Builders, interior designers, home owners and architects have loved using marble for generations.
This natural stone is famous for its luxurious aesthetic and its practical durability. From its cool, cold tone, to the rich cloudy veining that gives it its iconic and signature look, the versatility of marble use in a home is nearly endless. Kitchens, bathrooms, walls, flooring, staircases, fireplaces…
However, not everyone wants to deck out their home in top-to-toe marble. This is of course why lots of people choose to feature marble as a stone benchtop for their kitchen or as a vanity in their bathroom.
Most people don’t realise that a marble aesthetic doesn’t limit your ability to incorporate numerous other materials inside your home. Pairing wood and marble can provide a jaw-dropping look to your home, and using a variety of warmer metals to balance the coolness of marble can help bring a room to life in extraordinary ways.
We’ve curated a number of expert design tips for pairing marble with wood and metal to help inspire you on your marble journey.
How to pair marble with wood
- Slatted Wooden Walls
Slatted wooden walls have become very popular in recent years. This unique style of wall adds a glorious dimension to your home by offering a practical partition without preventing or interrupting air flow, obscuring natural light from windows or enclosing the space too much.
Pairing a slatted wooden wall against or by marble wall cladding, flooring or panels not only looks elegant but offers a number of benefits. It won’t block the view of your gorgeous marble stone. It doesn’t block the light bouncing off your light marble tones and it allows the light to filter through in a very interesting way.
- Marble kitchens with wooden cabinets
How and where you decide to use marble in your kitchen is up to you. This stunning natural stone perfectly suits kitchen benchtops, flooring, tabletops or splashbacks. So, how do you match marble kitchens with wood?
A marble counter or splashback is a wonderful complementary design choice with wooden cabinets. If you’re a fan of minimalist or Scandinavian design we recommend light wood against a light marble. If you’re happy to go darker, then this design idea works well too. Pairing elevated wooden cabinetry with low-key marble applications will add texture and depth to your kitchen in an elegant manner.
- Wooden paneling
An excellent opportunity to add a combination of elegant marble and rich wood aesthetics without overdoing either is by combining wall panelling with your flooring. Wooden flooring with marble wall panels, especially if it includes ridges to increase depth, can look absolutely stunning. Alternatively, you can switch this around and use marble flooring with wooden panels on the wall.
A variation of this design includes alternating wall panels with both marble and wood. Done elegantly, this design can be absolutely jaw dropping. Bathroom walls offer a great opportunity for this design idea as well.
- Flooring
If you want to incorporate both wooden flooring and marble flooring in your home we highly recommend opting for a herringbone style floor for your wooden flooring. You can use this in hallways, lounges, dining rooms or even a bedroom. Opting for a running transition to a marble floor in your kitchen, laundry or bathroom will provide a smooth change in material without either looking jarring or out of place.
- Accent furniture or features
Marble can make for an absolutely stunning flooring or wall material. For some people, however, they want to infuse a bit of wooden warmth which is why adding a piece of accent wooden furniture to sit on top or beside your marble can work wonders. Alternatively, opt for a single wooden countertop in your kitchen against a marble splashback or a wooden counter in your bathroom to add a striking feature and break up the marble.
How to pair marble with metal
- Metal backsplash
Metal backsplashes can add a striking visual element to a home and kitchen. In addition to being endlessly practical in a space highly exposed to liquid and water, metal can make a perfectly complementary aesthetic to marble countertops by balancing the natural stone vibes with a semi-industrious but elegant look.
- Brass and marble
Warm metals, like brass, work best with marble as they offer a contrast to the largely light coloured stones. (Though darker marbles are available as well.)
It’s a common design choice to match brass with white or grey marbles to help balance the brightness and darkness of each. Brass faucets or cabinet handles offer a royal sophistication against the marble around it.
- Brass tile trims
An understated but truly eye-catching design idea for brass and metal is to incorporate thin brass tims around marble tiling. Whether you’re using black or white marble, brass metal trimmings will add an inviting sense of warmth and depth to the sleek marble visuals.
- Marble topping
Another Scandinavian-inspired idea that retains a minimalist visual preference while incorporating both metal and marble is to use marble table- or countertops over shiny gold, brass or other warm metals.
This design choice allows you to balance the aesthetics of metal, which can be overwhelming if used too much, with the coolness of a marble benchtop, countertop or table top. A slight variation of this idea is the incorporation of a metal counter in the bathroom above brass or gold cabinetry.
Conclusion
We’ve only just broken the surface on the different and unique options available when incorporating marble stone in your home. Whether you’re looking to combine luxury marble with rich wood or sleek metal, the various options available will help you achieve the ultimate material balance and textual contrast.
If you’d like to find out more about how you can use marble in your home or how to pair it with wood, metal or any other material, get in touch with the Euro Marble team today. We’re always bursting at the seams with marble-related ideas!
