Custom home owner and architect's perspective on the difference between man made stone veneer and natural stone thin veneer from Stoneyard.com.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Silvermine bean Screw on bean appearance accession Stack-N-Tack bean (US & CanadaPATENT PENDING)
Here is a short video from Silvermine Stone Company demonstrating just how fast and easy it is to install Stack-N-Tack tm stone siding (US & Canada Patent Pending). Stack-N-Tack stone siding is an easy to install, mortarless architectural stone that can be nailed or screw on stone veneer surface. Stack-N-Tack tm stone siding is not only the easiest stone on the market to install, it is also durable and maintenance free. By eliminating the mortar process involved in traditional stone veneer applications we have dramatically cut down on the cost, labor and expertise needed to install our stone veneer. Simply stack it up and tack it on. Anyone can install Stack-N-Tack tm stone siding (US PATENT PENDING). For more information about our stone please visit us at www.silverminestone.com and thanks for watching! To order stone 715-835-7595
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
Guidelines to Install Natural Stone Thin Veneer
While building a house, installing natural stone would be better than man-made materials. Nowadays many people are choosing natural stone as it has genuine color palette which cannot match man-made products. Some features of this stone are it is durable and does not chip easily.
It is available in two sizes: thin and full size. Natural stone thin Veneer has thickness ranging from 3/4 to 1-1/4. Due to its light weight, this stone can be installed fast compared to full size which will result in cost savings. Another major advantage is shipping costs are reduced because thin veneer can ship nearly 3600 square feet in a single truckload compared to 1000 square feet in standard veneer. This type of stone is available in same colors as standard veneer. Being natural, you cannot find the same stone. Being durable in nature, it has life time warranty. In addition, it can increase the value of your house and also Eco-friendly (Green building) in nature.
It gives your house a beautiful and elegant look at less cost. Basically there are two types of veneer: manufactured and natural thin stone veneer. Most of the manufactured stones are made by mixing cement, natural stone components and dyes which can give a look of natural stone. This type of stone is available in various colors that you imagine. Synthetic stones are thicker than natural stones. Synthetic stone requires waterproofing, cleaning and maintenance. It is not weather resistant.
Natural thin stone veneer can be installed around a fireplace enclosure. Other places where you can install are arches in a room, kitchens, bathroom and shower area or in living area of your home. This type of stone can be used on commercial and residential buildings.
It can be installed by contractors or the job can be done by you. Installing this type of stone is not too difficult, but if you are finding it difficult it to do the job on your own, you can hire contractors who will be happy to take up the job.
If you notice, many people are installing thin stone compared to full size because it gives an elegant and sophisticated look to your house. This type of stone can be used in lawns, patio, pool area, sidewalks and lining stone ceilings etc.
Some major benefits of thin stone are it is lightweight, does not chip, fade or discolor; durable; installed quickly and easily; available in various texture, sizes, shapes and colors; installed in many areas both inside and outside the home etc.
If you want to gather more knowledge about thin stone you can browse the internet. There are various sites that give you a broad outline about different types of thin stone.
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Sunday, December 11, 2011
DIY - Building Field Stone Columns
My husband and I wanted to add a little curb appeal to our house by taking our plain old front porch posts and adding field stone column bases and beefing up the posts into columns. We wanted a little curb appeal. We got a LOT of curb appeal! And we did it ourselves.
This project initially came to mind because the soil in our San Diego yard is VERY rocky and we have tons of field stone that has been dug up over the years from various projects. We thought, why not use it?! We began by looking for professional stone masons to do the job since we did not know how to. What we found was that the few people we called did not know how either. I am sure there are folks out there who still do this kind of work but we could not find them. I think since most people use cultured stone, stone veneer or concrete these days to simulate real field stone it is just not cost effective any more. That brings us to the second thing we realized; even if we had found someone, after doing the work ourselves and seeing the time it takes, we probably would not have been willing to pay what a professional would need to charge. It would just be too expensive. So if you want the look of real field stone columns (you can tell the difference if they are not) you can do it yourself cheap, but it will take some time and effort. But wow! The look is worth it!
We did some practice projects first which only reinforced the fact that we did not know how to do this. They just did not look right. We realized from looking at other people's columns that the important thing was that the corner stones needed to be stacked on top of each other to make the column a square. We found a simple diagram on line that showed how to install guide lines at the corners of where you want your columns to be so you can follow these lines and keep your corners straight.
The following instructions are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to give you a good idea of how the project will go and what it entails. You will need to do more research on the technical details you may need to know before being able to complete this project.
