Adding some marble to the kitchen

When I redid my kitchen 12 years ago I debated between soapstone countertops or granite counter tops.  Marble was unheard of, especially in Utah.  Now you can't open a magazine or interior blog without being confronted by glorious, magnificent marble kitchens!  What's a girl to do?  Well I could rip out my perfectly good granite countertops and replace them with marble, but I don't think I'll be staying here long so I really can't justify the expense.  So instead I've managed to introduce some marble into the kitchen by adding some accessories.

The first thing I added was a marble slap from here.  Its a great size, not too big that it's difficult to clean and move, and not too small that you can't roll out pastry for a pie!

I also ordered a marble paper towel holder.

I was amazed that both items arrived the next day.  And I didn't have to haul them back from the shops.

The french marble utensil holder I picked up from Crate and Barrel.

The cake stand is from Williams Sonoma and usually has bananas or some other fruit on it.  Incidentally, the stand that I picked up from the store is different from the one shown online.  I actually prefer the one in the store.  You can't see it very well from this picture, but it has a lovely carved wood base and a subtly veined marble top.

The last marble accessory I added was a French Kitchen Marble Fruit Bowl again from Crate and Barrel.

At this point I seem to be going marble crazy.  I even bought a marble picture frame from Anthropologie to go on the wall above the sink.

But it was way too small, so it went back.

Next I ordered a marble shelf from CB2.

I didn't like the look of the brackets, so I bought some wishbone brackets from Anthropologie.

But the marble is heavy!  And I didn't really want to risk it crashing down and potentially taking out my faucet, my sink, or my granite (although that would be a good excuse to replace it!).

So instead I ended up with this pretty mirror from Sundance Catalog.

It does a great job of filling that awkward space, as well as reflecting some light back in to the kitchen.

I bought this kilim rug from a seller on Ebay.  It's really long, so I'm planning on cutting it down and using the left over piece to reupholster the window seat cushion.  Well, that's the plan anyway.

Finally, you thought I was done with the marble, didn't you?  Well, although I'm not quite prepared to shell out $3000 for new countertops for the cabinets, I did decide to buy a remnant piece of marble for the island!  I'm super excited; it arrives on Thursday.  I decided to make it larger than the island so that the stools would fit underneath.  I hope it looks good and doesn't crowd the kitchen too much. I'll post pictures soon.