Artificial stone in the interior and exterior of the house: application ideas

Recommendation points

• Warm Mediterranean breeze
• Wine flavor of France
• Provence style
• Norman style
• Chalet style
• Frosty air of Scandinavia

Artificial stone is gradually replacing natural in the decoration of interiors and facades of houses. How to use decorative stone in various design styles – Mediterranean, Norman and Scandinavian, chalet and Provence style – you will learn from this article..

Man’s love for the stone lasts at least an eternity – from the very times when our ancestors erected it on the throne as a symbol of inviolability and strength. And most likely, this “romantic feeling” will never leave us, entangling us with invisible threads, prompting us to build houses from stone, equip internal spaces, or, at least, create imitations of a stone surface. Welcome to the new “Stone Age” – the era of artificial stone, which retained the aesthetics of its ancestor, but has radically new properties and incalculable advantages. We offer you original ideas for using decorative stone for your home, borrowed from its natural counterpart.

Despite modern production technologies, artificial stone follows in the footsteps of its prototype in everything – copies the appearance, physical properties, bursts into its original “spheres of influence”. If at first the decorative stone modestly sat in the interior, unable to withstand precipitation and temperature collisions, now artificial stone for facades and exterior decoration is no longer a wonder. Possessing a simplified installation scheme and without making the load-bearing walls of buildings heavier, imitations of stone and brickwork look quite noble, and they cost much less than their counterparts. In addition, a wide range of textures, shades, standard sizes of finishing stone allows to achieve powerful visual effects in architecture and landscape design, as well as in interior decoration..

What is decorative stone capable of in indoor and outdoor spaces? Based on this list, for a lot:

1. Set the tone for the facade or interior, make it special.
2. Support the style of the house, landscape, interior.
3. Create an expressive, accent plane.
4. Introduce an element of naturalness, naturalness.
5. Add missing finishing touches.
6. Create optical illusions – zoom out or zoom in on a decorative surface.

Consistency of style is an invaluable attribute of the design of anything, distinguishing a chaotic jumble of details from a clear concept, which, like a mosaic, consists of artistic composition, color harmony and characteristic features of a particular style direction. This is especially important in decorating spaces designed to surround us all the time. How to choose a style for your habitat that will find a lively response in your soul and will not bother you over time? We invite you to go on an exciting cruise to the near and distant countries of Western Europe in search of precious grains of style, where our companion will be a decorative facing stone.

Warm Mediterranean breeze

A light breeze, enveloping the warmth of the sun, an endless azure distance – we all strive to find ourselves on the sea coast and breathe in the salty air at least for a moment. This is probably why many inhabitants of northern latitudes choose the Mediterranean style for home design, adding a particle of sky, sea, sun to the decor. What are the features of this style? Mainly white or light sand tones in facade decoration, terracotta roofs, an abundance of stone both in the exterior and in the interior.

An interesting feature of the Mediterranean style is its diversity, depending on the country, region and even city, but with the preservation of the unifying features. For example, the architecture and style of the port cities of Italy and Spain are distinguished by oriental and African notes, acquired in ancient times through active trade between states. The Greek style has better preserved its authenticity and remained faithful to the culture of the Cretan-Mycenaean era – light and airy, snow-white and a little careless. So, if you are close to the nautical style, inspired by the colors of the Mediterranean Sea, then here are the nuances when decorating a house, a backyard area and an interior using decorative stone:

1. Greek manor: large and medium format white “wild” stone, pearl structured facing brick or clinker imitating hand-made masonry stone.
2. Sicilian fortress: yellowish-ocher facing stone of irregular shape, close to natural appearance.
3. Venetian palazzo: brick or decorative stone of a geometric shape in medium and dark colors – sand, gray, terracotta, red.
4. Spanish villa: rough and large stone of natural outlines of yellow-orange, light brown shades.

Special attention should be paid to the artificial stone facing of the territories adjacent to the house – terraces, patios, summer kitchens, the “heart” of which, as a rule, is a fireplace or a stylized hearth. Facing stone and brick for auxiliary buildings must be selected with reference to the facade of the house, but the decoration of the fireplace or barbecue can be made in contrast – with an artificial stone of a darker or lighter shade, slightly different size, different from the facade cladding. In the Mediterranean style, decorative stone looks great, creating an imitation of travertine, sandstone, raw marble, shell rock, plinths (thin adobe brick), stucco (gypsum plaster).

It will not be difficult for you to decorate the facade of a private house in the Mediterranean style – just revet the walls with decorative stone, as close as possible in appearance to natural, and paint the wooden parts in a bright turquoise color. In terms of color, it is advisable to make the walls of the house white or the color of baked milk – here, by the way, there will be an artificial facade stone of Bergamo, Champagne or Perugia. To decorate summer kitchens, terraces and gazebos adjacent to the house, you can take a warmer tone of stone – ocher, from the Verona or Venice collections.