You will first need to determine what diameter you want your columns to be and how high you want them to go. Ours are approximately 18 inches per side and about 3 feet high. You must begin by pouring concrete bases for your columns to rest on for sturdy support. Then if you are building around existing wood posts as we were, you must waterproof the posts. We used roofing tar. After the guide lines are in place, (we used simple string lines taped in place from floor to ceiling. Be sure they are at at true vertical!) the stone work can begin. It is really quite simple but does take attention to detail and time. My husband and I worked as a team and we each had our jobs to do.
Mix up a batch of mortar, you will need enough to set two courses of stone for each column (2 high) and you will want the mortar to be on the thick side. Two courses of stone are all you can really do at a time or the weight of the stone and mortar will place too much pressure on what is below it and cause it to squish out. We did 4 columns and started by just working on 1 until we felt we knew we were doing a good job. After that we worked on the remaining 3 simultaneously, doing 2 courses on each of the three at at time. Between courses the mortar must set for several hours before laying the next course on top. You will quickly become familiar with the mortar and how it feels and behaves as it is setting and will be able to judge when it is time to set the next courses. Also refer to the instructions on the bag.
On the bottom level use a trowel and lay a base of mortar for your first course of stones to set in. An inch or two of mortar is sufficient. Choose your stones (they should be at least softball size or larger) and place them carefully so that the corner stones line up just inside the string and the other stones are nicely spaced and with attractive sides facing out. Then begin to fill in all around them, packing the mortar without moving the stones. Be sure to get all the air pockets out and add enough on top of your first stones to place your second layer. Feel free to use much smaller stones to fill in the interior areas that will not be seen.
While working, do not worry about getting mortar on the outside of your stones. Keep a bucket of clean water and a sponge nearby and as long as you wipe the residue off within a half hour or so you will have no problem. You will find as you work that there is a certain artistry to this work and you can work with the mortar blending and shaping it for quite some time as it dries. In the same way, blending the mortar between the courses is easy and when you are done and all the mortar is set it will be impossible to see where one course of stones ended and another began. The mortar blends perfectly.
After you have set your first 2 layers of stones use your hands (always wearing gloves as you work, the mortar is very caustic to skin) to shape the mortar and push it into place where you want it as it dries. After the mortar has begun to set, work with the water and sponge smoothing the mortar and shaping it and cleaning off the outsides of the stones so they do not have a film on them. In this way you will proceed with all the courses of stone until the columns are as high as you want them to be. When you reach your desired height be sure to have the top be as level as possible and then add capstones of some type to give it a finished look. We used travertine tiles attached by building a jig to hold them in place while the mortar dried since we had to work around an existing post.
For our final step we beefed up the posts by wrapping them in 1 x 6 lumber, and trimmed the tops and bottoms with 2 x 2 lumber. Be sure to prime and paint all wood surfaces to protect against rain and water intrusion.
This is a great Do It Yourself project. It can be time consuming, each section of work may take a couple of hours when you take into account mixing the mortar, laying the stones, doing the finishing work and cleaning your tools, but the results are satisfying and well worth it for this classic look.
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Custom Stone Looks, StoneCraft Stone Veneer by the Tapco Group
StoneCraft's easy to install manufactured stone veneers are cost effective and available in an array of beautiful colors and styles.
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Stone Fireplace
The Stone Fireplace can provide a mysterious look to an interior of a house, using stone structures to add warmth and depth to a room is not an uncommon feature in interior design. People who choose to have a stone fireplace in their house should be aware that the stone has a very dramatic and strong presence in the room, and it will not go un noticed, some feel that the stone gives a room a medieval feeling and does not compliment modern furniture and style, but this is obviously a choice of the home owner.
Adding extra features next to a stone fire place will combine the elements into a solid design statement, if the people living in the house would not object to having more stone or iron furniture placed in the vicinity of the fireplace you can create a flow of stone and iron elements and create a sort of medieval, 1500's sort of look, which can be great in some spaces, especially if it is a room that is not used on a daily basis.
In the past fire places designs were very traditional, and usually comprised the same material and same basic building plan, this made most of the fire places to look the same and feel the same in any given room. In the last 20 years there have been enormous changes to this market, especially due to the fact that people wanted a unique fireplace, this is especially true to places where winter is hard and long and the fireplace is a focal point in the house.
There are modern designs that combine stone, wood and metal, to create a very plain and strong industrial look, emphasizing the usability of the features in the space and letting unique and specially designed parts to speak for themselves, this is why a stone fireplace will be perfect in this kind of an environment, it is also possible to paint the stone, or bleach the bricks so they will not appear dark but have a more bright color, this will bring more luminosity into the room and will also allow the home owners not to break to color theme if they got a light colored living room.
