Stone Fireplace, Stone Staircase, Limestone Fireplaces

A friend of ours has recently restored an old farmhouse and the complete farm yard in a little village in Warwickshire. It’s been a long job and a real labour of love. It has involved hours of searching for appropriate materials; the correct bricks; the right sized oak beams and trusses; the correct blue paver bricks for the stables, and we’ve been on hand to help with the requirements for any stone items.

Although the majority of the materials needed were reclaimed, some items just were available; or at least he wasn’t able to find them! The original wall to the farmhouse, that kept livestock from wandering across the cattle yard and into the house! Had a lovely stone coping on the top. It was a flat design with just a slight degree of weathering (tilt) so that the rain could run off, and yet was flat enough to serve as a comfortable seat.

Our friend wanted to use the same thing, but as there was about 25 metres missing we had to trawl all the stone stockists the see if we could find a match, which sadly we couldn’t. So, as an alternative, we’ve decided to copy the original piece, and then distress it so that after a couple of years of weathering the stone will look indistinguishable from the old.

The copings are being made now, and we’ll be putting it through the same process as our distressed stone fireplaces.

Well post some pictures when the job is completed.

Well at least according to the clocks it is! In rural leicestershire this morning it’s more like winter though! Cold and raining and no sign of any sun. Oh well, I suppose it will warm up at some time, though I’m sure I’ve just heard snow forecast on the radio!

We’re just working on a very special stone fireplace for a client in Leicestershire. It is a copy of a lovely old French fireplace that the customer saw in an old farmhouse where they stayed in the Limousin area (near Limoges) It is quite a rustic design but very beautiful proportion, and ideal for a dining room (where our customer is putting his) or in fact any largish reception room.

We’re also working on a lovely stone staircase at the moment for an old shop. The staircase will lead to the upper gallery area of an architectural antiques shop, and will curve gracefully as it rises. We’ve had to build a new curving internal wall to support the stone stairs.

If the weather does improve, perhaps you can give your stone fireplaces a rest for a few months. Concentrate instead, on getting some logs cut ready for your llog pile. Although logs are best seasoned (dried) for at least a couple of years. You can get away with less, if you keep them dry and stack them against a south facing wall. With luck then, if we get some hot weather, they could well be dry enought for use next winter.

If you can get ash…. the finest wood you can burn in your stone fireplace (or any fireplace) It will even burn quite well when not fully dry, so that’s an advantage if you don’t have a couple of years’ supply already accumulated.

It certainly seems like summer is approaching up here in Leicestershire: The sun is out, the daffodils are emerging and happily at last, it’s a bit warmer!  So I suppose we’ll be getting out in our gardens, and spending a little less time infront of the roaring fires in our stone fireplaces?  For those just embarking on their building projects though, now is the time to start shifting up a few gears. The good weather always seems to be with us for such a short time in this country, and there is no doubt that it is easier to deal with building works in good weather!

Now is the time to get all your specialist items for your project on order. If it’s a stone fireplace that you’re incorporating into your scheme, then you should allow 6-8 weeks from order to delivery, but if there are a lot of other major or messy jobs being under taken then stone fireplaces are best left till later on, to avoid the chance of someone dropping  scaffold pole on it, or reversing a dumper over it!

If you are installing more structural features: A stone staircase; stone mullions; or other structural stone items then there is no alternative, they just have to be built-in as the project progresses. You should just ensure that they are well protected from the hazards that a building site inevitably involves.

Stone stairs and stone door surrounds and stone mullions, all take a little longer to make and deliver, so you should ideally get your order in about 10 to 12 weeks before you need the stuff ideally. This means there will be no hold ups with your builders. Don’t panic though, if you do forget to order something in time, we will do our best to pull out all the stops and get you out of ‘trouble’

Well not exactly ancient, but it certainly looks like it! We’ve come up with this great method of making our stone fireplaces look ‘old’ We’ve toyed with that idea for many years, and have had some quite successful attempts using various methods, but all have been too time consuming to be of interest to our customers. We have now come up with a method that we can do economically, and we’ll be getting some pictures up on the site very soon. If you’re intending to restore your property or building project, but don’t want it to look too perfect, then this new finish on our stone fireplaces could be just the thing you’re looking for. The stone fireplace will still have all the beauty and impact that something hand carved out of natural material has, but it will also have a hint of antiquity about it.

We’ll have some small samples of the finished stone available soon, and we’ll send one out to you free of charge if you like the sound of this.

It’s not something that only applies to stone fireplaces though. We could work a stone staircase using the same technique, or a stone mullion window, or even some gate pillars. Imagine pulling up to your entrance that is flanked with two ‘Miss Haversham’ style grand stone gate pillars that look like they’ve endured hundreds of years of weather and passing time.  We can do it for you!

You would think that after the building booms of the 80s and 90s, that in a little country like the UK, that nearly all the historic buildings would have been restored by now? It seems though that is never the case: The fact is, that property restoration is like property maintenance: It’s never finished! As one historic building is being restored, then another is falling into disrepair, and this cycle seems to just go on forever.

Of course we do hope that’s true, as it means there will always be a requirement for our special stone masonry skills! Hopefully there will always be another project that needs a replacement stone fireplace, or a new stone staircase where one has been removed or damaged by some rough or careless past building works.  Sadly we’re also often called in when an original stone fireplace has been stolen. A lovely old building does not stay ignored for long these days, particularly if it contains desirable architectural features.

