In our previous blog, Make a Splash with mosaics, we celebrated the outdoors with an eye toward water features. The goal, to imagine what mosaics and water can do for an ordinary plot of land, bringing water to plant life and movement to a space. This week, we’d like to turn your imagination to the joys of other functional features, expanding not only your own piece of paradise but expanding your living space with natural stones to include visual masterpieces with a function – fireplaces, barbeque pits, and outdoor kitchens.

Once a living room with a fire was the most romantic room in the home. Today, natural stone creations can bring that living room outdoors—adding breezes and a starry sky to the smells of a crackling fire and offering roomier spaces for larger groups.

Natural stone isn’t just for flooring; it isn’t simply for covering surfaces. Natural stone can create dimension and interest. Best of all, it is difficult to find materials that do not complement one another. A mixture of quartzite, travertine, slates, and granite in varying patterns and mosaics is an attractive blend with the presence of a defining color.

A fireplace is not the only way to add a little warmth in Winter for late nights outdoors. Fire pits are also an attractive and useful way to get the most out of an evening, enjoying the warmth of fire or using it for toasting marshmallows. It’s also a perfect centerpiece at home with friends or in your business’ backyard, providing a source of entertainment during a business meeting, while allowing plenty of room to move. Best of all, at a party or meeting where everyone tends to drift, the fire pit draws a group in, encouraging guests to gather around its heat. Thoughtful use of natural stones for both the pit itself and for the surrounding patio ensures a beautiful talking point as well as a safe fire area.

There’s no warmer place than the outdoor kitchen. In terms of function, an outdoor kitchen offers something an indoor kitchen cannot – the functionality of an ordinary kitchen coupled with the ambiance of mother nature. Like an indoor kitchen, natural stone can be used for everything from limestone tiles for flooring to gorgeous granite countertops. “Breakfast” bars are also a great option as they offer a landing spot for guests to keep the cook company or for enjoying a meal. In a business setting, an outdoor kitchen is often overlooked, but don’t underestimate the power of employee barbeques or grilling lunch for a team meeting, as food and relaxation let the ideas flow!

Fireplaces, fire pits, and outdoor kitchens (as well as the water features we discussed previously) are all great options for the creative use of natural stone, but landscaping does not stop with the focal points. Walls and pathways from landscape stones can unify the setting and truly showcase the color and elegance of natural stone, blending with nature rather than competing with it.

MSI is the leading importer and distributor of flooring, countertop, and wall tile and offers thousands of colors, patterns, and sizes of natural stones for your landscaping needs. Warm up your magnificent outdoor living or meeting space this season!

While many areas of the country experience the Winter holidays with a touch of cold weather and snow, buying sweaters and mittens or perhaps picking up snow-blowers at holiday sales, Californians often celebrate 70 degree days in December with t-shirts and shorts out on the patio. Thus, an article about bringing mosaics to the outdoor landscape might seem spot on to the latter, and something to dream about in warmer days to the former. If you are indeed enjoying the warmer side of Winter and looking for a gift for your home that truly gives rewards all year, this topic may inspire you to add a little cheer to your current landscape with a splash of mosaics designs.

 Most recently, we blogged about natural stone mosaics (Romancing The Stone: Bring it Together With Natural Stone Mosaics) and about glass and stone mosaics (Mosaic Trends: Blending Glass and Stone). However, it is important to note that MSI offers an extensive collection of decorative, functional mosaics which also include glass mosaics, glass and metal blend mosaics, glass and stone mosaics, glass stone and metal mosaics, and porcelain mosaics. Though we’ve mostly highlighted the indoor applications of mosaics in our previous blogs, this week we’d like to turn your attention to an outdoor application – specifically, to water features.

