Decorative Masonry

What is decorative masonry?
Decorative masonry is a special form of hardscape that adds beauty and dimension to a landscape.

Does it cost a lot of money?
Although its purpose is deliberately aesthetic, it can be used to build function into décor as much as it can build décor into the property. Its cost is relative to the size and nature of the form it produces. Material costs vary, and labor rates are defined by the length of time it takes to build a certain feature.

Don’t think about decorative masonry as something that you have to invest a lot of money in per se. Think of it as something that is included as a significant aspect of your landscape master plan.

What are some common materials used in decorative masonry?
You may assume at first that decorative masonry is primarily brickwork. After all, the image of the mason we have in our minds often depicts a workman laying bricks. However, concrete is just as common as brick on many properties, and on some, even more common than brick.

Concrete can be used to build beautiful and memorable hardscapes that add interest and drama to the landscape.

How can concrete possibly be decorative?
It becomes decorative through the addition of color and texture. Coloration can be done by adding pigments to the mix, or it can be added through a sophisticated staining process after the concrete hardens. Textures can be stamped or even brushed into the surface while the concrete is still wet. Brooms, trowels, rock salt, and even sponges can create decorative masonry patterns in what would have otherwise been a simple slab of hardscape staring up at the sky.

Keep in mind, too, that for certain styles of landscaping, such as contemporary and modern, white cement is perfect for creating stark contrasts, points of drama, and glaring sentiments of Mentalism. So in this context, even something non-decorative can be decorative in a setting that by nature defies convention.

Is decorative masonry only limited to hardscape?
You may be using the term hardscape as a synonym for a flat surface such as a driveway, a patio, or a sports court. The actual definition of hardscape is much broader than this. The term actually refers to any inorganic structure that is built in either the front or back yard.

Viewed from this perspective, you can immediately see how many forms you are already familiar with can be created in your yard to add vertical impact to the scenery. This is critical when you consider how flat the Houston landscape is and how important a sense of three dimensions is to generating curb appeal.

What are some of these structures?
Walls of all types constitute a significant percentage of the decorative masonry built in residential landscape design. Courtyard walls create seclusion and backdrops for up lighting. Architectural walls can subdivide a large property into smaller zones of special interest. Planter walls can combine the inorganic with the organic by creating and artificial base out of which springs life. Custom fountains create movement and a sense of the essence of light—especially when illuminated with special underwater lights. Outdoor fireplaces provide warmth in the winter and the illusion of fire in the summer thanks to hidden, special lights that cause the flu to glow even though nothing is actually burning inside.

What materials do you use to build these structures?
Stone is a preferred material for patio design when the homeowner is willing to cover the cost of its purchase, finishing, and installation. It can also be used to build any number of wall structures. Concrete pavers can be used to mimic stone at a much lower cost. Brick is another masonry mainstay that is reliable enough to use as a building material for housing, and certainly reliable enough to use for any outdoor architecture as well.

Houston Masonry Specialist

If you need a masonry specialist to upgrade or build hardscape elements in your yard, let Exterior Worlds find you one and manage the invoice from a design-build perspective. It will serve your long-term interests better if let one of our designers draft a landscape master plan first. Once that is in place, masonry specialists can be brought to handle certain aspects of construction work.

A few examples include:

Patios
These custom hardscapes are built to the size and scale needed for the specific activities they are intended to host. They are also built to be as aesthetic as possible in relation to the home, garden design, and surrounding outdoor architecture.

Entry Gardens
Masonry specialists often help build the architectural and decorative walls around these special garden gateways that transition front yard space to back yard space. They also work on custom patio construction using any number of materials that range from stone to brick to decorative concrete. These architectural walls can be built at virtually any desired height. Taller walls create privacy and enclosure. Shorter walls help frame the view of your front and back yards.

Retaining Walls
These remarkable structures that hold back the grade of the otherwise flat Houston landscape that is so very vulnerable to flooding. Such a structure is always built to look as good as it works. This is why it is so important to have it designed properly by those who understand drainage and irrigation, and then to have it built by masonry specialists who have the expertise needed to build the structure as a prominent and highly decorative point of interest in the yard.

