See this beautiful bluestone path? I’m about to inherit it. It is the stairway to the front door of a family member’s house that is about to be torn down. Right before the big machinery comes to take down the house, I’m going to disassemble that path and take the bluestone.
But the question is, what should I do with it? Bluestone is a pretty formal material for my cottage-style house and garden, but certainly there must be a way to make it a bit more casual. Unfortunately I just can’t figure out how.
Some of the pieces are quite large, maybe 30″ by 22″ or so on the biggest, and obviously some are already cut to have a curve. Right now we have a small fieldstone path going through a corner of the garden (pictures will be included in a future post on the topic) that we use every day as it is the main thoroughfare to our garage, and my husband would like that path to extend in some way to the garage. I’m not sure if there’s some way to incorporate the bluestone into that (or if I should quickly scrap that concept).
Anyway, I’m open to any creative ideas you all have, because I really need help on this one. I don’t want to lift up and move all the bluestone only to have it stockpiled behind my garage for the next decade. Nor do I want to take on a project so big I’ll end up having to buy more bluestone to finish it (which is usually what happens when I get “free” materials). So help!
2 Responses
What nice stonework! The radius perimeter limestone(?) accent is particularly nice – what a great patina, too. Bluestone is really adaptable and, at least in my opinion, at home in just about any context. As to ideas, the walkway design required cutting perimeter bluestone to the radius, but that doesnt mean you have to hold to this design. You have quite a bit of quarry-cut dimensional material in the center of the radius and the perimeter bluestone could easily be recut to work in a convential walkway layout.On a side note, the installer used a 'pattern' to achieve the ashlar pattern 'look' – if you go the route of recutting the stone, you'll have to reassemble these and cut a few of the quarry-cut pieces as well for proper fit. The treads and perimeter limestone could also be recut into accent stone to line the edges. If outdoor firepits are your thing, the landing/patio could be re-purposed to provide a wonderful surround, too. BTW, there's also quite a few ways to 'soften' the appearance of Bluestone, too, like honing/beveling the top side edges – this is sometimes called a 'pillowed edge' and gives the stone the look of loaves of bread. Anyways, looks like a solid weekend's worth of work – but worth it! I install quite a bit of Bluestone around Sheboygan, working on a 3000 sq.ft Bluestone project at the moment on the north side. If you're interested, maybe you would be interested in trading the limestone pieces for my cutting/reinstalling your bluestone or could trade some quantity of Bluestone for these? It would actually save me several days of cutting curbing for some planters! Good luck – Brooks [email protected]