Stone Fireplace, Stone Staircase, Limestone Fireplaces

We’ve just done a restoration job on an external staircase on a grand old English house that is now a school. We’ve salvaged the old stone stairs as they are very beautiful, and were being replaced because they were proving very slippery, and modern ‘health and safety’ regulations deemed them unsafe.

They are very beautiful original items, and would make fantastic steps for gardens and terraces or even as a stone staircase in a house (as it was the rain that made them slippy) We’ll put some photos on here soon in the architectural section, and please contact us if you are interested.

The same house had some stunning stone fireplaces in it too, and we were hoping ‘health and safety’ might say they were too dangerous too, but no such luck!

The new steps we have installed are a slightly coarser stone which has a sort of natural ‘anti-slip’ nature, and so we hope that the same problem doesn’t happen again.

Our Spanish trip was successful and we are awaiting some sample blocks of stone so we can make a couple of stone fireplaces from it and see how they look. We also found another independant quarry while we were out there, and they had some stone that would look brilliant if made into a stone fireplace or a stone staircase.

Luckily this time, no volcanoes erupted so we were back on time!

We’re off to Spain tomorrow to look at another quarry that produces some very nice limestone that we think will be perfect for some of our stone fireplaces. The quarry is very large and is working several seams that provide different ‘grades’ of stone, so we’re hopeful that we can get several types from them. We are currently looking for a tough stone for a massive external stone staircase that leads to the first floor of a new build ‘country house’ The owner envisages a lot of human traffic, and wants something that can stand plenty of foot fall, so we’re hoping we can get the stone for these stone stairs from this Spanish quarry.

Our main fitter is fitting a stunning stone fireplace in a house quite local to us this week. The owner of the house has been slowly renovating it for about 20 years, and he’s now getting close to the end of the job. The stone fireplace is absolutely beautiful and we can’t wait to take some photos to put on this site.

Spain is lovely at this time of year, and we’re in ‘real’ rural Spain (not Torremolinos) so there will be proper tapas on lunch break, and some nice rioja in the evening… when ‘negotiating’ with the quarry owner!

We’ll keep you posted on how we get on

The best thing about summer in the uk, is that you can (if you want!) Cycle to work. Now I know you can cycle to work all year round if you want to, and if you’re a ‘real’ cyclist, but most people don’t relish cold wet and icy conditions or pedalling along in too many layers of clothes.

The problem I have, and have not really got a solution for, is that I am not based at the stone fireplace factory all the time. I could cycle here and then find I have to go and measure up for some stone fireplaces or stone stairs, at a site many miles away, and I thus need my car. It’s not practical to ride home and get it, and with the unpredictability of our days, I often come in the car just in case.

For the masons that work on the stone fireplaces almost every day in the yard, the choice is easier, and several of them pedal here early in the morning on every sunny day. Some from a few miles away and others from over 15 miles away. Needless to say, that they’re very fit and healthy.

Tomorrow I’m delivering a very special stone fireplace to an old house just a few miles from here. We have made it in our ‘distressed’ stone, and we think it is going to look fantastic. We’ll have pictures up on here as soon as the project is completed.

It seems the planes are flying again today, but we are roughly under the flight path for departures from East midlands airport, and it has been very peaceful for the last week. I also read that London seemed so peaceful and that some people heard birdsong for the first time in years without the sound of ‘nose to tail’ jumbo jets to drown it out. Perhaps we should wish for a few more volcanos?

So, it has been very pleasant over the last week working on our stone fireplaces and stone staircase, out in the sun and without planes filling the sky. Spring does appear to be finally here, and we can look forward to a few months working out in the fresh air. There’s something very satisfying about working out in the fresh, in the country side, turning a lovely piece of natural stone into a beautiful stone fireplace for one of our customers. It makes you forget so quickly, all the long dark, cold months of winter.

For most things also, there is no substitute for natural light: It lights everything, and without shadows of flicker. It makes it so much easier to spot any irregularities in the the stone, and makes the final tooling of the stone so much easier. Our masons love it, and for those that have worked in warmer countries it makes a pleasant change to England’s normal grey skies.

So, despite the volcano, and despite the stranded people and grounded aeroplanes, we’re hard at it, turning out stone fireplaces and stone stairs with the sun on our faces. How lovely!

Well I’ve not been doing much with stone fireplaces for a few days. I had to go to France for a couple of days last week and got stranded there due to the icelandic volcano!  Initially I was very annoyed when I heard that my flight was cancelled, but compared with what some people have endured… and are still enduring, I had it relatively easy. I managed to hitch a ride with some friends who were driving backon Saturday, and they had room in the car for me, so I ‘only’ had three extra days away, and did manage to get on the ferry.

It appears there are thousands not so lucky!

Of course this whole thing will be causing more and more inconvenience to travellers and disruption to business. Our stone fireplace and stone stairs business is not really going to be effected, as we have a fairly good stock of stone (remember it comes from France and the ferries are full to bursting at the moment)

None of our masons, luckily, are stuck abroad, so we can carry on making stuff as usual, but there must be so many people who are badly effected by this incident. It just goes to show how helpless we are in the face of nature!