Walkways
Walkways are key to making smaller yards look yard and larger yards look less overwhelming. When created in a small yard, they tend to magnify the perceived acreage of the lot. In larger yards, they divide portions of the lot into special areas of interest.

Think beyond the sidewalk when you think about walkways and paths. Contractors can build them out of all sorts of materials such as brick, pavers, stones, and decorative concrete. The transition they give to you and your guest contributes a superb sense of completion to a residential landscape design.

Masonry expertise is usually needed when constructing these forms due to the complexity of laying out stones, bricks, or pavers in such a way as to make them safe for transit and durable for long-term usage.

If you know of a masonry company they has already worked for you in the past, or if your homebuilder referred you to one, feel free to ask this company to talk with our team about a subcontract relationship. Provided that all parties agree to follow the specifics of the landscape master plan, you can expect the outcome to be better than anything you have experienced before.

Custom Patio

Is professional landscaping important to the design of my custom patio?
Yes. This is why you need to have it built by a landscaper. Plants soften the hardscape and differentiate outdoor living from indoor living.

Is professional hardscape design important?Yes. A hardscape is actually the equivalent of a floor. Just like the floor in the room of your house, it must be carefully planned in order to fulfill its intended use. One of the worst mistakes new homeowners make is to treat the patio like a slab of concrete to mount lawn chairs on.

This can ruin the entire scene of the back yard, and waste a great deal of money on pouring a slab that works against home architecture and garden design.

It is essential to plan your custom patio in order to make it functional, durable, and decorative. By hiring a professional landscaping company to design your custom patio as a foundation for an outdoor lifestyle, you ensure maximum enjoyment of your outdoor living space.

Should I call a masonry contractor in the phone book?
You can, but masonry contractors normally work under the invoice of general contractors. They are not used to working directly with homeowners. Also, many have experts skills in building hardscape structures, but not in landscaping itself. If you hire our company, we can find any number of masonry experts to bring in the special tools, teams, and knowledge necessary to building your custom patio.
What do I need to think of first and foremost?
All you have to do is make a list of all the things you want to do with it. We will do the rest by taking the items on your list and turning them into design specifications our contractors can follow.

When you make this list, think creatively about all the different activities that you can use a patio for. Some of these activities are personal and private, while others involve large numbers of guests and family members.

Getting a clear picture from you about what you plan to do in the future will give us invaluable information on where to begin building your custom patio. It will give us a clear picture of how large it should be, and it will also give us good idea for what building materials to use.

What materials should be used?
There many, many materials that we can use to build you hardscape. Stone is the most popular material because it is natural and lasts the longest. Its only drawback is its cost. Even less expensive stone is still going to represent a very large investment. If you are planning on adding several structures to your backyard landscape, it might be better to use an alternative to stone for some of your hardscape.

Brick is an excellent choice for this. Brick has a historical look and feel to it that works very well with many period styles of architecture. It also lasts for long periods of time, comes in a variety of colors, and can be arranged in all sorts of interesting patterns.

Concrete is another option you can consider. Plain concrete is the cheapest material you can build a custom patio with, but it looks somewhat drab in most landscapes. A better choice is colored or stamped concrete. The techniques we use to create these designs can actually make concrete look like stone or brick—at far less the cost.

Concrete pavers can also be used and laid out in many different types of patterns that are similar to those used in brick work, although they create a much more different effect.

Hardscape

Where does the term hardscape originate?
Most materials used to build these structures are very hard, resilient, and durable. These structures are sketched out first in the landscape master plan. This is because they establish order and system throughout the yard, and often serve to highlight even more the lush shades of green and vibrant colors of garden design and manicured lawns.

What are some of the more common types of hardscape you build?
Elements like paved areas, sidewalks, brick patios, atriums, courtyards, and walkways are common examples. We also build retaining walls to create boundaries between architecture and vegetation. Other landscape features include custom fountains, sports courts, outdoor stairways, patios, pergolas, trellises, arches, masonry walls, and planters.

What are the more common materials you use?
They can be anything that provides a firm surface that will resist the elements and add decorative curb appeal to your property. Stone is a popular material because it looks so natural and can go with any residential landscaping design. Concrete is also another popular form. Concrete can be colored and stained to mimic stone, or stand out with a unique, decorative statement all its own. Wood and brick are mainstay materials that have been with us for centuries and will no doubt continue to remain with us for centuries to come.

