You’ve probably admired beautiful granite countertops in the homes of friends or family. Perhaps you’re considering it for a project in your home. Granite has been a popular surface for kitchen countertops and other household applications for a couple of decades. It’s a beautiful surface with an interesting story.
Formation
Granite, like all natural stones, is formed deep in the Earth. It begins in a molten state as part of the earth’s magma and over time pushes upward where it hardens and is shifted by the tectonic plates beneath the surface of the earth. Over millennia, this upward push and shifting settles the stones into many areas of the globe. Sometimes it is pushed up through the surface into mountains; other times it sits below the surface under our feet.
Early Applications
Granite was used as a building material in some of the Egyptian pyramids, the Romans used it for their roads, government buildings and most notably to build the Pantheon. The ancient Greeks valued granite for its strength and used it as structural support for architectural features such as columns.
In the Medieval and Renaissance periods, granite was used to build castles, forts, city walls and bridges as well as iconic cathedrals throughout Europe. In the later years of this period, as the technology improved, granite was used to construct homes and luxurious baths and pools for the wealthy.
Contemporary Applications
Today, granite is used as cladding for buildings and for many interior design applications such as countertops, vanity tops, and fireplace surrounds. Boston Granite Exchange sources the granite slabs displayed in our showrooms from Brazil, India, the United States, Italy and Canada.
For over 25 years, we’ve been building relationships with quarry owners so we can bring the finest quality and the most current designs of natural stone, including granite, to our showrooms and ultimately to fabricators, interior designers, kitchen and bath dealers and homeowners throughout New England.
If you are planning a home renovation project, we invite you to visit one of our showrooms in Haverhill or West Bridgewater, MA to see the many natural stones, including beautiful, durable and easy to care for granite, we have available. Our inventory changes frequently, so there is always something new to see. Visit the showroom that is most convenient to your location – if a stone you are interested in seeing is located at our other location, we can arrange to have it transported; our trucks go between the showrooms regularly.
You don’t need an appointment to visit one of our showrooms. We look forward to seeing you and learning more about your project.