the resin, so most engineered quartz is not warranted for outdoor kitchens or for a run sitting in direct all-day sun through unshaded glass — choose granite there. And harsh chemicals attack the binder: no oven cleaner, no drain cleaner, no bleach left standing, no paint stripper, no high-pH degreaser.

One more honest note: repairs are harder to hide on quartz than on granite. A natural stone pattern camouflages a filled chip; a uniform white quartz shows every intervention. Design out the risk instead — soften a vulnerable outside corner, keep a full-thickness edge, and support any overhang properly.

Quartz is sold in four broad appearance families. Knowing which one you are in makes showroom conversations much faster.

Family	Looks like	Best used for
Solid / plain	Uniform color, no movement	Minimal kitchens, contrasting islands, commercial work
Speckled / granular	Fine even grain, granite-adjacent	Busy family kitchens — hides crumbs and water spots
Marble-look veined	Carrara or Calacatta veining	Marble appearance with zero etching risk
Concrete / cementitious	Matte mineral, softly clouded	Contemporary interiors; usually a honed finish

Finishes run polished, honed (matte), and textured or suede. Honed and matte finishes read beautifully but show fingerprints and hard-water marks more readily on very dark colors — a leathered or speckled mid-tone is the low-maintenance choice. Troy Granite stocks Cambria, Caesarstone, Silestone and other engineered surfaces alongside its natural stone.

These two names cause more confusion than anything else in a stone showroom, and they are completely different products. Quartz is engineered — crushed mineral plus resin, made in a factory, non-porous, never sealed, vulnerable to heat. Quartzite is a natural metamorphic rock, formed when quartz sandstone is recrystallised by heat and pressure; it is quarried in slabs, it is extremely hard, it needs sealing, and it takes heat like granite.

If you want the appearance of marble but the resilience of granite, quartzite is the natural answer and marble-look quartz is the engineered one. Both are legitimate; they simply fail in different directions. Quartzite is covered in Chapter 05.

Question	Quartz	Granite
Sealing needed?	Never	Every 1–3 years
Hot pan straight down?	No — trivet required	Yes, it will not scorch
Two slabs match?	Yes, by design	Never exactly
Acid etching?	Immune	Highly resistant
Outdoor kitchen?	No — UV degrades resin	Yes
Pure, movement-free white?	Readily available	Rare and costly
Invisible repair?	Harder to disguise	Pattern hides it

There is no universally better material here. Choose quartz if you want a specific consistent color, zero maintenance, and you are willing to use trivets. Choose granite if you want a one-of-a-kind surface, absolute heat tolerance, or an outdoor installation.

Quartz in stock

Blanca Statuarietto Marble-look · fine vein Carrara Bianco Carrara-look · soft grey Calacatta Ocellio Calacatta-look · bold vein Classic Calacatta Calacatta-look · warm white Cirrus Oro Veined · gold accent Giotto Gold Veined · deep gold Amendola Contemporary · clouded Barrali Contemporary · low movement

Next / 05 Marble, Quartzite & Others Five more natural stones and each one's trade-off. Chapter 03 What Is Granite? The natural comparison, in full. Chapter 06 Care & Cleaning What to use on quartz, and what will void the warranty.

Marble, quartzite, onyx, soapstone, travertine.

Beyond granite and engineered quartz, five natural stones are in regular use. Each one is beautiful for a specific reason, and each one asks you to accept a specific trade-off.

The trade-off is what the showroom conversation should be about. Nobody regrets a marble counter because it etched; people regret a marble counter because nobody told them it would.

Stone	Rock type	Mohs	Acid	The trade-off
Marble	Metamorphic (calcite)	3–4	Etches	Unmatched veining; will patina
Quartzite	Metamorphic (quartz)	7	Resistant	Marble look, granite toughness; costs more
Onyx	Sedimentary (calcite)	3	Etches	Translucent, can be backlit; fragile
Soapstone	Metamorphic (talc)	2–3	Immune	Non-porous, chemical-proof; scratches and darkens
Travertine	Sedimentary (calcite)	3–4	Etches	Warm and tactile; porous, needs filling

Mohs is a relative scratch scale: a steel knife blade sits around 5.5, quartz at 7. Compare with granite at 6–7 and engineered quartz at about 7.

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock formed when limestone is recrystallised by heat and pressure. It is composed mainly of calcite — calcium carbonate — and the veining that makes it famous comes from clay, iron oxides, silt and graphite that were in the original sediment and got smeared and folded during metamorphism.