What can hardscape do for us?
There are several practical and aesthetic benefits that hardscape contributes to every landscape. Some of these benefits include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Create transition by providing a clear, recognizable transit area that moves traffic from one point of interest to another.
• Make a small yard look bigger by creating diversity between forms that lend perspective and depth to the scene
• Create borders around vegetation and activity zones
• Change the grade of the Houston landscape
• Create privacy with a wall that encloses a private space, like a courtyard
• Screen the view with such elements as lattice walls or raftered ceilings partly open to the stars
• Establish entertainment and seating areas, such as swimming pool patios, terraces overlooking spas, and outdoor fireplaces
• Create grand entrance in the form of stairways and steps leading to and from pools, outdoor buildings, backs of homes, and natural ponds
• Creating shade in the form of garden pergolas and arbors
• Create vertical impact with masonry constructs and architectural walls
• Create curb appeal with front yard walkways leading up to the home, and custom driveways and motor courts that are decorative and safe

Is hardscape more decorative or functional by nature?
That is an excellent question. To be honest, we try to make as many elements as possible both practical and highly pleasing to the eye whenever possible. However, there are times when something that is exclusively decorative can make the difference between having a nice yard and a superb yard. Custom fountains are one example of this. Other examples include trellises and small architectural walls, which do little to create enclosure or privacy per se, but make a world of difference when it comes to adding dimension and vertical impact to your home and property.

Masonry Design

What is masonry design?
It is the design of structures that are built with any number of masonry elements. These structures take on a life of their own. They add vertical impact the Houston landscape. They create unique aesthetic structures which can function as the boundaries of unique gathering places like courtyards and morning gardens. They can be used to create perspective in the form of architectural walls so that small yards look big and big yards look less intimidating because they are subdivided into zones of special interest.

Who does masonry design?
Ideally, it is done by professional landscapers who can integrate the many different types and forms of masonry into a more complex landscape master plan. The reason we recommend doing it this way is because landscape professionals will see to it that masonry forms are drawn to scale in proportion to the home and surrounding landscape elements.

Do professional landscapers also build the masonry forms themselves?
We build some of them. Most often, however, we find masonry contractors who specialize exclusively in construction. We bid out our master plan to these experts, and then subcontract them under our supervision. This way we can ensure that our plans our carried out as we intended, and that the physical aspects of the labor are handled by the appropriate specialists.

What are the forms you create with masonry design?
A hard stone, brick, or concrete product that contributes aesthetic to organic elements like lawns, flower beds, gardens, or copses of small trees is something you can consider a masonry form.

Is vertical impact really that important?
Yes. The Houston landscape is routinely criticized by people from all over the world as being too flat. Most people who were not born here come from places where there is at least some variation in the grade of the terrain. Some come from rolling hills; others from mountainous regions.

Many Houstonians who travel may have lived here all their lives for work, but secretly wish Houston had the mountains of Los Angeles, the hills of Tennessee, or the curved and winnowing grades of the Mississippi Valley States. While we cannot make mountains out of ant hills in Southeast Texas, we can alter your properties grade and add vertical impact with masonry design that lifts the terrain upward into multiple degrees of ascent and descent.

The end result of this is more variety for you and your guests, and more curb appeal for your home.

What should I think of first when I think of masonry design?
Think about the possibilities of stone. There is no structure on a landscape that cannot be built with stone. Keep in mind some types of stone cost more than others though, so be realistic about how much you can afford to invest in each particular landscape element you want.

Prioritize and choose other elements like concrete and brick for structures that are less prominent than others.

What are some popular masonry forms?
We can build you retaining walls, patios, walkways, courtyards, planters, and outdoor fireplaces, just to name a few. Because there are so many different materials we can work with, we can customize any of these basic design elements into structures that support the specifics of your home and landscape design.

Masonry Fireplace

What is a masonry fireplace?
It is an outdoor fireplace that is built out of brick, natural stones, or blocks of some sort. Many older homes do not have indoor fireplaces, and it is much easier to accommodate the owners of these residences with an outdoor masonry fireplace that offers all the amenities of indoor equivalents. You can even have one build that runs off natural gas or propane so you do not have to deal with smoke, sparks, ashes, or the cost of firewood.