Interiors in Mediterranean style look great, where light tones of the walls are diluted with beige and yellowish shades. As a rule, one of the walls is laid out with a warm-toned facing stone and serves as a background for any important interior detail – a fireplace or a picture, upholstered or cabinet furniture. In addition, the light brown colors of the stone are combined with wood, which is a must-have for Mediterranean-style design. You can add sunny notes to the interior of your home with the beige and cream shades of facing stone from the Turin and Rome collections..

A modern take on Mediterranean style showcases the design of a farmhouse in the Italian countryside. An absolutely laconic building without any outstanding architectural details, built of ivory sandstone on a brick base. Actually, only columns are made of stone, the spans between which are almost completely occupied by glazing. Due to this, the natural stone has not undergone cladding, the columns are an active element of the interior design. Color accents in almost white rooms are created by upholstered furniture in a rich burgundy color. Finishing from light decorative stone Brittany or Ancona will help you to repeat a similar design in your home, and Orleans facing brick is suitable for facade work.

The designers from Paris rethought the canons of the Mediterranean interior in a non-trivial way – the rough walls of whitewashed stone serve as a background for motley furniture and an unexpected flower chandelier. The unusual color is growing in the dining area, where the white interior is diluted with chairs painted in menthol color. If you like such an extravagant Mediterranean interior, you can repeat something similar at home by lining the wall with an artificial white facade stone from the Bergamo collection and correctly placing bright accents.

Wine flavor of France

Provence style

The characteristic style for the south of France, formed in the seaside province of Provence, is another example of the Mediterranean style, but more sophisticated than Italian or Spanish, with an abundance of floral motifs and ornate furniture reminiscent of lace. Completely white or slightly creamy Provence style interiors are usually enclosed in stone facades of natural raw stone. If you like the refined peasant chic of Provence, then the facing stone for the exterior of the house should resemble sedimentary rocks as much as possible – limestone, sandstone, slate in their natural form and colors. For interiors, it is better to choose an artificial stone of light shades – the color of baked milk or whitish-beige, which does not violate the monotony of the walls inherent in Provence.

Ocher and light terracotta paints are one of the most preferable colors for interior and facade decoration in Provence style. Successfully harmonizing with the white walls of the interior, the natural sandy tones of the stone bring the missing flavor to the design and make the space “warmer”. Artificial stone for facades Venice, Ancona, Turin, Brittany – this is exactly the Provence-style cladding that will revive both the exterior of the house with adjacent buildings and the interior.

The Provence style is so democratic that in modern interiors, traditional coatings for it perfectly coexist with completely unusual solutions. The vault of the stone-faced arched ceiling in the Provencal interior is adjacent to a rough wooden bench and, at the same time, to chairs made of aluminum. The background for the avant-garde fireplace is masonry made of natural stones of different sizes, and the wooden parts have acquired an unexpected lilac color. Do you want to experiment too? Choose the Provence style for the design of your home, cover the walls with decorative stone Leonardo, Corsica or Perugia and enliven the interior with catchy accessories of turquoise, crimson, purple..

Rustic Provence style, like no other, prefers white – especially in the design of fireplaces. To highlight the hearth against the background of white walls, the French country style loves to play with texture – fireplaces are faced with large-format “wild” stone, geometric tiles or decorative bricks. Various shades of light beige, light gray and yellow always look great in combination with wicker furniture, wooden beams and sophisticated textiles. For interior decoration in the Provence style, as well as to highlight the compositional center of the room, you can choose structured bricks of Bergamo and Lyon, large Perugia stone or chipped – from the Champagne collection.

Norman style

In the north-west of France, in the provinces of Brittany and Normandy, where the climate is harsh and hostile, echoes of Romanesque architecture, similar in outline to a rock or stone block, have been preserved. This effect is enhanced by the predominance of gray rough stone, which was used in the construction of castles in France in the “dark” and Middle Ages. So, the Norman style is characterized by asceticism, solidity and almost achromatic color palette. Artificial stone for the facades of houses in the Norman style is selected large, natural shape and texture, in all shades of gray – from light to dark anthracite color.

In order to achieve a feeling of the inviolability of a house and its resemblance to a defensive structure, it is not necessary to follow the classical canons of Norman architecture. It is enough just to add a few structural elements resembling buttresses, and your mansion will stand out among other buildings with its power and laconicism. Facing the house with light facade stone Brittany, Ancona or dark “ragged” Corsica, Leonardo will emphasize the solidity of the structure and expressive architecture in the Norman style.

A Norman-style house is always a mini-fortress with powerful walls of gray-earthy shades, due to which the building literally dissolves into a mountainous landscape. Rough stone, traditionally used for construction in the northeastern regions of France, has solidity and a sense of security like no other building material. Using artificial stone from the collections of Milan, Monaco, Corsica or facing bricks from San Marino to decorate the facades of your house, you can reasonably say that your home is your fortress.