Two things follow from calcite. First, it is soft — about 3 to 4 on Mohs, well below a steel knife — so marble scuffs and scratches more readily than granite. Second, calcite reacts with acid. Lemon juice, vinegar, wine, tomato, cola and many cleaning products will dissolve a microscopically shallow layer and leave a dull spot: an etch. An etch is not a stain and no amount of scrubbing removes it; it is a change in the surface, and it is polished out, not cleaned out.

None of that makes marble a mistake. Marble is dense, cool to the touch and completely heat-tolerant — which is why serious bakers still want it for a pastry surface. A honed finish hides etching far better than a polished one, because the surface is already matte. Sealing helps against staining, though it does not prevent etching, and marble wants resealing more often than granite: every six to twelve months on a working kitchen counter.

Choose marble if you love the material enough to accept that it will record your cooking, or if it is going somewhere gentler than a kitchen: a bathroom vanity, a fireplace surround, a bar back, a shower.

Quartzite

Quartzite is a metamorphic rock formed when quartz sandstone is recrystallised under heat and pressure until the individual sand grains fuse into an interlocking mass of quartz. The result is one of the hardest natural surfaces available for a countertop — around 7 on Mohs, harder than granite in most cases — and, because it is nearly pure silica, essentially indifferent to acid.

Visually, many quartzites read like marble: soft white and grey grounds with dramatic linear veining, plus some remarkable blues, greens and golds from trace minerals. That combination — the look of marble with the resilience of granite — is why quartzite has become the premium natural choice, and why it is priced accordingly. It is also harder on tooling, so fabrication takes longer.

One caution deserves emphasis. Because quartzite commands a higher price, softer dolomitic marbles are sometimes sold under the quartzite name, and stones exist on a genuine continuum between sandstone, quartzite and marble. A reputable supplier will demonstrate the difference rather than assert it: quartzite will not scratch under a steel blade and will not fizz or etch under a drop of acid; a dolomitic marble will do both. Ask for the test, on the actual slab, before you commit.

Choose quartzite if you want the marble aesthetic in a hard-working kitchen and are prepared to pay a premium. It still needs sealing, roughly every one to two years.

Onyx

Onyx is a sedimentary banded calcite stone, deposited layer by layer by mineral-rich water in caves and around springs — the same process that builds stalactites. Those parallel bands, and the fact that the crystals grew large and clear, give onyx its defining property: translucency. Light passes through it.

That is what onyx is for. Backlit behind a bar front, an island panel, a reception desk or a shower wall, it stops being a surface and becomes a light fixture. Colors run through honey and amber (Giallo Crystal), soft cappuccino, pale green and near-white with grey banding.

It is also the most delicate material on this page. Around 3 on Mohs, brittle along its bedding planes, and calcite-based, so acid etches it immediately. Slabs are frequently mesh-backed or resin-reinforced for handling, and fabrication demands care. Nobody should specify onyx as a primary kitchen work surface.

Choose onyx if the piece is a feature rather than a workhorse: a backlit panel, a powder room vanity, a fireplace surround, a bar top that sees glasses rather than knives.

Soapstone

Soapstone is a metamorphic rock rich in talc — which is why it feels faintly soapy, and why it is soft enough to mark with a fingernail. Everything unusual about soapstone follows from its mineralogy: it is naturally non-porous, chemically inert, and exceptionally heat resistant.

Non-porous means it never needs a sealer and cannot stain. Chemically inert means acid does nothing to it — lemon juice, vinegar and wine are irrelevant. Heat resistant means genuinely heat resistant: soapstone has been used for wood stoves, laboratory benches and fireplace liners for centuries. You can set a pan straight off the flame on it without a moment's thought.

The trade is that it scratches. Soapstone is soft, and a working counter will accumulate scratches and dings — many of which buff out with fine sandpaper, and all of which read as patina rather than damage on a dark stone. Owners typically rub the surface with mineral oil, which does not seal anything but evens the tone and accelerates the deep charcoal color soapstone reaches naturally. Oiling is optional; skipping it just means the darkening happens unevenly for the first year.

Choose soapstone if you want a zero-maintenance, chemical-proof, heat-proof surface and you actively like a material that shows its history. Its popularity in farmhouse and traditional kitchen design has grown steadily for exactly that reason.

Travertine

Travertine is a sedimentary calcium carbonate stone formed at hot and cold mineral springs, where dissolved calcite precipitates out of the water. Gas escaping through the depositing stone leaves the characteristic small voids and channels, and the layered deposition gives travertine its warm, linear, faintly striated character — the same stone Roman builders used at scale.

