In nature marble does not repeat, ever. well ok after you bookmatch a slab it can :):) you can expect mineral deposits iron rust and factory fillers a lot of variables and know going in a sample tile is a sample it will also not be repeated if cararra,.

You can request matching dye lots and documentation and alot a larger budget for qty to select from ...keep the leftovers at upcharge depends on scope / contract.

on this job I had not much overage in the budget and it was communicated to the homeowner to expect chaos.... thats real italian cararra......its a great question you pose and lends to a talk about managing expectations ....

This is the shower. Everything marked has very prominent brown streaks so those tiles are being replaced. Other than that we just feel that many of the tiles stick out - almost like the shower was there and several yes later several stones had to be replaced. I've seen Carrara showers where all tiles are same tone/palette, with each tile having its own markings and unique characteristics - but it doesn't look like patchwork quilt. I wanted to get designers or pros feedback on this.

Brown is usually iron deposits which will only get worse as the shower is used. The rest of the lot that doesn't exhibit the brown may begin to exhibit it as the shower is used. That's just the nature of real natural marble. You get a roulette wheel of choices from Mother Nature, and none of it is ''wrong'' per se. If you want to micromanage an install, and reject stones, you do that on the front end, and pay the big upcharge that it will entail.

Your expectations do not lend themselves to using real natural stone with all of it's inherent variations and changing nature. You need to remove all of those stickies and go with what Mother Nature gave you. Or, get a MUCH bigger budget in order to get more uniformity by hand selecting acceptable variations to you and then redoing the whole thing.

It's all going to get stained, scratched, and etched in no time. Regardless of how ''perfect'' you manage to get it on the front end. That is also living with real natural stone. Perhaps a more uniform and bulletproof porcelain tile would have been a better choice for your desired end result.

Thanks Sophie, Tundra. The builder has a model home where the shower is in Carrara and it looks all uniform - no one piece sticks out. I don't have experience in this area but when we selected to go with Carrara our expectation was similar outcome, which it is not. We are paying healthy price tag so just trying to figure this out.

The better question for you to be concerned with is what water proofing system was used behind all of that marble? Any standard 15K average marble shower without proper water proofing is a giant mold farm waiting to happen.