It all started with a container sale, as in shipping container sale…

 

 

Just before Christmas, I stopped by Janet Wiebe’s container sale after work one evening and she had everything listed 50% off! She travels to France, Belgium, Spain and Italy to hand pick antique and decorative items to ship back to Houston to sell to designers and the general public. I purchased a small French iron table, but it came without a top.

 

 

Lucky for me, our neighborhood stone fabricator allowed me to take a look at their scrap pieces of stone. We found a pretty piece of Carrara marble that they cut to fit the iron table base.

 

 

I think it’ll be a perfect outdoor (or indoor) console table at Hannah’s Hill one day soon.  🙂

 

 

I was so happy with the results and the friendly service at Signature Marble & Granite, I wondered if we could use them for any other projects.  We still had a large portion of the Carrara slab leftover…

 

This post came to mind!  So my dad kindly stopped by the house and drew up measurements of the shower benches and half-wall tops.  We decided the shower benches, curbs, and half-walls could be topped with this same remnant marble slab.

 

 

Moe, my new friend at Signature Marble & Granite, agreed to help me cut these pieces.

 

 

So with measurements in hand, I went back to meet him at the shop last weekend.

 

Meet Rex! He was a stray Pit Bull who now happily calls the shop home.

 

 

We planned to use their water jet machine to make our cuts.

 

 

First, we measured and penciled in our cut lines.

 

 

The water jet table has a laser, which is handy for ensuring our lines were perfectly straight.

Then we fired it up and got to cutting!

 

Below, Moe is turning the table 90 degrees for our next cut.

 

The water helps cool the blade and also keeps the dust down.

Moe edges and polishes our master shower bench-top below. We went for a polished square edge for simplicity.

 

 

The smaller pieces got simple square edges too.

Moe was born and raised in Israel, and has been in the States since he was 18.

 

He is a perfectionist and a great source of knowledge when it comes to cutting and installing stone.

 

A close up view shows that the corners are slightly curved and there are no sharp edges.

 

I am so pleased with the results and can’t wait to see how these pieces look in our bathrooms.

 

Stay tuned for that!