A splashing fountain, a tranquil koi point, or a distinctive waterfall into a swimming pool – each water feature lends something special and unique to the backyard world, transforming it from an ordinary lot of land into a private piece of paradise. Many enjoy the sound of trickling water or the idea of bringing nature home in general; others enjoy a water feature’s ability to the elevate a landscape from standard to premier in the following ways:

• Attracts wildlife
• Makes a garden focal point
• Boosts the health of surrounding plants (and allows planting of flora for wetter zones)
• Introduces personality to the property
• Increases the value/appeal of the home to future buyers

There are many materials with which to build the foundations of water features such as ponds, fountains, and waterfalls; however, mosaics are a clever choice for enhancing other materials, like slabs of natural stones:

• Glass mosaics add shimmer and reflect light, but are non-porous and resistant to wear and weather.
• Metal blend mosaics add a touch of sophistication and luxury to an otherwise earthy display and are best suited for expanding reflection around water (not for submersion in it).
• Glass, Stone and Metal mosaics make a distinctive feature in contrast to the backdrop of a natural setting - a cross of timelessness and contemporary style.
• Porcelain mosaics blend cohesively with natural counterparts and allow floral presentations to steal the spotlight.

All mosaics introduce a design element that can suit a home or business owner’s personal style – from simple to intricate patterns, earthy to modern, sophisticated to understated. Mosaics can take something as simple as a pool of water and transform it into a theme, mood, or idea. MSI offers hundreds of mosaic blends and patterns designed to enrich every space, inside or out – the perfect gift of renewal for your landscaping project.

A brief internet search of the keyword “quartzite” will itself explain the need for an article entitled “What is Quartzite?”.

There is often confusion among consumers and professionals alike as, quite incorrectly, the terms quartzite and quartz are used interchangeably. They are in fact two different things, but good word of mouth about one or the other of these materials passes as it does from one person to the next, quartzite is shortened to quartz, and the result is that people think they are the same thing. Another contributing factor to the confusion is that retailers sometimes assign a more commercially-recognizable label to quartzite, lumping it in with quartz,  granite or slates, in an effort to simplify their product lines. 

Let’s make sure we differentiate quartz from quartzite. Quartz alone is a mineral of the gemstone world. It varies in color – amethyst likely the most well-known. As an engineered stone, quartz is one ingredient and the other resin. The resin fills in the pores of the quartz and makes it stronger. Quartz is mostly used for countertops, and can be found in MSI’s Q-line of products. 

Quartzite, on the other hand, is a truly natural stone that is not filled or mixed with any man-made materials. It is a hard, metamorphic rock that was originally sandstone before heating and compression fused the sand grains together into one rock. Pure quartzite is typically found in shades from white to gray, although the presence of other minerals can result in other colors. For example, the presence of iron oxide can cause quartzite to be pink and even red. 

Quartzite is also sometimes confused with granite, a problem contributed by manufacturers or retailers who sell them in the same family. However, granite is an igneous rock . Granite also undergoes one process in its formation and quartzite undergoes two -- the first, the process to create sandstone; the second, the transformation from sandstone into quartzite. Quartzite differs from granite in that it has a large crystal network that is usually more porous than granite, can etch, and is not as hard as granite (though in general, quartzite is very hard – it is even used as railroad ballast). 

Quartzite may also be confused with slate – an easy enough misunderstanding, as the overall look and variant texture can be similar. However, with a higher silica content, quartzite has a sparkling texture absent in slates.

MSI offers both quartzite tiles and quartzite countertops. Our most popular color of quartzite is golden white. It is used for flooring, mosaics, and landscaping applications. Its color variation and sparkle, alone or in combination with other stones, metal, or glass, makes for eye-catching mosaics. As landscaping, the fact that it is often harvested from ridges and hilltops that are completely absent of vegetation, proving its tough resistance to weather and wear. 

What is quartzite? It’s a beautiful natural stone! It is not quartz, granite, marble, or slate. For more factual details about quartzite, we encourage you to explore www.msistone.com and visit the Natural Stone Council at www.genuinestone.com. 

