Mini Bathroom Tray

We chose the green because a bathroom is a room of water, and this stone is the colour of water with light in it: a deep green ground crossed by branching veins of brown and gold, with a glassy depth under a honed finish. The veining runs with the long side, so a vein that enters at one end leaves at the other and the floor of the well reads as one piece of landscape. Honed rather than polished, it darkens when wet and lightens as it dries, so the tray changes with the room.

The well is cut in one operation, with a small radius at every inside corner and along the line where the walls meet the floor. That radius is the radius of the cutter, left as it is, so the tray shows how it was made: a sharp inside corner in marble collects dirt and chips when something is dropped on it, and a large one looks moulded. The outside edges are eased by no more than a millimetre, so the block keeps its corners.

It lives on the basin ledge or on the shelf beside the bath, where it is wet and dry a dozen times a day, and marble likes that. The floor is cut thin on purpose, thinner than a mason would choose, so the tray weighs what a tray should and lifts with one hand. Set it where the window light rakes across it in the morning, and the rim throws its own small shadow into the well.