Dawn Carroll, design stone consultant, discusses trends and developments in the natural stone market.
1. What is a design stone consultant?
I work with architects, designers, and homeowners to help bring their stone-related design ideas and visions to reality. It’s a lot of fun helping to capture the dreams that are presented to me and figuring out a way to make something beautiful out of a product that’s 400 million years old. I’ve been consulting on stone design and fabrication for more than a decade, and work for a seventh-generation stone artist who finds unique stones from all over the world and uses Old World craftsmanship and modern technology to help clients realize their design aspirations.
2. How is the stone business changing?
The requests are getting more and more intricate. The first statement I often hear is, “Show me something that I haven’t seen before.” That’s a challenge. A designer may have a particular color palette in mind or bring in a sample of stone that is very rare or hard to get. We will scour the planet for it. For a project we are working on right now, we are looking for a stone with a very specific shade of grayish powder-blue. Our clients are always pushing us to the limit, asking for something different.