Do you have a project to execute something like this?
Isn’t that beautifully done? Doable with beautiful colorful natural cobbles… Want to explore?
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Lattice Pattern with Cobbles
Basalt Cobbles
Have a look at some pictures. Look at the ever earthy basalt black surface.
These cobbles have machine-cut edges.
Now check rectangular pieces.
Just look at the surface on all sides. It’s black but it isn’t black. Isn’t it that way?
Can you feel the aroma emanating out of these cobbles on a rainy day? Or on an evening, sitting on a water sprinkled-cobble floor sipping your favorite beverage…
Will your project have space for the ever-beautiful black basalt?
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Work-in-Progress | Beautifully Captured
This is from a recent project… It’s hard to take beautiful pictures generally, it’s harder to capture the architecture of closed spaces and then it’s yet harder to capture flooring in closed spaces! This is a beautiful laying of cobbles and a beautiful picture too. Credit to the karigars and credit to the person who clicked it like this.
Do you have a project where you would like to lay multi-color cobbles like these?
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Magic with Surface-Finished Kota Stone!
Oh yes, there are yet more patterns in cobblestone to show, but today am showing some work done in Kota Stone, a while back at a bungalow somewhere in Thaltej, Ahmedabad.
Yes, amidst the craziness for gorgeous but often fragile Italian Marble, and Turkish Marble, and Brazilian Marble and what not, there’s almost this ancient beauty of Indian Kota Stone that comes alive every time you see such work.
This renovation predominantly depended on shades of wood and Kota Stone. Very little else. The palette feels just so right for a cozy home.
Pics of Bathroom # 1
Indoor pictures, so mobile phone pictures may not offer the greatest resolution. Anyway, I hope one gets a good view of how it looks.
Now, a vitrified tile-seller might comment, “Look at those pieces where the surface has developed those ‘ugly’ blemish-like spots!” What can one say! Those blemished tiles will outlive any vitrified tile and there’s no substitute in vitrified tiles to the beauty of such blemished Kota Stone. In fact, vitrified tile makers desire to imitate such irregularities and copy them by printing them! Imagine!
Pics of Bathroom # 2
As you notice, the first bathroom floor is done in smaller tiles and this one is done in bigger Kota Stone slabs. Both square!
And some other views of this house…
In the compound…
The kids have grown up now :). The flooring feels as earthy and cozy as on the day this picture was taken; tell me how vitrified tiles look just after a few years, may be even after a few months. Am sure you’ve experienced something like this where the makers have made good use of Indian Natural Stone.
You have some renovation in your bungalow going on? You have an idea how to inject Indianness, earthiness and coziness into your abode? We can help you choose great Indian Natural Stone and some great surface finishes for your purposes.
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Playful Architects / Builders / Landscapers / Project Owners
The question is not ‘what’ makes our spaces beautiful or playful. The question always is, who makes our spaces beautiful or playful.
The cities, towns and places we reside in are created of some or the other material (or created of many materials if you are concerned about the philosophical or grammatical implications of saying just ‘material’). But who made those choices of using one material and not the other? This and not that.
And then who made the choices about arranging and patterning those material to be experienced day after day, year after year?
Have a look at these cobble patterns below. The playfulness of the arrangers and pattern-makers, the architects, the project owners, the landscapers on display…
Do you have spaces in your project that can be paved with cobbles? We can help.
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Executing an Export Order for Slate Stone
Glimpse of an order for slate stone we recently executed. This is how the packing takes shape.
Do you cater to the export market?
Do you have the right connections and the right intentions?
Do you want to back your sales and marketing efforts with good execution in the background?
Are you out of that loop that dumbs down the market with ridiculous prices and ridiculous quality?
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Polka Dot Steps for your Garden
In Yellow/Brown Kota Stone, a lovely idea for Garden Steps or for your outdoors.
While this is done in Yellow/Brown Kota Stone, this can be done in any stone in any surface finish. Sandstone, Granite, Marble, whatever fits your project and the aesthetics of your project.
If you take an aerial shot using a drone, these would look like polka dots!
