Choosing our outdoor patio stone. I got on stories last night to discuss my thought process for choosing our outdoor patio stone and every video I recorded ended up being over 5 minutes long. That told me that I have too many thoughts on this particular subject and I should just dedicate a blog post to cover everything.

To begin, we really debated on whether or not to just do stamped concrete vs stone to save money. Ultimately we decided that it was worth the extra money to us to enjoy the look and feel of stone under our feet. We have washed concrete right now (I think that’s what it’s called?) and while I love the fact that I can essentially do anything to it, if I could pay a little extra and get something we truly love for the next 30+ years, I wanted to do it. I knew from the get go that I would rather cut costs in other places that I don’t care as much about like the pool design, eliminating outdoor kitchen, eliminating fire pit, etc. I personally would rather cut back in those terms than to look over something like flooring that I will walk on frequently and look outside and see every single day of the year.

So with that being said Will was on board with upgrading our patio to stone and cutting back in other areas that weren’t as important. We pretty much mutually decided that we wanted to do bluestone for our outdoor patio. However, once we went to pick out stone, I was super disappointed. Not in the quality of the material or anything to do with the stone warehouse we looked at, I was just disappointed in how our black pool looked with bluestone. Everything felt really dark and heavy and it wasn’t the mood I was going for. Bluestone is a gorgeous stone and I was really hoping that we could find something that worked for our pool. They had other travertine options in stock that I thought could potentially work, but they said it was astronomical in price and that they couldn’t even source it for us right now anyway.

So feeling bummed with zero progress made, I got home and started looking up places on the internet trying to source our own stone and I felt like that was a path I was too scared to take on myself. What if we ordered 1500 sq ft of stone and we weren’t happy with it or there was an issue with the order? It seemed extremely risky to us. One day I was searching pool coping and stones on Instagram and came across Marmiro’s Instagram page. I started looking through their pictures and they were immediately eye catching. After flipping through their stone options online, I started to have hope again for this project. They had so many options with the exact vibe I was going for. So now the fun part! Getting to tell you all about the vision I have for this pool area.

THE POOL STONE DESIGN IDEA

To sum it up here is the idea that I was going for in my head. First and foremost I wanted something lighter in color. I felt like a dark pool + dark stone is just too much of a moody vibe for me. I think it could still be pretty, but it just wasn’t the mood I was after. I really wanted to keep the stone around the pool as monochromatic and subtle as possible. I wanted the pool to be the star of the show and let the stone be a nice compliment to the pool, not the other way around. I also wanted the stone we picked out to compliment our brick. I didn’t want to have this gorgeous stone that looks great around the pool but when it meets up with our brick, it looks out of place. And finally, quality. A durable material that would hold up under various weather conditions was also important.

STONE TYPES

There are so many options when it comes to the type of flooring you choose for your home. I am going to share the types below because these are the options that we looked in to.

FINDING OUR DREAM STONE

I knew immediately when I was on Marmiro’s website what stone I thought I wanted. When I saw their crema oliva limestone it was truly love at first sight. Sometimes when you know, you know! It was light in color and subtle in color variation. Almost like you had to squint to see the fine details and that was exactly the look I was going for. I didn’t want anything too busy because in some ways I feel like that can distract from the overall beauty of the pool. That being said, some people would rather have the stone be the star of the show and the pool play second fiddle. I love that we all have different thoughts because that is what makes the world interesting and beautiful!

I ordered five samples from Marmiro stones knowing immediately which one I was drawn to the most. I was actually shocked at how my mind was changed on some after seeing them in person. I thought for sure my top two favorites would be the “crema oliva” limestone and the “crema eda” marble. I thought the warm undertones of the eda marble would pair well with our brick, and it did… BUT it looked really OFF with our pool. The close second actually came in the “afyon cloud” marble. The subtle variation was pretty and the deeper, darker tones paired really well with our black pool, BUT when compared to our brick looked really out of place. This is what leads to my best advice when it comes to your own home.

PRO TIP: **TRY** to picture all the elements in one space. It’s crazy how quickly something can change just by adding in another element. This is why mood boards in real life or on the computer are SO helpful.

When I saw it next to our brick it was a no brainer which one we were drawn to the most: the “Crema Oliva” Limestone. I have never been so excited about a stone. My ONLY hesitation with this stone that I mentioned to Will was that we are paying a lot of money for this particular stone to LOOK very similar to concrete but at the end of the day, this is the material we want and the look we are going for and I’m trusting the process! If you’ve made it this long, thank you. Can’t wait to share with you the rest of the plans!