Monthly Archives: July 2016

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Uses for Corbels in Your Home

Nobody wants a cookie cutter, generic home that looks like a model or showroom.  While model homes or showrooms are beautiful, they are completely impersonal and lack certain characteristics that give a home charm, elegance, uniqueness, and interest.  Often, it is the small and somewhat overlooked details that give a home its subtle character.  For example, corbels can be used throughout both the interior and exterior of your home for both practical and decorative purposes.  Corbels can be made of a variety of materials but carved stone is timeless in its elegance and adds both perceived and real value to your home.  Corbels are one of those luxurious finishes that you expect to find in high-end custom homes but they can be used in any home to add character and unique decorative style.

Corbels can be used in a wide variety of applications throughout the interior and exterior of your home.  They can be used to decorate or support doorframes.  A boring, basic opening that connects one room to another can be made beautiful and eye-catching with the simple addition of carved stone corbels.  Corbels can be used under cabinetry or countertops in kitchens, bathrooms or laundry rooms for both support and decor purposes.  What is nice about corbels is that they do not have to match the material they are supporting, they can elegantly enhance wood cabinetry or countertops made of a wide range of materials.  They can be used along a ceiling in a room to draw the eye up, perhaps towards a beautiful decorative ceiling or just to make a room feel larger.  Corbels can be used to support beams in a room, taking standard beams from boring to beautiful.  Corbels can also be used around fireplaces to support carved stone mantels which not only create a stunning centerpiece for any room but add immense value to your home.  Finally, you can add shelving to any room in outside of your home by installing corbels on a wall with a shelf on top.  While this could be done with metal brackets, corbels are far more interesting and unique and add that “custom” feel to your home.  They are subtle enough to provide a separation for rooms but still visually interesting enough that they enhance your decor.

At Architectural Stone Elements, our corbels are crafted for structural support as well as decorative function.  We have volumes of designs in-house that range from simple to very elaborate – classic to modern.  You can bring in a sketch or picture of something you like and we can custom reproduce it to your selected dimensions and stone preference.  Corbels have always succeeded in adding that balance that gives a room or area a “completed” look.  Stone corbels can be used in any home decor and work beautifully to enhance your home’s other stone elements, elevating the overall design aesthetic of your home.

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How To Use Columns In Your Home

Columns have been used in architecture for centuries and continue to be popular today.  There is a reason for this – columns are timeless in their beauty and elegance.  Today, there are a variety of column styles available so that you can incorporate that same timeless beauty into your home while also enhancing the architectural style of your home.  Some may think columns only belong in opulent homes with a very distinct, classic architectural style but, this is not the case.  At Architectural Stone Elements, we are proud to offer a wide selection of columns that can increase the aesthetic quality, as well as the monetary value of a residential property.

If you are considering adding columns to your home, whether remodeling or designing a new build, there are countless options available to you.  For example, Cantera Tuscan columns, made from natural stone, can come in a variety of shades /colors.  As a superior building material, Cantera stone is ideal for use in columns because of its durability and beauty.  Additionally, Tuscan and Doric columns may seem simple in their form to some, but what adds a truly special touch of depth and dimension is the varied hues of the stone.  While columns can be constructed of a variety of materials, natural stone has beauty in its uniqueness that cannot be replicated by other materials.   Further, Cantera stone columns can be made even more unique with the addition of additional features such as a Corinthian capital.  Corinthian columns with fluted shafts add a graceful elegance and eye-catching appeal to an already stunning architectural feature.

Architectural columns constructed of natural stone are versatile and durable, capable of being used both indoors and outdoors.  They can be purely decorative or can be used as actual support for the structure of your home. Natural stone columns make a wonderful adornment to an entryway, surrounding stairways, under balconies, to add a visual separation that creates “rooms” for a space that may be very large, or  to highlight or draw attention to certain indoor or outdoor architectural features.  Columns can be used around the outside structure of a home or throughout landscaping as a “hardscape” element that adds balance to the surrounding softscape, or around pools or gardens to support shade structures.  Columns are often used in custom homes but they can be added to homes to give it a more unique, custom feel that not only adds perceived value but tangible value as well as beauty and elegance that cannot be achieved through other decor.