What does your project demand? Share with us and we will help you with some amazing options in Indian Natural Stone.
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
University Campus | Work in Progress
This was recorded quite a while back.
Videos and pics of work in progress, Cobblestone Paving, at a university campus somewhere in Rajasthan.
What does your project look like? Can you think of paving and landscaping with natural cobblestone?
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Nimbahera Stone Outdoors at Taj Sarsa Hotel Udaipur
Some glimpses of Nimbahera stone outdoors. This is Taj Sarsa Hotel in Udaipur.
Credit to the architect and the artisans who accomplished this. May have been done long back. But that’s the thing about using Indian natural stone. It lends a beauty nothing can really match.
I find this rush to install glossy surfaces indoors and outdoors quite pukish at times. Vitrified tiles to me feel like ‘cheap glamour and gloss’.
How are you shaping your projects? Do you have the expanse and do you have a desire to make a long-lasting beautiful place?
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
75 mm Thick Granite for Road Bunding
A recent dispatch…
Plenty of applications for such thick heavy duty granite slabs. Some time back we made some for outdoor benches too. Once installed, no worrying about maintenance and upkeep. It is a forever thing.
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Does my house look ‘new’?
There is this strange desire among house owners who are renovating their houses or building houses anew, to make their houses look ‘new’.
‘New’ is so mercurial, temporal, elusive, that even while building the ‘new’, the ‘new’ may stop feeling ‘new’. Or right after the day of ‘house warming’, the newness may evaporate like water in desert.
Is it this desire for ‘new new new’ that makes folks select mirror-finished surface for their indoor flooring, irrespective of the material: granite, marble or vitrified tiles?
Look at this floor for example:
You would have guessed that this is granite with grains in shades of brown. If you look carefully, you might also see that it is reflective. And yet it is not mirror-finished surface. No, it is not matte surely.
Think about this.
Do you want a house that looks ‘new’, or do you want a house that feels neat and clean and cozy?
Mirror-finished surfaces often look new but also non-cozy. Beautiful perhaps but quite sterile.
The picture above shows granite flooring with a rather alluring surface finish. To my senses, ideal for indoor flooring where folks are looking for long-term beauty and warmth and a certain comfort and coziness. Mind you, this finish and feeling can’t be replicated using vitrified tiles. Perhaps not even with natural marble. Granite suits the best.
Would you try this finish for indoor flooring for your project?
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Blackberry Sheen
Not much to write about.
These black pebbles are so well-contoured and rounded and finished they give off a sheen like actual blackberries. Do you see or feel the same looking at these pictures?
If you have a project where you have some lovely spaces and niches and spots to fill, these pebbles should be a great option. Can you visualize your landscapes and hardscapes with these pebbles?
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You Can’t Judge Me Like That
Having interacted with so many customers, patrons, Builders, Architects and Interior Designers over the years, I feel that judging the ‘goodness’ of material has gotten inverted somewhat. Let me explain this.
At first there were no vitrified tiles or ceramic tiles. There was just stone, of course, highly dependent on geography and geology of the time.
At first there were no laminates or veneers. There was just wood. Again dependent on the geography and the diversity of trees.
Transportation improved, so local became available globally.
Techniques of composing and making improved, so imitation of stone and wood became possible. And yet, imitation is just that! Imitation. It is not repetition. Because nothing repeats like Nature.
In certain areas, we feel like we have mastered Nature’s ability to repeat through ‘techniques’ but feels far from truth. We have just coaxed Nature to repeat for our purposes.
Let me get back to Stone for now. See that picture right at the beginning? It is a particular pattern of Granite from down south; am not bothering with the name right now. This is just the first slab/slice of the big block of granite. Slabs and slices behind this one may be quite similar or quite different depending of how geological processes may have transpired eons back.
Now, in these times, a lot of folks judge stone by uniformity. Means, they look for how similar to the first slab are the slabs behind. Atrocious! Where does this behavior come from? From mass-produced stuff. From mass-produced vitrified tiles.
