Are you a wine connoisseur with an impressive collection, or perhaps a vintner or winery looking to present your wines in a stunning display?  The answer to your needs may lie in the magic of Designer Stone Panel's translucent onyx, marble, and quartzite.
​

Our stone panels, created from beautiful blocks of marble, onyx, and quartzites, have become a favourite backdrop for modern wine cellar designs. The unique veining in our translucent panels creates a memorable feature wall for any wine collector's display, adding a touch of luxury and sophistication that will surely impress your guests.

Once the wine configuration has been established, the single, double, or triple bottle support pegs can be securely drilled through our stone and LED panel.  This ensures a safe and stunning display of your wine collection, with no risk of cracking or breaking our stone. Our proprietary 9x fusion technology ensures our translucent onyx, marble, and quartzite panels remain intact.

Whether you're a wine collector, a vintner, or a winery owner, Designer Stone Panels offers a creative and innovative way to display your wine collection.  Using our translucent stone panels and customizable design options, your wine cellar will be transformed into a stunning showcase that will leave a lasting impression.

When it comes to using traditional slab stone, one of the main challenges is dealing with the heaviness and bulkiness of the slab. These factors can restrict the range of possible interior designs.  However, at Designer Stone Panels, our slim-cut marble, onyx and quartzite panels provide a solution to this problem.  Our real stone panels are lightweight and thin, translucent or opaque. These characteristics allow for endless design options, particularly in vertical applications. Our innovative approach weaves the integration of technology with sophisticated interior design, allowing for the timeless beauty of our marbles, onyxes and quartzites to enhance your spaces. 

While there are numerous options when choosing thin cut stone veneer over manufactured stone veneer, MSV, both can be used effectively in commercial and residential settings. Natural thin cut stone veneers and MSV are lightweight, requiring fewer structural interventions such as footings and tie-ins.  Both products can be drilled into without fracturing the stone.  This makes on-site installation fast with a minimal amount of clean up.  Pricing is similar when installation is calculated into the overall budget.  All are factors attributed to manufactured stone veneer and thin cut natural stone veneer.

As there are similarities between two products, differences set the two options apart.  Manufactured stone veneer can have a raked back construction and thin cut natural stone veneer has a smooth surface backing.  MSV is typically grouped for architectural features which compliment one another, conversely thin cut natural stone veneer must be personally selected.  Interior designers and architects favour this hand selection process, as the project space represents a personal statement with longevity. Architectural MSV can be packaged in a pre-blended manner.  In contrast, thin cut stone veneer is easily packaged and shipped in panels, or sheets, all of which originate from the same block of stone.  Variation is created by nature itself.

A unique characteristic of thin cut stone such as onyx, marble, and quartzite is that it can be translucent. Manufactured stone veneer generally does not exhibit this feature. LED lighting technology can make marble, onyx, and quartzite take on a 3-dimensional effect, featuring the natural veining of the thin cut stone.  Technology, bluetooth and remote control, can be incorporated into a backlit panel or box to control the colour and intensity of LED light supplied to translucent thin cut stone.  Example: warm vs cold white light.
​

Although manufactured profiles of stone veneer can be used for both interior and exterior applications, thin cut natural stone remains the choice for interior installs given it's gem quality, rarity, and translucent nature.  MSV does have it's advantages but thin cut stone is one-of-a-kind, providing a luxurious and chic feel to a designed space.  Thin cut stone remains a customized selection of choice to elevate the design of a project.

Translucent onyx is old.  Thin is new. LED backlighting is new. Polished stone is old. So where do we go from here?
 The only limits are your creative parameters! A feature wall is one of the obvious answers. Used by architects and interior designers as a luxurious element in their design, it is also practical.  It is ageless and blends with many other materials.

Photo: Barcelona Pavilion   Architect: Mies van der Rohe  1929
​
The weight of a thin panel of onyx is no longer an issue. It can be used to clad a column, carried up a stairwell for installation (no crane required!), and incorporated into a build without reinforcing a floor or wall.
 Add LED lighting and suddenly the onyx panel is unique, as the stone’s imperfections are enhanced.

Photo: Gibson's Steak Italia        Chicago, Illinois     DesignerStone Onyx Panels

So go ahead! Add a thin onyx panel to your design. Add some water, light, and fire. Or as in the project below, add some wine! Welcome to the world of “new” onyx!

Photo: Imagination Wine Cellars              DesignerStone Onyx Panels    Private Client

Stone is one of the oldest design materials dating back thousands of years. Now, how did they move it back then? It's anyone's guess, elbow grease and leverage with a pulley-system some historians theorize. As time and design evolved, stone worked its way from the commercial "wow" feature right into the homes of consumers everywhere. Granite countertops had such an advantage over any other material for the simple reason you could put a hot stove top dish on it, and the counter would be just fine! Not to mention it looked gorgeous and rich! The stone colour options met almost every pallet and thus in 1990 the stone industry boomed; every stone mason was working through their B2C go-to-market strategy with their stone cost, plus installation packages. Back in the early 90's this was referred to as 2 cm or 3cm stone. Why? It was either 3 centimetres or 2 centimetres  thick. 

Just over 10 years ago in 2010, a new stone innovation was launched, which is called Thin Stone Panels. This stone is only 8mm thick. Thin stone disrupted design ideas everywhere. Pre 2010, if a condominium building wanted to outfit 3cm stone counters, this required cranes and advance planning for when countertops could be installed by teams of installers, if at all. Post production, it was next to impossible to carry 3cm stone to the 2nd floor, let alone the 14th floor, as its weight limitation meant it couldn't be elevated up to the space.  3cm is an expensive, heavy and most would argue, a dangerous option for stone design. We will get to the ugly truth in a moment. With Thin Stone, its weight is a non issue for elevators, or even manually lifting to the 14th floor (not that I would ever, ever volunteer to do that!), it's lightweight and flexible thin features mean that for the first time in HISTORY stone can actually be wrapped (think pillars...square ones that is), and used in boats as luxurious features without the risk of sinking it. Thin stone can also be backlit (depending on the stone type) mitred, and so much more.

So let's dive in, here are the 4 ugly truths of Thick Stone:

1. Death: Thick stone has cost installers fingers, toes and in some cases their life. Approximately 20 people die each year, in North America, from installation accidents and or Stone wall feature fall downs. 
2. Weight: An average one length counter top is close to 1 TON, moving 3cm stone isn't easy.
3. Fragile: Stone is fragile. All of the various colours, types of stone, and veining mean that it's beauty can be easily shattered. Then what? How do you patch stone. Some installers have a way but it isn't pretty to the design eye.
4. Environment: Anything being extracted from earth isn't great, but 3cm of perfect stone mined out of the side of a mountain, at a fairly rapid rate, utilizes 10x the carbon foot print.  In addition to transporting the 3cm stone, it gets a major thumbs down from  environmentally savvy purchasers.

​
So there you have it. Where Thick Stone had its day ie from the year 0 to 2010, Thin Stone is the new kid in town, showing off its kicks, design flare and creative concepts. Thin Stone is a safer, more environmentally conscious option to that of its clunky cousin, Thick stone. Choose right.  Choose Thin!

SHOWER Matched booked Panda marble creates a stunning shower project for a west coast client. A fireplace adds the perfect ambience for a relaxing spa experience.

A Zulio marble, LED lit vanity, adds impact to a powder room. Who needs a nightlight?

A feature black onyx wall provides an alluring backdrop for a soothing bath experience.