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At a glance

Stone and timber have many qualties that have it perfect for your interiors

• Depending on the materials and cut, stone can create either a hard or soft effect.
• As stone doesn’t date and can form elements of painterly beauty, using it in your home is like investing in good art.
• As stone and wood are both from the earth, they combine beautifully.
• Timber used externally can be either coated to protect it and enrich the colour and grain or it can be left to weather.
• The wood used should either be the same tone throughout or differing timbers that dramatically contrast in tone.

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Stone and timber homes

Melissa Rimac

07 December 2009. Posted by WellBeing Natural Health & Living News

A slick, contemporary, clean-lined house need not be lifeless and forbidding. Two of nature’s most ancient and elementary building materials — stone and wood — have the potential to imbue a home with captivating come–hither allure and infuse tactility, nuance and spontaneity into just about any style of building.

“These are organic materials that engender comfort and hark back to simpler times,” says architect Bruce Rickard, who, as a key player in the organic architecture movement of the mid-1900s encouraged Australians to incorporate their unique natural assets into their homes. “I love timber and stone for their warmth, colour, variation, grain and the way they play with light and can be used as found and without paint.” Apart from their embrace of their natural surrounds, houses designed by Rickard are remarkable for their timelessness.

Stone and wood provide an experience that’s grounding, says architect Walter Barda, another design doyen who has fashioned these simple and eternal materials into spaces that provide an intriguing and delightful experience. “We can relate to these materials because we intuitively understand where they came from,” says Barda. “They reveal something about a human hand working a surface and speak a language we understand.” And, he says, homes made from these materials mature beautifully.

Stone-age style

Since ancient times, stone has conveyed an impression of strength, opulence and solidity. There’s something about stone that unequivocally declares “this is something special”. Unlike most trends, stone’s classic good looks won’t fade and, when used artfully, can lift a space from the pedestrian to the sublime.

Interior Designer Nicole Drake, who recently clad her brick home in sandstone sheets, says stone provides the perfect foil to today’s pared–down aesthetic. “Stone is very textural, tactile and sensual. You want to touch it,” she says. “It creates an elegant, contemporary style with added warmth and character.”

Depending on the materials and the cut, stone can create either a hard or soft effect, producing stunning results in either modern or traditional-style homes. A single stone feature, says Drake, can totally transform a space. Apart from stone floors and paving, walls, kitchen benchtops and paving, strips of stone sheeting can be used to create feature walls, fireplace surrounds, facings and water features. A stone slab makes a unique and dramatic shower screen or bathroom vanity feature. Or, take a cue from design hotels and create inbuilt stone furniture.

Don’t limit yourself to prescribed notions, advises Drake. For instance, instead of using identical tiles on bathroom walls and floors, extra depth and nuance can be introduced by incorporating different cuts, finishes and textures of the same stone, establishing a stone feature wall, mixing several types of stone or combining stone with other visually striking elements such as glass, steel or pebbles.

Drake suggests using stone sheeting to create “stone columns” around unsightly structural elements such as metal poles. Finishing details can make or break the final look, she says. For example, rather than settle for wafer-thin benchtops, she has extra stone cut and mitred into the edges, creating the impression of a chunky, substantial surface.

An earthy investment

Because stone doesn’t date and can form elements of painterly beauty, using it in your home is like investing in good art. Rickard and many other architects favour stone that is rough, irregular and not dressed, while others relish how polished stone conjures colours and entices light. Whether the look you’re after is rough and rustic, flamboyant or Zen cool, stone can create just about any mood imaginable.

John Raffoul, director of a company that imports a huge range of natural stone, sources stunning, massive stone slabs. There’s ethereal Carrera marble or the drama of dark granite or black or bottle green marble; or mellow neutrals such as travertine that, when savoured barefoot, feel like soft sand. Combine that with the “stonewashed” look of honed stone or the shimmer of highly polished surfaces and the options become almost limitless.