Combining wood and stone can create a very impressive fireplace, both natural materials and are also the base of the fireplace essentials, a wood frame to a stone fireplace base will create a feeling of warmth and will probably not disturb any existing design statements that may already be in the room.
Last but not least, stone made fire places sound great but not everyone likes them, you should make sure that you can live with a stone fireplace before you even start shopping around for one, for those who already know that stone designs are their favorites there is not a question here, but what kind of stone fireplace will it be.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Stoneyard.com Home Page Introduction
Video featuring our Boston Blend New England Fieldstone and all of the photos, videos, and information on the new Stonedyard.com website. Historic New England Fieldstone available in 5 shapes for architectural stone siding and hardscape applications.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
What to Consider When Choosing Landscape Stone
Aside from aesthetics, when choosing a landscaping stone, you also need to consider the durability and application of the stone itself. Natural landscape stone is available in many styles, colors, and cuts. Additionally, natural stone is not limited to river rock, gravel, or limestone anymore - it now includes sandstone, flagstone, marble and even manufactured stone.
When choosing a landscape stone, the fist things to consider should be the application of the stone. Where will it go? How much will you need? What elements will the landscape stone be exposed to? How much traffic will it see? After you have determined your budget and what abuse the stone will need to endure, then it is time to think about color, texture, and design. First, consider the architectural design of the home. Next, consider the color of the home and the landscape design that the stone will need to enhance. Finally, use your personal style to determine the right stone for you.
The Many Uses of Landscaping Stone
Stone lends itself to many practical and architectural uses. Additionally, it lends an elegance and sophistication along with old world or modern feel to any home or garden design. When it comes to landscaping, stone can be used to frame a pond, façade a house front, façade an outdoor fireplace, line walkways and patios, façade stone columns, edge a garden bed, face retaining walls, and create outdoor living spaces or rooms. With a little creativity and thought, many home owners can come up with many more uses for landscaping stone.
If you are planning on designing a new outdoor space, creating curb appeal on a new home, or perhaps you are trying to update and embellish an existing front or back yard or living space, then natural landscaping stone can provide you with long lasting and durable design with a touch of class. There are many types of stones to choose from that are available in a wide variety of colors, textures, shapes, and purposes that can suit any outdoor need.
Choosing Landscape Stones
The most common types of stone applications are usually skirting facades on the fronts of homes or stepping stone walkways. With so many stone applications to choose from, why limit yourself to just stepping stones and facades? A carefully placed boulder in a garden or landscape can add interest, while carefully selected stones can be utilized to create outdoor rooms and living spaces.
1. Retaining walls can be a significant addition to any garden. While they do have their practical purposes such as garden beds or preventing soil erosion, they also add interest to a garden or landscape and appeal to most home fronts. They can also be used around ponds or to elevate patios and outdoor rooms. Popular stones used for this include Chilton, Lannon, Fond du Lac, Waukesha, Kodiak, and Bay De Noc.
2. Fireplaces make any outdoor space warm and inviting. They can be a wonderful backdrop for dinner parties, BBQ's, or romantic evenings with the family. Thin stone veneer made from natural stone comes in a wide variety of styles and colors and can be applied to the fireplace stone exterior to add that touch of class and elegance.
3. Patios and outdoor rooms can be transformed into warm and inviting living spaces. Carefully selected flagstone varieties such as Chilton, Lannon, Fond du Lac, Waukesha, Kodiak, and Bay De Noc can provide a shoe free zone to simply relax for meal times, play time, or simply to enjoy the paper and your morning coffee.
4. Stone walkways are classic. While gravel may be a selected choice for some home owners, real stone can give the landscape and inviting touch. Easy maintenance and gorgeous colors provide a variety of looks for even the most discriminating tastes.
5. Garden borders can be given a high end upgrade for an inexpensive price. Most stones that are used for walkways and patios can also be used to edge gardens and walkways beautifully.
Selecting Your natural Stones
Landscaping stone is available as flagstone, boulders, marble, natural stone, pebbles, granite, limestone, cobbles, sandstone, outcropping stone, retaining wall stone, steps, treads, coping, thermal finish cut stone, tumbled stone, fieldstone boulders, bluestone, holey boulders, stone signs, and other stepping stones. Stone comes in a wide variety of shapes from natural to precut. Colors can be special ordered to match your home exactly.
Once you have evaluated the particular space, design of your home and garden, and usage of the stone, then it is relatively easy to select the right stones for the job at hand.
