Calacatta Sugar Polished Marble Brick Mosaic Tiles

Polishing closes the surface and raises the contrast held within the stone. On Calacatta Sugar the amber, honey and gold ribbons deepen and read considerably warmer than they do on a honed sample cut from the same block, a difference large enough that setting the two side by side is worth doing before committing to a whole room. The creamy ground picks up a slight luminosity in the same process.

The reflection also works on the format. A running bond is made of many small parallel faces, and a polished surface catches light from each of them at a marginally different angle, so a wall does not read as one sheet of gloss but as a fine grid of highlights. In a shower return, a splashback or a cloakroom, that reliably makes the space feel larger than its dimensions.

Two cautions. Polished marble shows acid etching more clearly than any other finish, because a dulled patch sits against a mirror. And the same reflectivity makes it a poor choice where water collects underfoot; this belongs on vertical surfaces far more comfortably than on a floor.