Over the past weeks, we have taken you around the world to see natural stones as we see them – multigenerational, varied, and boundless. We discussed granite, marble, travertine, slate, limestone, and onyx, described how they are formed, and explored their many uses from national monuments, landmarks, and tourist destinations to every day products past and present. This week, in our final installment, we’d like to bring it altogether and offer you an overview of each stone to demonstrate how a premium surface from MSI can become a piece of art in your home or business. 

Granite – Easily the most well-known natural stone as a building material in today’s design lexicon, MSI offers a vast variety of granite countertops and granite tiles for flooring, as well as granite landscaping stones, like cobbles, for outdoor needs. Though it is the hardest of the natural stones and also known as the most “maintenance free”, making granite great for interior and exterior applications, this natural stone’s true virtue is its broad range of patterns, colors and crystalline variation, and versatility when it comes to cuts and finishes. As discussed in our tour of national monuments, granite is a popular choice for its ideal carving surface; however, it is also a perfect choice to bring a little majesty to your next project.

Marble – Your home may not be the Taj Mahal, but it can feel like it with a selection of marble tiles for flooring or marble slabs for countertops. Marble’s distinctive veining that can reveal itself as bands, streaks and clouds and variance in white, black, grayish and even pink and red shades makes it a great natural stone for accenting an area like a foyer, fireplace, or special countertop. As a piece of marble can be more susceptible to etching depending on its mineral content than an invulnerable stone like granite, it is best utilized selectively as a piece of definitive artwork for minimalist or dramatic looks.

Travertine - Travertine exemplifies the uniqueness of natural stone and offers us breathtaking achievements, whether untouched in its native environment or realized as man-made structures. Travertine tiles are one of the most popular natural stones for both interior floors and for exterior floors as travertine pavers. Travertine caps, treads, copings, flagstone, and ledgerstone will also redefine the look of an outdoor paradise. Travertine just as easily stands alone as it works in partnership, as travertine can be combined with other stones, metals, or glass into stunning mosaics that emphasize the whites, creams, browns, coppers, and pinks of this unique stone. It’s truly a wonderful combination of strength, like granite, and beauty, like a traditional marble, escalating the quality of design.

Slate – In our Romancing the Stone blog about slate, we celebrated its many merits – flat and smooth, thermally stable, fireproof, resistant to water, and more.  However, slate is more than just a adaptable stone we’ve been using since 6000BC. It is arguably one of the most distinctive and attractive of the natural stones. Light to dark grey, black, green, pink or red, purple, brown, blue-grey, or mottled, slate boasts a vibrant array of color and exceptional texture. Slate is suited to indoor and outdoor use. We offer slate tiles for flooring, mosaics for wall cladding, and slate pavers and landscaping stones for colorful patterns. It can bring an “old-timey” look to a room or modern sophistication, and the fact that no two pieces of slate, even from the same quarry, look alike means that a focal point of slate can be a piece of unrivaled art in itself. 

Limestone – It’s hard to imagine that a stone with so many practical and industrial purposes, such as for an additive in paint or filler in toothpastes and antacids, can also be something beautiful to look at. Nonetheless, the muted tones of limestone are perfect for a casual design aesthetic, and the very nature of stone itself implies wealth and prosperity despite the comfortable look. MSI offers limestone for a variety of applications – limestone tiles for flooring in low traffic areas; limestone slabs for countertops; limestone mosaics and beveled tiles for bathroom and fireplaces; and natural cut flagstones for your outdoor art gallery.

Onyx – This semi-precious stone is indeed the crowning jewel in a home or business application. As noted in our blog devoted to this natural stone, onyx is particularly suited for exotic countertops, like bartops, or for fireplace faces and backsplashes where the stone sees gentle use but is highly visible. Onyx tiles may be used for flooring, especially as edging and accents, and is also beautiful in combination with other stones, glass, or metal as eye-catching mosaics. Onyx may not be as versatile as the other natural stones we’ve discussed in this series (only in the sense that it cannot be downplayed and cannot help but uplift a room), but it certainly is the prime example for how a natural stone alone can be a piece of art. 

