Why Quartz for Your Next Dining Table?

Considering marble or quartz for the top of your dining table? We’ve created this page just for you. You’ll learn everything you need to make an informed decision when deciding between the two for that new dining table.

While both these materials have high aesthetics, marble and quartz can differ in durability and fragility. For this reason, determining your needs in terms of table size, shape and frequency of use should be a priority before choosing one or the other.

Why is Marble Prone to Breaking?

Because marble has naturally occurring veins and fissures that can become breakpoints when they are mishandled ever so slightly, the stone is prone to breaking in tops larger than 48”. The larger they the more vulnerable it is to breaking. For this reason, we suggest and sell quartz tops for larger tables no matter shape. This way we maintain the beauty and esthetic of stone while eliminating the risk of damage and etching risk as well as the arduous maintenace required of marble.

What is Quartz?

A naturally occurring mineral with extreme hardness, quartz is manufactured into non-porous engineered stone commonly used to create countertops, tabletops, flooring and bathroom surrounds. This stone’s beautiful aesthetics highlighted by naturally occurring movement and color, with less veining than marble, makes it equally as striking visually.

The Pros and Cons of Quartz

Quartz offers an excellent choice for tabletops as it is nonporous and anti-bacterial making it easy to clean and maintain for daily use in the kitchen or dining room.

Quartz can be cleaned with any standard cleaner as it does not require a sealant or wax due to its naturally hard surface.

It provides beauty and strength as a table top in the eat-in kitchen, dining room or meeting room at the office.

While quartz isn’t as busy as marble with less veining, it speaks to a more contemporary and modern style whereas marble tends to be busy and more traditional.

When to Choose Quartz Over Marble

Unlike marble, the strength and durability of quartz make it better suited for oft-used tables and high traffic areas due to its more resistant nature to chipping, cracking, etching and staining.

Marble is more fragile than quartz and can incur damage easily when moving even from room to room.

While quartz is non-porous, marble is quite porous with the proclivity to stain and harbor bacteria making it not the idyllic choice for daily use.

Just as with marble, quartz comes in a wide selection of styles and colors, making it just as versatile décor-wise as its competitor. Quartz can appear less busy and give a more refined appearance making it ideal for today’s modern spaces.

Quartz vs Marble Pricing

Due to marble’s vulnerabilities as natural stone, it takes significant labor during the extraction and honing processes to not break or damage the resulting slabs. Quartz is laborious to produce in that it is engineered and manufactured through multi-step processes. The price points of marble and quartz are often the same or slightly higher than one another depending upon the type and color chosen.

Why Quartz is Better for the Ecology?

Quartz is one of the most abundant materials on earth thusly making it easier to extract and produce and less likely to put a strain on the areas where it is taken.

Our Take on Quartz vs Marble

While we do offer both quartz and marble table tops, we are partial to quartz for its high durability and low fragility compared to marble. We also love the beauty of quartz and have become the only vendor selling and stocking the popular tulip tables with an exciting variety of quartz tops including Marquina quartz, Calacutta quartz, Carrara and Pure White quartz.

Our Sandlake Tulip Style Tables

Mirroring the uncomplicated shape and classic design of Saarinen’s oval Tulip Table, this unfettered pedestal dining table provides all the beauty and function of its iconic counterpart. In the late 1950s, designer and architect Eero Saarinen set out to solve a specific design problem when creating this hallmark table design, “The underside of typical chairs and tables makes a confusing, unrestful world. I wanted to clear up the slum of legs.” The result—his simple yet elegant “legless” pedestal Tulip Table — a must-have piece revered by modern design lovers the world over.

Taking Saarinen’s mission one step further, we’ve topped our tulip pedestal bases with quartz in oval and round shapes in a myriad of sizes up to 96”. We are the only vendor offering this accommodating size ideal for large families or those who love to entertain. 

Our tulip bases are made just like the original Knoll aluminum die cast with thin edges giving it a refined and sophisticated look. The tabletop edges, whether rounded, knoll edge, flat polished or other styles, give the table a finished appeal, leaving the quartz' ultra smooth finish with depth of movement and color underneath.

You'll love the way this classic table with quartz top provides high function coupled with fine aesthetics. It's the ideal choice for minimalist and modern homes with oft-used eat-in kitchens and dining rooms.

Click here to view all of our tulip tables with quartz tops.

Custom Tables and Tabletops Made for You

We also offer custom tables and custom top services so you can get the perfect table made just for you and your space. We can cut custom tables from stock slabs that we keep in inventory. We make custom conference tables for commercial and residential application. You can choose from a plethora of custom edges to suit your needs including round, knoll edge, flat polished and various other edges. Our table tops come in Square, rectangle, round, oval or elliptical.