Do you want a natural material that offers a wide variety of shades and finishes that goes with all environments, from the trendiest to the most classic, that is weather resistant and easy to maintain?
Think of natural stone, an alternative to tiles, full of charm and authenticity! A slate terrace or granite pool deck? Raw look or sawn edges? Installation with straight joints or Roman opus? From types of stones to finishes, current trends, and maintenance, we explain how to find inspiration for “natural” exterior cladding.
In order to dress your terraces and outdoor walkways, choose natural stone from Stone Center for example for its unique character, durability, creative possibilities, and ease of maintenance.
1 – Natural, Unique, And Authentic Stone
Resistant, aesthetic and authentic. Three adjectives perfectly suit natural stone, a material that stands out for its multiple varieties and numerous layout possibilities.
A floor covering full of advantages
With a natural stone floor such as Travertine vs Pavers, you choose a covering:
Of great durability. You will enjoy many years of your natural stone floor, naturally resistant to external aggressions.
Natural. It deserves to be remembered: directly extracted from its environment of origin, natural stone is an ecological material that does not undergo any transformation other than cutting into the formats that will be marketed.
Easy to maintain, a point to which we will return.
The formats of natural stone slabs
Natural stone is also characterized by its varied formats. We distinguish in particular:
Square and rectangular tiles in classic sizes (30×60 cm, 40×60 cm, 60×60 cm) or large XXL format (up to 60×120 cm), a trend that is also found for interior floor tiles.
The free strip or “running strip” format of fixed width (20, 30, or 40 cm) and variable length. The installation with unstable joints allows the animation of a terrace or a swimming pool deck.
Natural Stone Finishes
Choosing a natural stone terrace means opting for subtle colors and original textures. The appearance of a slab also depends on its surface treatment, knowing that there are a good twenty different finishes! Here are the main ones.
Rough Sawn
Intended mainly for hard stones, the raw finish leaves visible traces of the sawing tools. The superficial irregularities on the slab’s surface reinforce its non-slip qualities.
Bush-Hammered, Shot-Peened, And Tumbled
Bush-hammering consists of hitting the surface with a spiked hammer (or bush-hammering hammer) which creates slight reliefs (hollows and bumps). To obtain a shot-blasted finish, steel balls are projected on the surface, causing a surface splitting of the stone. Finally, tambourine-look tiles have an aged look achieved due to their jagged edges and sloping corners. Note that these three finishes reinforce the non-slip character of the stone.
Sand
The sandblasting operation, or projection of grains of sand at high pressure on the surface, brings out the grain of hard natural stones and gives them a rough appearance.
Flamed, Brushed, And Flamed Brushed
The flaming is obtained by exposing the stone to a flame jet, which makes the surface rough and non-slip. The brushing operation is carried out with a polisher: it softens the surface of a rough stone and slightly rounds the edges. Combined with flaming, we obtain the “brushed flamed” finish.
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