Hammerhead Stoneworks

The renovations on the Mayflower House are almost complete. I went back there last week to detail the pathway, cleaning it up and-at long last- installing pebbles in all the openings. The pebbles really completed the piece. This is a detail of the path as it curves from the driveway to the long section that runs along the face of the house.

The path begins at the driveway, with these two steps. It was a real challenge to shoehorn these slabs into the space between the house and dilapidated retaining wall. The steps are almost five feet across and over 500 pounds each.

There’s one pebble opening inside the house, in the center of the entry landing. Originally the idea was to epoxy those pebbles in place, but for now, they are loose as well. I imagine someone coming to visit and walking the length of the pathway and becoming curious about the pebbles. Once inside the house, that’s when the bend over and pick one up and fully explore the little stones, feeling their weight and texture, discovering the fossil and other treasures hidden in the opening. My camera doesn’t respond well to low light, so this blurry image is the best I have for now.
Please note the massive door and the placement of the hinge. The door and the pathway work together to blend the interior and exterior spaces.

I didn’t get the gig I made this green man design for, but I liked the idea enough to try out making the eyes today.

I printed the templates and used pattern shears to cut them. Used for cutting stained glass cartoons, the shears have three blades instead of two and cut out a thin line of paper between the pieces. In stained glass, this accounts for the width of the lead came or the foil. In a stone floor, that’s the joint between the pieces. In the image above you can see the strands of paper left over; they are 1/16″ wide.

I used a scrap of marble I had lying around. I like the color and the workability, but the stone is too frail to hold up in the fine points. Were I actually making this, I would lean towards Silestone or something else tougher. These pieces are on the small side, so I would also find a way to make the whole eye a single piece. This would quicken installation as well as increase the durability.

My latest project is a dry laid flagstone path with steps at a lovely residence in Montreat, North Carolina.

A couple of weeks ago I finished the Fossil Floor in the house in the Ramble. (The blog inevitably gets neglected in springtime as work, garden and playing outside take precedence!) Fossils, like this goniatite, appear here and there throughout the floor. There are four kids in the household and I tried to include elements that would interest them. I think the best stonework has details in it that reward closer attention.

The lighting is a little funky, but this is a view of the finished floor in a small bathroom on the main floor. Mexican beach pebbles turned on edge run in trails in the main paths, but only appear as individuals in the smaller stone background that surrounds the paths.

One of the interesting challenges of the project was how to lay out the pathway. I couldn’t really do it in the space, as there was no room to spread out the stone to look at it all and I wasn’t going to work the stones indoors- too messy and noisy. I did the majority of the design outside. First I ‘drew’ the general shape of the path out of string on a mulch bed. Then I added the big plates of full-color bluestone to form the edges. I did both sides and some stones that led off the path to stairways and the laundry room. I didn’t do too many of the smaller fill stones, knowing that setting the stones would subtly shift their relationships to each other. If I over prepare, I end up with more variation in the joinery than I really want. I didn’t cut the doorway ends until I was ready to install them, to make sure that I hit my targeted edges spot on.

As a result of doing the layout that way, I ended up with spaces in the path that required filling once the edges were laid in the thinset. Using construction paper, a big pencil and a pair of scissors, I created templates for each space/stone. Then I’d wander outside and find matches for each. Since the matches were rarely ideal, I wold then cut them down with the grinder before bringing them inside to install. It’s important to label the templates properly, because if they get flipped over, the stone won’t fit. And the bottom of a worked stone never looks quite as good as the top. The goal of this process was to find stones that fit with the fewest number of trips. It was probably twenty paces between the stone pile and the floor. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really slows progress to go back and forth that many times. Once I settled on this templating solution, I was fairly efficient with filling those smaller spaces.