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Romancing the Stone series and invite you to take a look back at each of these natural stones, deeply rooted in tradition, generationally appealing, and variant in application. 

Romancing the Stone: Introducing MSI’s Natural Stone Series

Romancing the Stone: Monuments that Stand the Test of Time

Romancing the Stone: World’s Most Beautiful Travertine 

Romancing the Stone: No Boundaries in Quality

Romancing the Stone: Slate is a Timeless Stone

Romancing the Stone: The Many Faces of Natural Limestone

Romancing the Stone: Bring it Together Natural Stone Mosaics

Romancing the Stone: Onyx - Jewel of Ancient & Modern Design

In our Romancing the Stone series, we’ve talked quite a bit about our love for natural stones - granite, travertine, slate, and limestone to name a few. However, we also love bringing stones together to create texture and depth, focal points, accent, and striking displays of color not often found in nature. Natural stone mosaics for indoor and outdoor applications are unique complements or features for every project and allow us to indulge both our creativity and love of natural stones.

Not to be confused with our glass stone blend mosaics,  glass metal blend mosaics, or porcelain mosaics, natural stone mosaic tiles are typically combinations of one type of natural stone in a sheet or tile most popularly utilized as wall tile. For example, the mosaic sheet “Autumn” is a multicolor selection of slate pieces; the mosaic sheet “Golden White” is comprised of quartzite; “Café Forest” is marble on mesh.

MSI offers 46 different natural stone mosaic sheets alone and hundreds of tiles, edges and moldings, giving you endless options for creating natural stone displays in marble, slate, travertine, quartzite, and onyx. The differences extend far beyond color – mosaics come in a myriad of styles to create texture and depth – styles like pebbled, basketweave, tumbled, and honed and beveled. A mosaic hatch from the Tuscany collection is one such example of a unique cut and “tumbled” finish. Marble medallions are also a popular choice for unique and interesting focal points. 

Clearly there are many options to explore when it comes to natural stone mosaics, but the options for their application are as varied. The most common uses are wall applications (often as backsplashes or edgings), but natural stone mosaics can also serve as floors, countertops, and for outdoor landscaping needs or in and around swimming pools and water features. They may be used sparingly as a border to enhance the simplicity of other tiles or rock borders, or they may be used in larger quantities to fill a space with an exotic, earthy feel.

What is most exciting about natural stone mosaics is that we can recreate the amazing places that we have visited, or wish we could visit. For example, the mosaic sheet “Mixed Travertine” is exactly what the name implies – a gorgeous blend of creams, rusts, greys, and browns of travertine. In fact, with one sheet of travertine, you can capture the most exciting, colorful parts of the Hot Mammoth Springs, the city of Austin, or Hanging Lake in Colorado (places we explored in Part 1 of this series “The World’s Most Beautiful Travertine”). Natural stone mosaics allow us to bring exotic places home and utilize the very best aspects of each of these locales – such as the pinks that are more rare and surprising in natural exhibits. 

Natural stone mosaics allow us to create art within our homes and businesses – a perfect blend of the natural stones we have come to love and celebrate in our Romancing the Stone series! Join us for our next installment, Onyx: The Jewel of Modern Design. 

In our previous installment of Romancing the Stone, we discussed the many uses for slate, from writing instruments to whetstones to roofs. Like slate, limestone is a natural stone that is multi-faceted, but not only with respect to its potential – it is a very versatile stone in itself. 

Slate and limestone also have water in common, at least when it comes to their formation. Slate is found in the ocean; likewise, limestone is found anywhere an ancient sea existed and can even be comprised entirely of marine fossils. Limestones are sedimentary rocks that form from the layering of silt and organic matter over time. The pressure and heat from the accumulation of layers results in chemical reactions that harden the sediments into solid stone.  