Chalet style

Another region of France that is distinguished by its specific architecture and interior design is the Alpine Mountains. The use of wood for building houses, lancet pitched roofs, natural stone in detail – these are the hallmarks of a chalet-style home. The prevalence of dark, even a little gloomy colors in the decoration of the facades and interiors of the house creates the impression that you have a piece of rock in front of you, merged together with the surrounding landscape. In contrast to the Mediterranean style, where the hearth is graceful and plays rather a decorative role due to the warm mild climate, in the mountainous regions of France it is an important and functional element of home improvement. Large in size, heavy, built of massive natural stone – these are the slightly rough and powerful fireplaces of alpine chalet-style houses. Traditionally, the chimney of the manor houses in the mountains is displayed as an accent on the facade and is emphasized by the facing stone in a dark and variegated color scheme – gray-black or brown.

A house in the mountains – this is how you can briefly say about the chalet style in architecture, which is characterized by the use of solid wood as a building material, as well as stone for cladding individual parts of the facade and interior. Large “wild” stone in medium and dark tones are the accents that the chalet style allows in the decoration of fireplaces, stairs, and architectural elements. If you have chosen this cozy and slightly conservative alpine style for your home, then artificial stone from the collections of Leonardo, Corsica, Verona will favorably emphasize the beauty of natural wood and the entire interior as a whole..

The powerful chimney on the façade is a distinctive feature of houses in the northern regions, where the fireplace is treated with special reverence as a source of heat. Reminiscent of a rigid rod that runs through the building from top to bottom, a pipe lined with stone of a contrasting color to the façade is an extremely expressive element of the building’s exterior design. A rational solution for arranging a fireplace in the house is a masonry of refractory bricks, followed by decorative finishing with facing stones of dark colors from the collections of Milan, Capri, Marseille or light ones, present in the collections of Champagne and Perugia.

Frosty air of Scandinavia

The preference that is given in the Scandinavian countries to wooden architecture leaves little room for the use of stone in the decoration of the facades of private houses. Artificial stone of gray or variegated black and white can be used only for facing the basement. The inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries also do not like stone in relation to the interior. In snow-white, as if powdered with frost, strict and too correct interiors in the Scandinavian style, a decorative stone can appear fragmentarily and should only be a geometric shape of white, whitish-gray, terracotta.

Austere and laconic house, designed in Sweden, bears the interweaving of the Scandinavian “white” interior with oriental notes. Wall decoration with white bricks here side by side with wooden partitions, reminiscent of bamboo thickets. The windows overlook a small courtyard with a pool, dominated by an expressive wall made of motley, artificially aged red terracotta bricks. You can achieve a similar effect in the interior and exterior of your home by laying out the walls of the entrance group with white Lyon facing bricks, and the patio area with Orleans structured red brick.

Airy and at the level of sensation, slightly cool Scandinavian interiors become much warmer when they have accent planes lined with ocher and orange cladding bricks. Small reddish brick walls in kitchens, halls and living rooms coexist perfectly with snow-white walls, combined with wooden floors and furniture. The combination of a table made of a solid tree trunk with a beautiful texture and brickwork looks especially impressive. You can add a particle of the sun to an interior designed according to the Scandinavian principle by decorating wall fragments with facing bricks of a warm color range from the collections of Madrid, Provence, Siena. Expressive artificial stone suitable for the facades of Scandinavian-style houses – Orleans red-motley color and gray-brown cladding brick Naples

Traditional black and white interiors in Scandinavian style are enlivened, perhaps, by colorful textiles with a characteristic strip, zigzag and diamond patterns. But if you look closely, you will notice an abundance of surfaces of different textures, which, in addition to bright details, dilute the monochrome rooms. One of the favorite textures of the Scandinavians is brickwork, usually the same white color as the main background of the walls. Although it is also possible inclusions of a milky and sandy shade in the cladding of individual surfaces. If you are going to decorate your home in a style originally from northern latitudes, then white structured facing brick Lyon and decorative stone of light beige shades from the collections of Ancona, Brittany, Verona will help you.

The combination of terracotta and black colors in the decoration of the facades of the house, a bit unusual for us, is quite appropriate in the Scandinavian countries. When you see similar examples of wooden architecture from the Nordic countries, it becomes clear the adherence to the white and black color palette with orange and red accents in the decoration of the Scandinavian interior. If you are brave enough to paint the facade of your home black, then the base should be made of wild, untreated stone – only such a base will withstand such a massive “black spot”. In the interior, the intermediate link between white and black can be a red-brown color, the carrier of which is brickwork. If you intend to decorate your home in a Scandinavian style, decorative stone from the Orleans and Madrid collections will help you imitate fired clinker bricks in the interior decoration..

When choosing a style for your home, listen to yourself, think about which living environment will be most comfortable for you – airy and delicately cozy, as in the Mediterranean and Scandinavian style, or giving the impression of security, as in the Norman and chalet style.