What Stone For Your Outdoor Kitchen?

Outdoor kitchens in Portland are simply a fun and unique addition to any home, large or small. An outdoor kitchen can transform an unused area of back yard into the most favorite place in the home.

With an outdoor kitchen, you can prepare entire meals without having to go back and forth between the grill and your kitchen sink or counter spaces.

One of the fun parts about planning your outdoor kitchen is in choosing the surface materials you will want to enjoy for years to come. What do you want your flooring or decking to be made of? What do you want your countertops and shelving to be made of. Do you want to add a brick pizza oven?

In considering your surface materials, you will want to know more about the materials you can choose.

In building, masonry is building a structure from individual blocks or units that are laid in a formation and held together by mortar. Common materials used are:

Brick

• A brick is a block of kneaded clay-bearing soil, sand, and lime or concrete material
• Is fire hardened or air dried
• Can be lightweight by using expanded clay aggregate
• Produced in numerous types, materials, and sizes
• Have been used since 5,000 BC
• Also known as mud brick or Adobe

Stone

A Stone is a small piece of rock of any shape. It is made of one or more minerals such as granite.

• Marble
  • Consists of re-crystallized carbonate minerals
  • Is a shiny stone
  • Used for sculpture or building material
• Granite
  • Consists of grains of different hard rocks such as feldspar, quartz, mica, and amphibole minerals
  • Is hard and tough
  • Used as a dimension stone and flooring tiles, countertops, walls
• Travertine
  • Is limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs
  • White, tan, cream colored, and rusty colored
  • Frequently used in Itally
• Limestone
  • Most commonly consist of grains from marine organism skeletal fragments
  • Sometimes they are formed by dripping water or groundwater and are not grains (like in caves)
  • A lightweight sedimentary rock
  • Used as aggregate for base of roads

Cast Stone

• A concrete product that simulates natural cut stone
• Used for trim, ornament, facing buildings and garden ornaments
• Made from white or grey cements
• Can be colored with mineral pigments
• Can be made to resemble natural stones

Concrete Block

• Commonly known as cinder block
• Made from cast concrete mix of Portland cement and aggregate for high-density blocks
• Industrial wastes are used as aggregate for lower density blocks
• Aerated concrete is used to create lightweight blocks

Glass Block

• Also known as glass brick
• Produced for both wall and floor applications
• Lets light in
• Some are pre-framed for easy installation

Stucco

• Is like plaster but used outside
• Made of lime, sand, and water (also used in mortar)
• Animal or plant fibers often added for strength in old days
• Portland cement is currently frequently added
• Lime plasters were replaced by gypsum plaster

Tile

• Often used to form wall and floor coverings
• Can be simple square tiles to complex mosaics
• Used unglazed for roofing
• Made of marble, onyx, granite or slate
• Thinner tiles are used on walls, thicker on floors
• Ceramics for tiles include Earthenware, Stoneware, Porcelain

Cob (unburned clay masonry or organic aggregate)

• Is made from sand, clay, water, and some sort of organic material like straw and earth.
• It's fireproof
• Resistant to seismic activity
• Inexpensive
• Can be sculpted into artistic forms

Once you choose your different materials for your outdoor kitchen, you will be set to finish your plans. We hope that you will call on our Portland masonry contractors at Sprenger Masonry so that we can help you design your new space.

We have a lot of experience with both residential and commercial outdoor kitchen construction projects. Please take a moment to look at our project gallery on our website!