And the irony? All, that’s right, all surface patterns and colors found in vitrified tiles are a copy of some or the other natural surface patterns found in stone or marble or granite. They are like the same 4 or 8 or 16 pages of a book printed over and over again. Yes, vitrified tiles are printed!
So having seen such repetition and ugly exactness in repetition in vitrified tiles, customers start looking at natural stone with the same ugly expectation. And they judge natural stone through such a lens. That’s the inversion. Horror!
Their senses get hijacked; I wonder why that happens so often. Or is it just a ruse to bargain for ridiculous prices after all?!
Hello! Just to remind you, the age of natural stone is greater than the history of all living beings arguably. Far far far far older than the history of human beings.
Pick the ugliest of stone, and it has characteristics of durability and opacity demanded by the structure or construction, it will become endearing, and look perfect in its imperfection and ugliness. Try.
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The Art of Flooring?
For the walls, etching and engraving with CNC machine on stone often looks garish. No it isn’t about lack of intricacy or details. It is just that it is machined and that machined repetition is a bit discomforting.
It feels like on most occasions we are overdoing things just because we have found a easy way of machining all the stone-art that was done by hand.
So what is this? It is not for walls. It is for the floors.
The immediate thought that strikes me is a comparison with the printed horrible-feeling vitrified tiles. This looks and feels far richer.
That said, apart from its visual attractiveness, I can almost sense that it would be quite pleasing to the touch of the soles of the feet. Can you sense that? How would it feel to you?
Got a project where we can contribute?
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Red Cobble Stone
Red Cobble Stone unloading at a site in Ahmedabad.
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Within the 4 Walls & Beyond
It’s crazy how interior designers and architects and even sellers of stone and hyper-expensive luxury marble think. And it’s crazy how even house-owners who are doing up their houses think.
Just because typical house layouts have square or rectangular shaped rooms doesn’t mean the flooring has to be the same. If anything, the flooring needs to disrupt and break the TYRANNY OF THE SQUARE/ RECTANGLE.
How do you do that? You do that by using crazy, non-uniform, dimensional stone slabs and stone pieces.
What you see in the picture can easily be done outdoors. But it can look so so gorgeous indoors too. The question is, do we have the kaarigars to pull it off?
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Name in Stone
Mr. Landscaper, if they ask you to write the name in a way that stands the test of time, write it in stone. Here’s how!
This can be done on a variety of Stone. Of course, stone in light hues and shades may feel better for such purposes.
Explore Indian Natural Stone with us.
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
How would you feel…
There’s a reason to post this picture once again.
Yes, while this is clear from the picture that this flooring has been executed outdoors, I want to check how you would feel if the same were done indoors. Think about it. How would your interior design shape up? How would your house feel day after day, month after month? How would you feel sitting on a sofa amidst such flooring?
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Basalt Blocks for a Temple Project in Gujarat
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Crazy Stone for Landscaping
Sharing pictures of an ongoing landscaping project, Ahmedabad. Out here locally, this unshaped stone is called crazy stone.
As the project progresses, will add some more pictures. It’s a huge space, huge open landscape.
What do you think?
Do you think this kind of unshaped stone can also be used indoors? Of course, the surface finish in that case would be different to suit the indoor needs and looks. Imagine!
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Stone or Granite Samples
Builders, Architects, Building Contractors, Interior Designers very often ask for samples of stone or granite that they sense they could be using in their projects.
Over the years, it has so happened that most stone suppliers have also encouraged and adopted this practice of sending samples.
What does this mean? It means that the receivers of samples or prospective buyers actually look at samples and differences between samples of different sellers, and make decisions.
That’s all fine; I raise basic question.
IN THE BUSINESS OF STONE, MARBLE AND GRANITE, WHAT IS A SAMPLE?
Say the slab of a certain type of marble or granite is 8 feet * 5 feet. Means it is 40 square feet of surface area of something is ‘given’ by nature.
If you get a sample of size 6 inches * 6 inches of this marble or granite, does it offer you great idea of the entire slab? Does it offer you a great idea of the entire lot of say 30 or 40 slabs of marble sliced from a block, especially given the fact that this is all nature-created? I am afraid it doesn’t.
