limestone or marble floor?

I am interested in putting in something super heavy duty. We have a stone quarry near by and my family and I have always loved big rocks. There seems to be a little on bricks and a lot of information on earthen floors, but I have not seen anything on marble, granite or limestone flooring. Is there a reason for this, or is it just so big and awful to move so it is not popular? Most materials for the house will be from our property (hopefully) but I am willing to spend some money to have a stone floor. I'm just starting to transform from the dream stage to the actual planning phase. Anyone with knowledge or experience -I would be very grateful, as I am not sure how practical my concepts will turn out to be in practice. What is the thinnest I can go without having danger of it cracking? To be more specific, I'm thinking more slab size than "large stone", but until I actually visit the quarry will not know what the measurement options are. (We tend to have heavy steel furniture that we constantly shift around) I want to combine wooden tree poles for supports and sod for walls. And hopefully the bathroom will be all stone.



thanks,
Magenta

I think the focus on earthen floors largely has to do with them being doable by average folks. slab floors require some extra steps that put them out of reach for most DIYers.

sounds like a neat project, though, and I hope you'll post as you find out more and move forward.

I live in the UK, in my area most houses were traditionally built of rubble-stone walls, no foundations and no basements, with floors laid right on the earth. Usually they were unsealed ceramic (brick tiles basically) or slate, though I believe limestone was also used. These were all favored because they are moisture-permeable, so they 'breathe'. When used in conjunction with our traditional construction of breathable stone walls and well maintained, they work very well however in conjunction with modern construction techniques that favor 'damp proofing', they dont work at all. I think marble would not work in this way as it's not that breathable.
I'm on another forum on period property restoration where a lot of the people have huge amounts of knowledge and many do their own work, if you are interested they might be able to point you to some more info. periodpropery.co.uk