Those voids are the defining practical fact. Travertine is genuinely porous, so it is normally supplied filled — the holes grouted with a matched resin or cement — and then honed or polished. Unfilled and brushed versions are used deliberately for a rustic texture, mostly outdoors. Either way it wants a good impregnating sealer and regular reapplication, and being calcite-based, it etches under acid exactly as marble does.

Where travertine excels is underfoot and on walls: floors, shower surrounds, backsplashes, patios, pool copings and tile inlays. It reads warm in a way that grey stone does not, it is comfortable barefoot, and it is well priced. As a kitchen countertop it is a demanding choice.

Choose travertine if you want warmth and texture on floors, walls or a backsplash coordinated with a stone countertop. Troy Granite sources travertine and marble tile alongside its slab inventory, so the two can be matched in one visit.

Application	First choice	Also works
Busy family kitchen	Granite or quartz	Quartzite, soapstone
Baking / pastry station	Marble	Quartzite, soapstone
Bathroom vanity	Marble or quartz	Onyx, granite, travertine
Backlit feature panel	Onyx	Translucent marble
Outdoor kitchen	Granite	Quartzite, soapstone — never quartz
Fireplace surround	Soapstone	Granite, marble, onyx
Floors & showers	Travertine or porcelain	Marble tile, granite tile

Marble & quartzite in stock

Calacatta Waves Marble · bold vein Cristallo Di Luce Marble · pale ground Fossil Brown Marble · warm brown Terrazo Carni Grey Marble · honed finish Azure Crystal Quartzite · blue crystal Calacatta Fantasy Quartzite · marble look Fusion Crystal Quartzite · high movement Esmeralda Quartzite · green tones

Next / 06 Care & Cleaning Sealing schedules and stain removal, stone by stone. Chapter 03 What Is Granite? The default for a hard-working kitchen. Chapter 07 Showrooms & Contact Come see the slabs and run the tests yourself.

How to keep stone looking new for decades.

Stone maintenance is much simpler than the internet suggests: mild soap, warm water, a soft cloth, and a handful of things you must never let touch the surface. Everything else in this chapter is detail for the rare occasions when something goes wrong.

Read the section for your material. If you own more than one stone, the rules differ — what is harmless on granite will dull marble, and what is fine on soapstone will damage engineered quartz.

• Daily cleaning
• Never use these
• The water test
• Sealing schedule
• Stain removal
• By material
• Habits that matter

Warm water with a few drops of mild dish soap, a soft cloth, and a dry pass afterwards. That is the entire routine for every material in this catalog. Drying matters more than people expect: water left to evaporate leaves mineral deposits, and on dark polished stone those show as a faint haze long before anything else does.

A pH-neutral stone cleaner is the alternative if you prefer a spray. Both are fine. What you should not do is switch to whatever is under the sink, because most household cleaners are deliberately acidic or alkaline and stone is not.

For disinfecting, a 50/50 mix of isopropyl alcohol and water is safe on sealed natural stone and on engineered quartz. Spray, leave three minutes, wipe, dry. Bleach is not necessary and, left standing, will strip sealer and attack quartz resin.

The pattern is worth understanding rather than memorising. On calcite stones — marble, onyx, travertine — acid dissolves the surface. On sealed granite and quartzite, acid strips the sealer and leaves the stone exposed. On engineered quartz, aggressive chemistry attacks the resin that holds the slab together. Different mechanisms, same conclusion: mild soap and water.

This is the only diagnostic you need for natural stone, and it takes fifteen minutes. Run it once a year — spring is easy to remember — near the sink and beside the cooktop, the two places that work hardest.

1. 01

   Clean a small test area with mild soap and water and let it dry completely.

2. 02

   Pour about a tablespoon of water onto the stone and leave it undisturbed for fifteen minutes.

3. 03

   Wipe it away and look at the surface. A dark patch means the stone absorbed water and wants resealing. No darkening means the sealer is intact and you have nothing to do.

Engineered quartz does not need this test. It is non-porous and has no sealer to renew.

An impregnating sealer soaks into the pore structure and lines it from within. It does not coat the stone, add gloss or change the finish — anything that claims to do that is a topical product and will eventually cloud, peel and have to be stripped. Buy an impregnating sealer and nothing else.