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Friday, November 25, 2011
Design Stone Fireplace Project With Faux Stone
When undertaking any home renovation or design project with interior stone, you need at least two elements: quality, and variety. When it comes to adding manufactured stone veneer to that interior project, man made rock satisfies both requirements.
Uncompromising Faux Stone Quality
Manufactured stone, also known as faux stone or artificial stone, is engineered from a precisely formulated blend of Portland cement, natural rock aggregates, and carefully selected pigments. At only a fraction of the weight of natural rock, manufactured stone eliminates the need for structural reinforcing, foundations, and footings. Thus, the stone can be installed on any stable interior or exterior wall surface, facing, or elevation, including those where natural rock would be impractical. While some manufacturers of artificial stone cut corners on their components and processes, usually most of them has been careful to select only quality suppliers with a reputation for durable, weather and wear-resistant components. As a result, they're able to offer an industry-leading 50-year guarantee on every rock they carry.
Unparalleled Manufactured Stone Selection
Artificial rock carries the full product lines of stone, giving you the widest possible variety of styles, textures, and colours suitable for any project. Want to put a stone fireplace in your bedroom? How about an outdoor kitchen clad with river rock? Perhaps you want to jazz up those pillars in your basement family room with ledge stone. Or maybe you want to change the whole look of your house -- and increase its resale value -- by replacing its faded old siding with attractive natural-look faux stone siding. What ever the design, man made rocks have a huge selection to match all natural stones.
Artificial stone perfectly matches the appearance of natural stone.
Whether it's the rough-hewn look of fieldstone or the gentle contours of streamstone, quality man made rock so perfectly emulates the look and feel of natural stone it can fool even experienced masons. This remarkable achievement comes from using a formulation of Portland cement, natural aggregates, and carefully selected pigments in meticulously detailed molds modeled after natural rock. The result is a finished product virtually indistinguishable from the original.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Applying adhesive to bean veneer
Instructional how-to video for adding grout to M-Rock stone veneer wall.
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
Stone - Fieldstone - It's Only Natural!
Drive along any old, winding country road and you'll pass dozens of structures built out of fieldstone. Really... you say? Yep. Just about anywhere you can drive a car you will encounter this common building material and in a very short period of time. You could say that this common though beautiful stone has the right to be classified as one of the foundations of civilization... quite literally!
What is fieldstone? - The name is - the definition: a stone found in fields and used in its original shape.
Farmers clearing their fields for cultivating would remove stones that prevented plowing and collect them into large piles usually by the side of the fields. Since it was a by product of their farming efforts these stones were free and abundant and were an invaluable source for use as a raw building material. Eventually the piles of stone would find their way into walls and foundations as the homesteaders improved their properties with addition structures.
What do they look like? - Most fieldstones would have been left by glacial deposits and are rectangular to oval in size and shape. Fieldstones are also whole stones of a manageable size, so that men can place them into walls for construction.
The larger stones that may be found in fields are called boulders and have been used for centuries for markers for property lines or decorative pieces for property entrances and landscaping. Before heavy equipment was available though they were generally left where they were found, due to the extreme difficulty and work effort required to move and place such heavy pieces of stone.
They can range in color from dark gray, light browns and rusts to light buffs. Some locales may have unusual colors but most places will have the colors common to granite and limestone.
What makes fieldstone different than rubble stone? - Fieldstone and rubble stone differ in that a deposit of fieldstone will usually have a larger quantity of whole stones within the deposit. The corners will also be softened by thousands of years of weathering and tumbling. A rubble stone will tend to have sharper edges because they are mostly chips and chards from larger stones and haven't had the aging of Mother Nature to soften their edges.
Where is field stone used? - Even though fieldstone do vary is size and shape overall, they tend to have flatter characteristics and are of a size that one or two men can carry. This makes the fieldstone most desirable for barn and house foundations, retaining walls, fences, fireplaces and chimneys or any structure that requires large and wide stone wall thicknesses.
Even though this is a very beautiful stone for building it is not used much for home facings due to the depth of the stones. However they can be collected and run through power splitters to form the necessary shapes needed to fit residential house wall construction but done so rarely.
Like the lowly rubble stone the fieldstone is considered a common stone and used where an earthy, natural appearance is desired. Because of the general size of the individual stones, a fieldstone wall has the look of durability and strength.
If you ever decide to build terrace walls, foundations or retaining walls you have to consider the fieldstone as a material choice. For its' price you won't find a more favorable appearance.
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Thursday, November 3, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
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