Stone veneer
The face of every wall, column, fireplace and kitchen island.
Veneer is a facing, not a structure — the wall behind it is block or framing and does the actual work. What you are choosing is a face, a joint style and a corner detail, and the corner detail is what separates a wall that reads as stone from one that reads as stone wallpaper.
8 of 8 stone veneer in this category
- Natural stone
Stacked stone ledger panel
Thin strips of natural stone pre-assembled into panels, so the wall goes up as modules rather than stone by stone. The strong horizontal line is unmistakable, and it is the go-to face for a modern water wall.
Natural stoneDry-stack fieldstone
Full-thickness natural stone laid with almost no visible mortar, so the wall reads as stacked rock. Slowest to build of anything on this page and the least likely to ever look dated.
- Natural stoneColour families — we hold no photograph of this finish on one of our own projects
Cut ashlar stone
Stone sawn to rectangular units and laid in courses. More formal than fieldstone, less repetitive than manufactured, and the pattern that sits most comfortably against a traditional house.
Natural stoneRiver cobble veneer
Rounded stone, laid tight or with generous mortar joints. The most rustic face available and the one that most obviously belongs beside a naturalistic pool or a boulder-edged water feature.
- Manufactured stoneColour families — we hold no photograph of this finish on one of our own projects
Manufactured stone veneer
Cast concrete moulded and coloured from real stone. Lighter, cheaper and faster than the thing it imitates, with a finite number of moulds — so on a long wall the repeat becomes visible if it is not laid carefully.
- Brick & blockColour families — we hold no photograph of this finish on one of our own projects
Thin brick veneer
Real fired brick sliced thin and applied as a facing. Gives a wall or island the colour and joint pattern of brick without building in brick, and pairs naturally with a house that already has some.
Rendered & cladSmooth stucco / plaster face
No veneer at all — the block wall is rendered and finished flat, usually to match the house. The quietest and cheapest face here, and in a modern scheme frequently the right one.
- Rendered & cladColour families — we hold no photograph of this finish on one of our own projects
Large-format porcelain cladding
Big thin porcelain sheets on a wall, with minimal joints. Reads as one continuous surface, wipes clean, and is unforgiving about substrate flatness and about the person cutting it.
Nobody should pick stone veneer off a screen
Colour on a monitor is a guess, and a surface you will walk on barefoot for fifteen years is not a guess worth making. We put real samples in front of you at the design consultation, in daylight, next to each other — including the ones we would talk you out of.