I would say fireplaces are probably the first thing to ‘go’ There is always some unscrupulous person waiting to deal in such things and it is a sad reflection of peoples’ lack of respect for property and the buildings them selves.

Fear not though even if that has happened to you. We will be able to make you stone fireplaces that you need, no matter what circumstances have led to the originals no longer being there. If you want stone fireplaces or stone stairs or in fact anything in stone….. then call Manorhouse Stone

Northern spain has a rich history of stone use in their architecture. Although very rustic in the mountaineous areas, stone use for building is widespread, and many of the buildings have beautiful stone fireplaces and stone staircases. Many of the oldest stone buildings were originally farm houses, and in the colder regions, they had a layout where the farmer and his family lived on the first floor and the livestock were kept on the lower floor. This had the effect of letting the heat from the animals below, provide some heat to the floors above. No doubt it also allowed some pretty good aromas up there too!

Often the first floor where the farmer lived, was approached from outside the building, (though not always) and where it was reached outside, invariably there would be a set of substantial stone stairs. These were substantial for many reasons, not least that they had to endure very hard winters and severe weathering, particularly in the higher altitude areas of the Picos de Europa.

In May this year, we are making a short trip to Cantabria and Asturias to seek out some examples of these early stone structures, and to gather some ideas for some new stone fireplace designs. We will travel as much as possible through the more unspoilt rural areas, where use of stone is quite widespread, and who knows what new inspiration we’ll find!

How many different designs of stone fireplace are there? Literally tens of thousands we would think. Every style, shape, size and colour is possible. We’ve probably made over a 1000 different designs over the 30 years that we have been making them.

Any conceivable design is possible. If you’ve seen a stone fireplace you like, then send us a picture, and we’ll give you an estimate to make it. Like wise for stone stairs; stone mullions; gate pillars or whatever. If it’s stone then we can make it.

We can now also ‘distress’ our stone. We’ve been trying various methods for a few years, as many of our customers are restoring old houses and they want their stone fireplaces to look like they’re part of the original fabric of the building rather than a new addition. We’ve come up with a very effective ’system’ and can offer that to you for your project if you would like.

In the current economic climate; building works are very much reduced, but we have customers who are just seeking out the good value suppliers, so that they can continue with their projects. Many have come to us, because we are a small and very efficient company, and the quality of work that we offer is unrivalled in terms of value for money.

Ever tried to find a really good antique fireplace for your restoration project, but found that A. they’re not available, or B. you can find one, but that it costs a fortune!  We’ve been involved in so many restoration projects where the latter two points always seemed to prevail, and so for a long time we have been experimenting with distressing stone, to see if we can come up with a method of making our stone fireplaces look like they have endured hundreds of years of wear and tear.

We finally think we’ve hit on something, and we’ll have some pictures up on here soon for you to consider, and to see if you agree. We will appreciate your feedback! Stone fireplaces are undeniably beautiful things, and an ability to offer a ‘distressed’ version of all our designs, will offer you more options when you are doing your renovations.

We won’t just offer the distressing service on our standard ranges. If you have a particular design or size of stone fireplace that you would like us to make, then our masons can make it, and we can give it the distressing treatment if you like.

Our customers have, over the years, come up with their own ageing methods for some of our stone items. Some have used an old dry teabag and rubbed it into the corners of the mouldings on stone stairs or stone mullions or stone fireplaces, and this has left a bit of what seems like grime in the corners: It looks very convincing.

Do you want your stone fireplace to look really old, like it was made hundreds of years ago? Well we’ve been experimenting a bit with different grades of stone, and different methods, and have come up with what we think is a really good result. We are just making a sample fireplace that we can put in our showroom with the other un-distressed stone fireplaces.

There’s no reason why we couldn’t use the same method on any of the things we make. Stone mullions would look good with the same treatment as it would replicate years of wear, and even a stone staircase would look like it had come through 500 years of wear and tear if we distressed it in the same way.

Of course you can always do your own bit of ageing. just rubbing a few corners, or pressing a used tea bag into the corners of the mouldings can impart a bit of authentic looking grime onto an otherwise ‘new’ stone fireplace.  There are dozens of possibilities, and you could experiment with your own ideas on a scrap piece of stone.

We hope to have our distressed sample in the next few weeks and we will be posting pictures on here as soon as we have it. It’s just another option to consider when choosing your new stone fireplace.

We also make stone aga shelves. Not as many as our stone fireplaces or stone staircase, but we make quite a few… this item was based on an original we saw in a house in Poland. The one in question had a collection of heavy iron pans hanging from it, as well as a couple of pheasants that were destined to become dinner!

The shelf was made from a hard limestone, and had a very heavy iron bar running through its 3 corbels. It looked fantastic! Mind you, it wasn’t an Aga that was in the space beneath it, but an ancient black wood-fired range that looked like it had cooked a million pheasant dinners.

Our limestone aga shelf is a faithful representation of that original. (without the pheasants) It is a very practical; very attractive, and above all totally authentic addition to your traditional kitchen. It will prove a good storage space for your aga essentials, and will make your kitchen something special.

Why not order one when you order your stone fireplace, and we’ll do you a deal on the two!