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The natural and organic makeup of our TerraForm™ stone veneer wall cladding provides for the greatest degree of design flexibility of all our products. The variety in the shapes and sizes of this loose stone style product will allow for your project to have a unique look and feel unmatched by others.
TerraForm™ Stone Cladding elevates natural stone masonry to its rightful place as an architectural art form. No two walls are identical, and it is as inspirational to see during install as it is exceptional once on the wall.
TerraForm™ will encourage you to think outside the box which, in the stone cladding world, means beyond set formats and shapes. This means zeroing in on the texture and color instead. TerraForm™ Cladding is naturally split from larger, thicker pieces into smaller irregular shapes, which are then sawn-cut on the backside. This raw textural form is the painters palette for truly great masons, who will then deliver spectacular on-the-wall styling. The sawn-cut back will also allow for a solid connection with the substrate whilst maintaining the thin veneer nature of the product which enables it to be installed more easily and quickly then full bed stone.
TerraForm™ style stone veneer products grew out of some of the most traditional types of stone work where stone masons used what they had and adapted the stone the best they could to fit onto a vertical application.
Historically the stone that might have been used in this type of application would have been several inches thick and have significant weight to it. We refer to that material as “full bed” stone veneer. These historical installations of the decades and centuries past relied a lot more on a stacking technique, where the stones not only fit together to form a beautiful looking wall face, they also supported the weight of the stones from the bottom up. Advances in machine technology has given rise to a new, thinner profile of TerraForm™ Stone Cladding, which is normally less than 2″ thick, and installed by adhering directly to the wall. Stacking up on the stone below it is no longer required.
Our TerraForm™ collection provides for a natural split face surface and hand chipped edges so you can fashion a wall with an organic and dimensionally textured look. All of our stones in this range are sawn-cut on the back and carefully split by hand on the remaining 5 sides, prior to packing in a crate. This will allow for ease of quality adhesion to all suitable substrates.
There are various methods and styles of installing our TerraForm™ cladding, ranging from a tight dry stack to a gapped and mortared in look. While some loose stone veneers, such as Ashlar Patterned stone cladding, have been designed to maximize the speed at which installation can be achieved, TerraForm™ Stone Cladding is a step in the opposite direction, where thoughtful planning and laying out the stones before they even touch thinset and get stuck to a wall is of more importance.
For the tightest stacks possible, a good stone mason takes their time picking the right stones whose free form shapes already naturally complement each other, and then carefully chisels or rock hammers those stones into tight fitting stones. Any left over gaps are then filled with smaller pieces of stone, trimmed down to fit into some of the tightest of places. TerraForm™ Stone Cladding can also be used in a more forgiving gapped and mortared style technique where stones are still picked and roughly trimmed to fit with neighboring stones, and then the entire installation is mortared in to fill in all the gaps.
Most would agree that TerraForm™ Stone Cladding is best suited for exterior work, in particular garden walls, retaining walls, and facade work where a more traditional look is sought. Because the format of TerraForm™ Cladding tends to be larger in scale, interior applications, particularly fireplaces, look best when the scale of a project leans towards the larger size.
TerraForm™ is mainly different than Dry Stack Ledgestone in that the sizes and shapes of the individual stones in a TerraForm™ product will be at random, between a defined smallest and largest dimension. Dry Stack Ledgestone products are designed with rough cut sizes and shapes and designed so that they can be installed in a tighter dry stack pattern. TerraForm™ products will generally be installed in a random pattern and the gaps between the stones will be mortared in once the stone is on the wall.
TerraForm™ Cladding can be adapted to be installed in a dry fit pattern where minimal gapping is left between the individual stones. To achieve this look careful detail needs to be paid to both how individual pieces of stone natively fit together and the installer will need hammer and chisel individual pieces to achieve a tight fitting look. A majority of TerraForm™ products are designed to be installed and then the gaps around each stone filled in with mortar to complete the look.
Surface Shop recommends a skilled stone mason for the installation of TerraForm™ cladding. Knowledge of making irregular sized and shaped loose stone fit together using traditional masonry tools is important for this type of installation, as well as experience going back and mortaring in the gaps between the stone once the stone is attached to the wall.
The TerraForm™ style of stone veneer and wall cladding is most commonly associated with large exterior installations. TerraForm™ stone veneer can also be used on interior applications, and is ideally suited for larger scale applications including grand fireplaces, entryways, and feature walls. Terraform cladding, when installed over the correct substrates, is also suitable for freeze / thaw climates.
If it’s a stunning privacy wall, exterior natural stone facade accents, or simple but elegant stone fireplace, The Surface Shop has your surfacing needs covered. Browse our collection of products and projects to learn more about how we can assist your project today.
Whether you’re planning a retreat complete with kitchen, bar, and resort-like pool, or have your heart set on an inviting patio, walkway, or water feature, we have all your surfacing needs covered.
