PATHS & STAIRS

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• Walks, pathways and steps play important roles around the exterior of the home. On a practical level, they offer a safe and comfortable means of approaching your house or cottage in all seasons and weather conditions. They also serve to connect your house with its surrounding landscape, providing a logical route to frequently used areas such a garages and outbuildings, or a more meandering route through gardens.

• As pathways weave through trees and around obstacles, stepping up or down as the grade changes, they become part of the landscape. A properly planned pathway is a place of discovery.

• Durable and versatile, stone is perfectly suited for building paths and steps. Cut stone has a formal elegance, making it a good choice for main pathways and stairs, while the random shapes and aged surfaces of natural stone give it a more relaxed informality.

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TERRACES, PATIOS & FIREPITS

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• Terraces, patios and garden spaces are great ways to extend living spaces out into your yard, creating outdoor areas for dining, gardening, or simply relaxing that friends and family can enjoy together. Stone is an ideal all-season material for these spaces, offering a durable and beautiful surface that requires little or no maintenance.

• All around the outside of the house, stone can be used to create a variety of inviting spaces that echo the architectural style of your home. Designs featuring smooth cut stones layed in tight patterns provide an elegant look as well as a smooth, secure surface for furniture and guests. Natural stones with irregular shapes and textures can be used to compliment or emphasize a more rustic surrounding environment. Of course patterns, colours, textures and styles can be mixed and matched to lend just the right touch to your landscape design, whether your tastes tend toward the formal or the informal and whether your special outdoor place is just outside the door or tucked away in your own secret garden.

 

WALLS

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• Walls bring order to the natural landscape. Useful for physically defining property boundaries, they also serve to delineate areas that have different characters - a hotter from a lawn, for example, or a driveway from a nearby garden. Freestanding walls can be used influence traffic patterns, blocking access on the one hand while directing people on the other. On hilly terrain, retaining walls help hold back the soil to create level places for patios and gardens. Of course, a masonry wall can be used to create a sense of privacy and with the proper exposure, can produce its own microclimate, absorbing the sun's warmth while blocking chilling winds.

• Stone is a logical and natural choice for walls. It is durable and low-maintenance. Although more expensive than other wall building materials such as wood or metal, it will far outlast them all. Stone walls can be designed to suit any style of landscape, from rigidly formal to ruggedly natural. Whether your walls are built from stone gathered on the site or from rock quarried from and off site location, they will give your landscape a unique character that will endure for generations to come.

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