Sometimes limestone is purely calcite from skeletal remains of marine life, but depending upon the nature of the silt (i.e., “impurities” like clay, sand, and iron oxide that may have contributed to its formation), limestone can vary in color, from the predominant grey color of many limestones to browns, yellows, or reds. The presence of carbon in the silt can also make limestone appear blue or black. Also, depending on the methods of formation and the types of deposits that accumulated, limestone can be found in crystalline, clastic (composed of fragments), granular (like sand), or massive slabs. This makes it a highly varied stone useful for many modern applications.

Limestone is typically composed of calcium carbonate, so it is soluble in acid. When crushed, it is soluble in water. As an alkali, it is great for adjusting the pH in a garden for vegetables that prefer less acidic soil. Limestone is also used in the water industry to soften water. It is employed in dyes (it is used to make paper white) and as an additive in paint, as well as in everyday items that we put into our bodies like toothpaste and antacids as a filler. It is also found in many of our favorite foods as a preservative and as a source of calcium, an essential mineral in our diets. 

More commonly known uses of limestone are as aggregate or base for roads and foundations and for purification in many industries - to purify steel, to purify molten glass, and even to purify sugar. It is essential in other kinds of manufacturing as well: brake pads and wools for clothing also utilize limestone. One of the most common uses is in the production of Portland cement, which is the most common type of cement in use around the world. Limestone is the basic ingredient for concrete, mortor, stucco, and grout.

Because limestone is found in abundance and is easier to cut in comparison to some other natural stones, as well as because it is long-lasting and resistant to weather fluctuations, it is often found in the manufacture of buildings, either as building blocks or for facades. Limestone City in Canada actually derives its name from the sheer number of buildings made from limestone there!

Limestone certainly has many faces, but it finds a spot in our hearts for its uses in indoor and outdoor, commercial and residential applications. Its muted tones, whether polished or honed, are fit for bathrooms, fireplace facings and mantles, countertops, and flooring. (Limestone is very porous, so it doesn’t turn aside stains as easily as some other natural stones; therefore, when it comes to countertops and flooring, it must be finished and sealed properly or placed in areas that are less active.) Limestone slabs and tiles are also suited for landscaping applications in patios and walkways . They are especially eye-catching when defining garden borders, as both a salute to nature and a nod to limestone’s nutritional pedigree.

MSI is one of the largest suppliers of limestone in the U.S.. We offer tiles and slabs in every shade of limestone, including greys, soft beiges, and pinks, and a variety of cuts and finishes. Join us in our next installment of Romancing the Stone for more on versatility – stone mosaics!

 

The Ins and Outs

Homeowners and designers alike are always looking for ways to bring a unique perspective to their indoor and outdoor projects. From their beginnings, Ledgers have always found their way into the top interior and exterior design magazines but never before have they been so popular as they are today. Inside, they can be used to build anything from a cozy fireplace hearth to a dramatic surround that makes an entire wall the focal point. Showcase a one-of-a-kind backsplash in the kitchen or create a fabulous bedroom wall that doubles as a headboard. For an outside oasis that beckons lounging and entertaining, use these beauties to build planters, pool and spa walls complete with cascading fountains, functional outdoor kitchen areas and barbeques, outdoor showers and fire pits to warm up after a swim, and the list goes on. No matter what the project, Natural Stone Ledgers are certain to bring lasting beauty and value to your home or business.

M S International’s 100% Natural Stone Ledger Panel collection was designed to significantly simplify the installation process by pre-affixing several rows of trimmed ledger stone pieces of varied sizes into one panel. These panels easily fit together much like the pieces of a puzzle. MSI has eliminated much of the guesswork by offering an innovative joint design that ensures that the interlocking seams “seem” to virtually disappear once the product is properly installed. These panels come sized 6” X 24” and represent a host of color patterns found within earthen stones such as Quartzite, Slate, Travertine and Sandstone. The panels come in two styles: Ledger Stepped Panels or “L” ledger stepped panel corners that will beautifully finish off the 90 degree angles of your outside corners.

 Whatever your Ledger project requirements are, MSI is at the ready to provide you with the exceptional natural stone products you need to ensure a successful outcome that can be enjoyed for generations to come.