Of course, samples are made for surface finishing too. But the efficacy of sampling even for this can be doubted on the very same lines.
And then to think that samples are approved and rejected, and business deals are done, and purchase orders issued…
Builders have been seen to take undue advantage of this extremely flawed process of sampling often. They know it, and they trick the sellers.
Stone for GIFT City Circle
We got a chance to supply some stone to the GIFT City Circle. Have a look.
The picture is taken with a mobile phone camera in low light but the circle is nicely made. Like it?
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Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Floor Design using Marble
Have a look at these pictures. This floor was done about 2 decades back. May be more.
This is a view while sitting on the sofa on this very floor.
Now check this picture taken from a height.
Amazing isn’t it! The architect did a such fine job of defining the boundaries of the drawing-room space. Non-rectangular! Organic. Has a charm. Never tiring.
Those border lines, with winding-vine like look, are done in stone. That’s right! Such neat hands. Takes an artist to do such stuff. KARIGARI!
Here’s one more picture, again taken from a height, at a slightly different angle:
On the extreme right, a couple of steps above, is the dining space.
As charming as this floor is, it took a lot of patience on the part of the house-owner along with others, to see it through. Do you have patience to create a beautiful floor for your house?
Once you get such a beautiful floor done, it would dictate the choice for other elements of interior design of the house. And floor doesn’t allow the bar for quality and artistry go any lower.
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Cloning Natural Stone Patterns
The other day I had a conversation with a trader of vitrified tiles.
I always poke them about the pathetic look of vitrified tiles. In response, this person proudly informed me about some more developments.
He said vitrified tiles are now offered in 16 different surface patterns also, all cloned from natural stone, to avoid the look of repetitive pattern.
On the other hand, there are some purchase managers and quality checkers who insist on repetitive uniform patterns in natural stone.
What do we do about this world? 😀
The Strange Case of Mr. Ajay Tiwari’s Wife
Customer is king (or queen). And every single person is a customer. Even the seller is a customer, except in his own business.
A young couple, Mr. Arav Tiwari and his wife, visited us with a sample of granite and their kadiya’s notes. Here’s a pic of kadiya’s notes:
What do you notice, right from the words at the top to measurements till the bottom?
Basis these notes and a granite sample brought by the Tiwaris, a conversation took place to understand the requirements; Mr. Tiwari’s wife took greater lead in the conversation.
Mr. G S Soni, my father, made an estimate of the total basis the requirements. Here’s a pic of that estimate:
In both the above pieces of paper, notice the words CHOKDI PATHAR. It’s a trade name for Kota Stone which all the people, who deal with masonry and stone-related work, understand and use in their every day language.
There was a discussion related to Granite to be used as Service Counter Top. Granite named Z Brown Red was finalized for this purpose.
Notice that the price for Chokdi Pathar is lower. And that for granite is higher.
A full advance payment of Rs. 3500, against an estimate of Rs. 3561, was made towards the order.
Below is the delivery slip when the order was dispatched:
Upon receiving the material, Mr. Tiwari’s wife got upset seeing CHOKDI PATHAR (Kota Stone). A conversation ensured and my father offered to replace the CHOKDI PATHAR with some other stone or granite as preferred. Mr. Tiwari’s wife wrote nasty things on Whatsapp and left a nasty feedback too on Google. Screenshot below:
Low quality? I’ve written about assessment of quality in other posts. Trying to make sense of quality once again.
Firstly, Mr. Tiwari’s wife can’t claim ‘low quality’. Quality in stone is not related to the prices of the stone.
Chokdi Pathar and Granite are two different things. Just because the price of granite is higher doesn’t mean that it is superior to Kota Stone, that is also called Chokdi Pathar in such contexts.
In fact if one goes about carefully observing the use of natural stone, granite looks worse than Kota Stone in so so many cases. Architects have fancied and used Kota Stone more beautifully than granite, more often than not. But of course, that depends on person to person and design to design.