Why would I want to build a masonry fireplace?
Several reasons could motivate you to have us build you one of these structures. You may want a warm spot on the patio on one of Houston’s colder nights. Even though are winter’s are technically mild, the humidity in the air can kill you at night here when it’s only a little chilly outside. A warm fire creates heat and dispels humidity.

You may also want to consider the sheer aesthetics that a masonry fireplace can contribute to your yard. The Houston landscape is very flat, and adding vertical impact to your particular portion of it can make your entire property stand out on your block and add significant curb appeal to your home.

It will also add a definitively classic touch to any garden or swimming pool, and it becomes the immediate focal point of any patio or outdoor courtyard.


What does a masonry fireplace look like?
That’s where the fun starts. It can look like almost anything you want it to look like. Because we do not have to deal with the presence of interior home walls, all we really need to build is the flu and the chimney. The geometry can be expanded from their in many directions, provided the integrity of the structure is sound and its form is appropriately complimentary to the home and surrounding landscape design.

What are some of the materials used?
All kinds of materials are used to build masonry fireplaces. Sometimes they are built out of decorative bricks. The multitude of brick colors and types makes this a very common material suitable to a variety of home architectural and landscaping design styles. Other fireplaces are built of stone or cement blocks made to look like a stone façade. Bluestone is another popular material. Stones are always hand-fitted and secured with substances that make the flue and chimney strong and sturdy. Stones can be uniform in appearance, or they can be deliberately asymmetrical to compliment avant garde or contemporary landscape designs.

How much does a masonry fireplace cost?
If it is a small fireplace in a courtyard or an entry garden, it will cost the price of materials plus the labor required to build it. Provided it is relatively small and simple in design, it should not represent an exorbitant expanse per se.

If, on the other hand, you ask us to build an outdoor fireplace and patio to serve as a major focal point in your yard, and the structure is by nature large and complex in design, it could end up being the most sizeable investment in your property.

The good thing about working with Exterior Worlds is that you have a choice in determining the scale and scope of your investment within the parameters of your landscape master plan.

Masonry Contractors

Why hire a masonry contractor when I can do the work myself?
Building a patio, a walkway, or even a simple structure like a retaining wall is much more complicated than it seems. You have to design your structure from the standpoint of relationship to your home and the totality of your property, not just the structure itself. Also, you have to sort through what appears to be a near infinite number of materials to find the select few that can give you the texture, color, and structural integrity most appropriate to your landscape design.

A masonry contractor, under the general contract services of Exterior Worlds, can save you time and money by listening intently to your description of what you would ultimately like to see constructed in your yard. We can then hire the appropriate masonry professionals, source the very best materials, and combine them with over two decades of expertise in landscape design and outdoor architecture construction.


What are some of the more common forms of masonry Exterior Worlds builds?
Stone Retaining Walls
A retaining wall is very useful to hold back the grade of the otherwise flat Houston landscape that is vulnerable to flooding. Often a retaining wall also serves as a façade of sorts to an elevated outdoor building such as an arbor or summer kitchen. Stone works with any number of landscaping styles depending on its cut, color, and finish.

Outdoor Fireplaces
An outdoor fireplace can be built on a custom patio that can serve as a comfortable outdoor seating area available to guests any time of year. Masonry contractors can build planters for winter flowering plants, low level ground cover, and even small trees into these patios to create an illuminated courtyard warmed by the light of a fire.

Patios
Exterior Worlds has a team of masonry contractors that represent some of Houston’s finest custom patio design specialists. These experts build your patio to the scale of your yard and the scope of your intended guest lists.

Walkways
Masonry contractors can strategically build all sorts of concrete, brick, or stone pathways to cross and crisscross your yard, connecting key points of interest and balancing the relationships between otherwise very divergent elements.

Why would I hire a landscaping company instead of just finding an individual masonry contractor?
A masonry contractor is normally not trained in garden design, tree services, yard care, and tree preservation. In order to make sure that the new hardscape elements balance with your house and the vegetation that surrounds it, it is better to hire a landscaping company like Exterior Worlds to work as the general contractor for your project.

The outcome will be something functional that aesthetically compliments your landscape with seamless design integrity and adds curb appeal to your home.