Enhance your home’s interior and exterior with stone

Stone solutions for interior or exterior

Buildings with stone walls, be they rustic farmhouses or majestic mansions, evoke images of an idealized past: from small, picturesque towns surrounded by forests to regal cities with imposing villas and castles. Stone is associated with weight and durability. It gives a house a quality of permanence, of stability.Buildings with stone walls, be they rustic farmhouses or majestic mansions, evoke images of an idealized past: from small, picturesque towns surrounded by forests to regal cities with imposing villas and castles. Stone is associated with weight and durability. It gives a house a quality of permanence, of stability.

In modern times the cost of a stone house is prohibitive for most people’s budgets. However, thanks to a technique dating at least as far back as ancient Rome, when portions of the Roman Colosseum were clad with a marble veneer, there’s a significantly more affordable alternative. Stone veneers or stone siding are decorative and protective wall coverings that can be added to the interior or exterior of your building. Natural stone siding is made from quarried stone or fieldstone which is cut to a standard thickness, usually between ¾″ to 1½″, with the resulting panels weighing about 13 lbs/f².

A stone veneer can transform a bland concrete building by imbuing it with that timeless quality associated with stone walls. Whether on the house’s facade, a kitchen backsplash, a bathroom or bedroom wall, stone siding can radically reinvent your space, while acting as a protective covering and aiding in thermal and sound insulation.

Stone steps flanked by dry stacked stone walls on your front yard or back garden can create a fairytale-like scene that visitors are sure to appreciate. You could also add stone steps to either or both sides of your driveway, providing pedestrians with an alternative route while enhancing the aesthetics of your property.

The facade is the part of your house people see most often, whether in pictures, while driving by, or as they come to visit. Its stone veneer will be one of the elements that most define the building’s overall character. Will you go for welcoming, colorful rounded cobblestone, sleek yet austere coal grey ledgestone, or something else entirely? Your options are limited only by your imagination and your budget. You can cover the whole exterior, creating the illusion of a real stone wall for that classic European look, or you can use the stone veneer only on select parts of the facade to create striking accents and interesting juxtapositions of different textures.

As a visitor enters your home, they can be greeted by the sight of a feature wall that distinguishes the entryway with unique patterns and colors. Be it classical white or beige, muted earth tones, or something more vibrant and eccentric, you can be sure that no mere coat of paint can measure up to the texture of natural stone. Moving further into the interior of the house, you could use natural stone siding to cover only a portion of a larger wall in order to create a divider that sets spaces apart without the use of a physical barrier. Add some decoration, like a painting, bookshelves, or a potted plant to complete the look.

A different approach that follows the same logic of covering a wall only partially is to create asymmetrical patterns, using the wall as your canvas and the siding as paint. Spotlight a specific space by leaving the wall bare and frame it with stone siding to create contrast. Enhance the effect with proper lighting and decorations.

The kitchen is a room where food is often both prepared and enjoyed, a room that often gets messy but also has to look good for family and guests. Stone siding is a classy alternative to tile for the backsplash, but why stop there? Use stone on one or more walls to counterpose their rough and gritty surface to the smooth, clean lines of the countertop and furniture.

In the bathroom, a wall with uneven ledgestone siding can give an exterior feel to an interior space, transforming your room into a zen garden or hot spring. Fill the tub with warm water, add bath salts to preference, submerge yourself in the liquid, and relax while taking in the beauty of the natural stone.