Italian Stone, in terms of quality, often fails in Indian conditions, even though it looks beautiful, and carries a huge huge price.
Typically, going by how construction-related work happens, and the language used in that work, granite isn’t called and used as Chokdi Pathar. It is always Kota Stone.
In case one uses granite as Chokdi Pathar, one needs to specify and write that explicitly. And pay the price accordingly since granite is priced higher.
One may also have to look at the thickness of the granite slab in case it is used at a spot where some heavy duty work happens. Greater the thickness, greater the price.
Construction-related execution, or any subject that is relatively new for us, demands a careful look at the details.
What does one do in such cases? How should one treat such customer-queens and kings?
Flat
I’ve never liked the word ‘flat’. But someone must have used for his/her purposes in some situation and it has stuck since then.
House, Home, Bungalow, Row-house, Tenement, Hut, Cottage, Stable, Shade, Shelter, Flat!
More and more folks buying flats are buying big slabs for flooring. If ‘flat’ the word weren’t this bad, now there’s enough done to ensure flatness in the look of a flat too.
Slabs ensure that the flat achieves its flatness. Wisdom would suggest, “Reduce the flatness from this flat”.
What would you do to reduce the flatness? Hire an interior designer?
How Should One Look At Stone Samples?
Dealing with Big Architects, Purchase Managers at Corporate Construction Companies and their Quality Checkers becomes quite awkward on occasions.
When you contact them, often they ask for ‘samples’.
The thing about samples is, for certain kinds of stone or granite, samples may be fairly representative. 100% representation is just not practical and not reliable either. But for most kinds of stone or granite, samples may just not be representative.
Stone, granite, marble are taken out of quarries. Quarries are god’s gift or nature’s gift. They are not factories. They are a storehouse of nature’s abundance, not man-made products.
The insistence of bulk users of natural stone on adherence to ‘samples’ is unreal; no supplier can control that sort of thing. The magic lies in how to compose architectural looks and interior designs with what nature has gifted us with.
Of course, sometimes ‘non-adherence to samples’ is used as a reason to pay less or not pay at all to the supplier. That is malafide intention, trickery, charlatanism.
Can you tell for sure that a 6″ * 6″ sample is a representative of a lot of 4000 sq. ft. of stone or granite. It is ridiculous. More ridiculous since stone dazzles through its variation not through its uniformity.
Flooring with Big Slabs
The bigger the slab, the smaller the space.
KK Stones
Machines are slicing bigger and bigger blocks of marble and granite, and creating huge slabs.
Looked in isolation these huge slabs look grand. Typically these slabs are stacked vertically in the stockyard, so eyes look at them as if looking at a wall or painting on a wall.
If the flooring area is huge, these slabs may look alright as floor under your feet. But if the flooring area is a typical flat, you are in for a space-scrunching feeling.
When you are out to buy marble or granite for flooring, check the floor space available between the walls demarcate the floor space. And then divide it by the number of slabs or piece of flat marble or granite you have in mind.
For example if the space is 20′ * 15′, then you get 300 sq. ft. of space for flooring. If you wish to use slabs of 8′ * 2’6″, that means each slab covers 20 sq. ft. of flooring space. So 15 slabs will cover your entire floor.
Instead of 15 slabs, try imagining 45 slabs. There you have a floor worth looking at.
To argue or debate further regarding the aesthetics of big slabs vs small slabs, we are available at our office.
Get in touch with Mr. G S Soni
Mobile: +91 98250 15546
Teakwood-look Natural Stone
Have a look at this:
If I didn’t show the entire profile of this piece of stone, you may even mistake it for actual wood grains.
Exquisite for wall-cladding. Would fill the space with warmth. Mind you, you got to use lights in the range of 3000 to 4200 Kelvin. I suppose, your architect or interior designer would take care of that.
Can be used as a table-top too. You would never get bored.
Fluid Table Top
Have a look at this.
Doesn’t that look pretty? Would give a whole new meaning, a different feeling, to the space around this.
And white marble has its charm.
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