Our Stones
Pennsylvania Bluestone
Pennsylvania and New York bluestone is an extremely popular paving material used in landscaping, and has been for many decades. Bluestone paving is consistently featured in architectural and home magazines, due to it's earth tone colors, and durability in any climate. The key to purchasing bluestone for landscaping, is understanding the many different finishes and patterns available which are outlined below.
Finish
The two 'typical' bluestone finishes are:
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Thermal / Flamed The saw shops will actually take a blow torch to the stone, causing a slight dimpling and consistent top. |
Natural Clefts This type of stone is split by hand, the top of the stone has a natural feel. |
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Shown here: natural cleft finish. Notice the 'rougher' more natural looking surface. |
Shown here: Thermal Finish. Notice a more consistent finish which is more smooth. |
Shapes:
Bluestone is typically referred to as either 'Dimensional Stone' or 'Irregular Stone'.
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Shown Here: 'Dimensional Pattern - basically, Square and Rectangles! Stone is cut by saws to make for straight edges. |
Show Here - Irregular Pattern - like it sounds. This stone is shaped by how it peels up from the earth, creating more of a natural look. |
Color
The two 'main' colors mentioned for Pennsylvania Bluestone paving are 'Full Color' and 'Select Blue.' The color variations will be determined by the quarry or saw shop that the stone is pulled from. As stone is a natural element, these color ways can change on a daily basis.
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Show here - 'Thermal Blue Select' - stone was sorted out for 'all' blue. Since this is a natural stone, notice there are still some variation in the shade of blue. |
Shown here 'Thermal Full Color' - notice shades of browns. Sometimes with Natural Cleft Full Color you see even more range of dark blues, browns, rusts and greens. |