Aren’t early Spring mornings just the best? There’s a bit of dew (or even still a bit of frost!) on the grass, and the air is still, and if you’re lucky you can see the sun as it climbs above the horizon! Some of our masons like to start a bit earlier once the weather changes. I think they like being out in the lovely morning air with the only noise being the sound they make while chipping away at a stone fireplace!  It’s always much nicer to work with stone outdoors, not least because the inevitable stone dust produced doesn’t hang round you in a cloud. There is also NOTHING like natural light for precision work: It just shows every little mark in a piece of stone and is much less a strain on the eyes than when working in artificial light.

So at the moment, we have a line of workbenches out in the yard, with a stone fireplace in production on three of them, and some stone stairs being made on the fourth and fifth. I suppose that is one of the advantages of stone products: If it rains hard tonight, it will have no ill effects on the material, whereas if we were making cabinet work for example, everything would have to be taken in to the workshop every night.

The warmer weather also means the stone dries out much quicker once it is cut (we use water when we cut the stone) This means that when we deliver your fireplace it could be as much as 15% lighter in weight than in the winter when the stone retains the water for a lot longer. It also means you can point it up sooner too.

We got a good frost this morning up here in Leicestershire, so we’re not out of the cold weather yet. Having said that, the sun is shining and it’s a clear blue sky, so we’re very happy working out here in the yard. We’re outside (well some of us) because we’re working on a massive sweeping rustic stone staircase, and the blocks are so large, we’re having to do all the moving with the forklift, so we need plenty of space!

We also have some very interesting stone fireplaces coming through the works at the moment: A couple of old ones that we are repairing and restoring for some regular customers, and one very large Elizabethan era stone fireplace that is similar to our original range, but a bit taller in proportion. It will be a very beautiful thing when it is finished, but it is a small part of a massive restoration, so i feel it will be some time until we see this fireplace in situ!

Other than these interesting things, we have all our normal stuff going on. Several small building companies local to us are finding that there is a slight improvement in the market, and they are starting to build again. We are making some stone entrance door surrounds for them, and some cills and heads for their higher grade houses.

All talk is of the election now: Will it help the economy, and make business in general (and the housing market in particular) pick up? I doubt it!

We here whenever you need your stone fireplace, and we hope that whatever sector you work in, that business is good.

So what ’style’ of stone fireplace would you like?  We can turn our beautiful stone into anything, so you can either have the most modern, sleek design that you may want to install in your ultra contemporary penthouse apartment, or you may want something completely authentic for your restoration of your Elizabethan pile? There is a  whole spectrum of possibilities, and of course you don’t have to put a modern fireplace in a modern building, or a traditional stone fireplace in a period building. You can mix and match in any combination. The beauty of natural materials, whether it be stone, oak, travertine, clay, is that they generally look ‘right’ alongside old and new. So don’t be afraid to mix things up a little, rather than be confined by one particular ’style’

Stone always looks good in ultra modern surroundings. Combine it with spaces featuring lots of glass and stainless steel, and it has a stunning impact. A roaring fire in a big stone fireplace is an impressive site in the entrance to a modern building.

Likewise stone stairs: Put a stone staircase in a modern building alongside large glass areas, suspended floors of stone and stainless steel framework, and you get an awesome impression of.

Happy Easter to all our customers, past present and future. We hope you’re loving your stone fireplace; stone stairs or whatever stone ‘thing’ we’ve made for you. We’re very busy at the moment on some lovely items, all of which will be shown on the website once completed.

If you have time over the Easter break, then browse through some magazines, visit a stately home, or just design something yourself; give us a call and we’ll make it for you, very competetively too! Certainly the current freezing weather may make you think about unseasonal things like roaring fires in a grand stone fireplace!

Happy Easter, and we look forward to answering your needs for stone products.

Manorhouse Stone

Makers of very fine stone fireplaces stone stairs and anything in stone

It’s the first of April and there’s snow on the ground here! Couldn’t be some sort of joke could it?  Anyway, doesn’t bode well for the ‘Easter weekend’ in terms of weather. We’ve got a stone fireplace that should be on its way to Edinburgh today, but the snow is still bad up there and the driver has said he thinks it would be unwise to risk it, so we’re not going to. The customer is not desperate to get it installed, so they don’t mind. They’ve always liked our stone fireplaces, and another couple of weeks waiting is preferable to having a driver stuck in the snow in an Easter traffic jam!

But talking of fireplaces, with the weather so cold again, we won’t have seen the last of the log fires after all! The forecast is cold all weekend so many of you will again have your feet up in front of a fire rather than venturing out! Easter is a strange time: Some years we can be basking in sun, other years we can be playing in the snow. 2010 looks to be one of the snowy variety!

If you have had to relight your fires, I hope you’ve not left the kids’ chocolate eggs too near the stone fireplace! There will be tears if all they have is a pile of melted chocolate.. with gold foil mixed in!

So happy Easter to all our customers, and we hope you have a good break and that you’ll be coming to us soon about the things you need in Stone!