I've had Vermont Danby marble for about 2.5 years. No chips, but I am really careful around my sink. I believe that's the area that is most at risk of chipping - washing & drying heavy pots & pans and inadvertantly dropping or knocking the marble edge around the sink. An apron sink could reduce some of that risk. I haven't dropped heavy canned food items on my countertop, but that might cause a chip.

Mine was in a low use area and while it didn't get chipped, it would show dings--if you dropped something (and not necessarily much) on it, you'd get a white fleck where the material was slightly uhhhh mashed? I've tested lots of different stones and some are more prone to it than others.

You know the rules. Get a sample. Beat on it. :)

I have Carrara in the bathroom and have a chip. Can't remember what I dropped on it.. It can happen.

You can make "stun" marks on marble by percussion. Like "bruises" on Corain.

I'm VERY careful with my Carrara marble kitchen counters - its ridiculous how I police them. Not 1 stain in the 2+ years since install. Chips? Yes, and its heartbreaking. Its very possible I have softer than normal marble - its very white with dark veins, not the usual (more gray) I have as bathroom jambs. I'll see if I can post photos later. The chips are dents - i.e., you can feel the indent with your finger.

I have these chips: (1) dropped a small, rounded but glass salt shaker from about 12" above the counter (that's a noticeable white chip); (2) dropped a fork from about 6" above (hard to see, but I do!); (3) 3 on the bottom of the edge of the marble, at the dishwasher (guessing dishes get banged a bit - and that's with a hovering, marble policing mom).

I knew about the staining and etching before I went with marble. The etching I don't mind - you have to work to see it (light has to hit it just right), and I know I can refinish the marble and get rid of that. And we have no stains (and I am pretty sure those can be dealt with, too). But the chipping is why I won't have marble again in the house. We went with gray granite for the master bath reno just now. (We do have marble jambs, and the tile guy managed to scratch those up before we even saw them installed! Yes they agreed to replace, but that would have caused other issues and delays so we're going to live with it.)

The counters are beautiful, but I have 2 kids, husband (and dog), and just cannot live in an art installation (stolen from Victoria Elizabeth Barnes!).

Also: My other choice was white quartz with some gray/sparkles. It was almost 3x the price of the marble! So I went into this knowing I could replace the marble and still save money. I've heard that in other parts of the country this isn't true - that quartz isn't so much more expensive.

ETA: I'm always wondering if I just got a really soft Carrara because people always say professional chefs get Carrara for their homes, and you see them at Paris cafes, etc. I'm hoping that over time the chips etc. all just blend in? Like how the 1st door ding you get in a new car its very noticeable, but after a few years its less noticeable.

Interesting. I had Carrara marble countertops in my last house for 18 months or so. No chips. And I have kids and no one was careful. (I had plenty of etches.)

I had eased edges. The more rounded the edge is the less likely you are to get chips. So I didn't optimize on chip avoidance. My GC actually suggested the eased edge under the theory that if we did get chips, the edge could be reprofiled to something more rounded to eliminate the chips.

Carrara was also dirt cheap for us. The least expensive of any countertop we looked at by far.

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because people always say professional chefs get Carrara for their homes, and you see them at Paris cafes, etc.

If you go to Paris cafes or home kitchens (or in Italy, Greece, etc.) or professional chefs' homes you will see that the marble is stained and dinged. The difference is that people in Paris, Italy, etc. and professional chefs, view the dings and wine stains and such as a badge of honor and a sign of a well-loved and well-used kitchen (picture also the Gallic shrug). It's not at all that those carrara marble counters don't stain or chip.

Furthermore, many of those homes have a marble counter in one spot for rolling out dough, etc. They don't have the marble counter throughout the entire kitchen.

We bought a used marble dining table and converted it to an island. At that time I refinished and honed it to get rid of the etches and most of the scratches. The kitchen wasn't finished until more than a year later, and during that time I was very diligent about protecting the top--I wanted it to look new in the new kitchen. Since then I've relaxed and accepted the dings, the worst of which I caused by knocking a claw hammer off a paint can, where I'd laid it. The Carrara looks like Sophie's first pic, with random little dark spots, so I went over the ding with something--can't recall if it was erasable marker or a black crayon, to fill in the tiny chip. The ding isn't apparent--I have to look for it, and I'm sure no one else has ever noticed.

No stains, even after my grandson spilled red drink powder on it. Once in a while I use a fine sanding sponge to blend the new etches, but I have one 'etch' that I can't blend--it would need to be sanded and re-polished. My grandson set his metal lunch box on the counter after school one day, where it sat all night. Fruit juice had spilled in the lunch box, and a small amount ran out and puddled under the box. Where the acid in the juice reacted with the metal raised edges of the lunch box lid, I have two parallel lines in the marble. I polished out the puddle etch, but the lines are deeper. I can see it only from a certain angle, so most of the time I forget about it. That's life, and I wouldn't trade my island for pristine quartz or granite.

Thank you for the marble pics. I am fully aware of all the etching and potential staining - but the chip pictures help. I just have been having a hard time understanding the chip issue and was hoping there was answer to which marbles are more prone to chipping, since my experience has been with the marble in a bath and no chip issues. Maybe I have just been really lucky.

I've had carrara with eased edge in my bathroom for 2.5 years. Some small mystery etches and that's it. I don't recall ever having dropped anything on it. I've had messy visitors stay and I've issued no rules or warnings to them. Just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. The only damage was when I dripped toilet bowl cleaner. It looks like an old smallpox vaccination scar. Fortunately, it's small and off to the side and basically doesn't matter.

I have white Vermont Danby marble as my kitchen countertops. Vermont Danby is supposed to be harder than most others. I even had it authenticated as Vt. Danby when I bought it. It has lots of patina, 2011 install. No stains but lots of etches and a few dings and even white spots which are small. I bought it as kind of a default as I just could not find anything else. I have a modernish kitchen and I personally don't think that marble is the best choice for a modern vibe. But it's done and ok. It's so hard-difficult. Thinking about quartz for my new kitchen.

Oh Lord don’t put carrera in your kitchen. As lovely as it is , it’s so so porous and fragile. I’ve only had mine for two years and i have etch marks everywhere and I’m so so so careful. My daughter emptied the dishwasher today and just set a plate on it and a chip came off the marble!!!! I was shocked. There are so many types of quartz that look just as nice. I wish I had gone with something different.