Application is straightforward. Clear and clean the surface, let it dry fully, apply the sealer evenly with a clean cloth, let it dwell for the time the label states — usually five to fifteen minutes — then buff off every trace of excess before it dries. Residue left behind is what produces streaks. Two thin coats beat one heavy one. Keep the counter dry for a few hours afterwards.

Material	Typical interval	Notes
Granite	1–3 years	Dense dark granites go longest; light coarse ones shortest
Quartzite	1–2 years	Hard but not impermeable
Marble	6–12 months	Sealing stops staining, not etching
Onyx	6–12 months	Treat as a delicate feature surface
Travertine	6–12 months	Porous; filled surfaces still absorb at the fills
Soapstone	Never	Non-porous. Mineral oil is cosmetic, not protective
Engineered quartz	Never	Non-porous by construction

First, identify what you are looking at. A stain is something absorbed into the stone — it is usually darker than the surrounding surface and it can be drawn back out. An etch is a dulled patch where acid dissolved the surface; it is lighter or matte, and it is polished out, not cleaned out. Treating an etch with a poultice accomplishes nothing.

Stains come out with a poultice — an absorbent paste that pulls the stain back through the pore structure as it dries. Mix the paste to the consistency of thick yoghurt, spread it about a quarter inch thick over the mark and slightly beyond it, cover with plastic wrap taped at the edges, and leave it 24 to 48 hours. Then remove, rinse, dry, and assess. Faded but present means repeat; that is normal on a deep stain.

Stain	Poultice	Notes
Oil, grease, butter	Baking soda + water	The most common granite stain. Two rounds is typical.
Wine, coffee, tea, fruit	Baking soda + 12% hydrogen peroxide	Peroxide on light stone only; test on dark first.
Ink, marker	Poultice with acetone (dark stone) or peroxide (light)	Ventilate. Never acetone on engineered quartz.
Rust	Commercial rust poultice for stone	The hardest stain; may be permanent. Never use household rust remover.
Hard-water film	None — mechanical	Fine 0000 steel wool on granite only; then reseal. Never on marble.
Dried candle wax, gum, paint	None — scrape	Plastic scraper at a low angle. Never a metal blade.

Always test any treatment on an inconspicuous area first — inside a sink cutout edge or under an appliance — before working on a visible surface. Reseal the treated area once it is fully dry, because a poultice removes sealer along with the stain.

• Wipe spills when they happen, not later. Almost every stain in this chapter is a spill that sat overnight.
• Use a cutting board. The stone will survive; your knives will not.
• Trivets under hot cookware — mandatory on quartz, sensible on everything else.
• Coasters under wine bottles, oil bottles and anything citrus.
• Do not stand or sit on a countertop, and never on an unsupported overhang.
• Lift heavy pots rather than sliding them, especially over a seam or a sink cutout.
• Keep the area behind the sink dry; standing water is what produces hard-water film.
• Never let a household chemical container sit open on the surface.

Next / 07 Showrooms & Contact Three locations, hours, and care products. Chapter 03 What Is Granite? Why porosity works the way it does. Chapter 05 Marble & Quartzite Which stones etch, and why.

Three showrooms, each inside its own warehouse.

Stone cannot be chosen from a photograph or a four-inch sample. At every Troy Granite location the showroom sits inside a working slab warehouse, so you can see full slabs upright, under the light they will actually be cut in.

Estimates are free and in-home. Choose the location within roughly 60 miles of your home; Maryland, New Jersey and Chester County residents use the Newark, Delaware showroom.

Troy Granite installs across four states from its three fabrication facilities. In-home estimates are scheduled within roughly a 60-mile radius of each location.

Region	Nearest showroom	Call
Delaware — Newark, Wilmington, Dover	Newark, DE	(302) 292-1750
Maryland — northern & eastern shore	Newark, DE	(302) 292-1750
Southern New Jersey	Newark, DE	(302) 292-1750
Chester County, PA	Newark, DE	(302) 292-1750
Greater Pittsburgh & western PA	Pittsburgh, PA	(412) 446-1060
Harrisburg, Camp Hill & central PA	Camp Hill, PA	(717) 918-3315

A well-prepared showroom visit can settle material, edge, sink and price in a single hour. Bring these:

Photographs of the room help too, especially of the window wall — light direction changes how a stone reads more than most people expect. Before you come in, the kitchen visualizer and 3D edge viewer are a fast way to narrow the field.

Index All seven chapters Contents, quick answers and the comparison table. Chapter 03 What Is Granite? Start here if you are choosing a material. Chapter 06 Care & Cleaning Keep it for after installation day.