Free Stone Building Guides from the pages of Popular Mechanics Magazine

 

Step-by-step instructions on improving your home landscape by building beautiful stone patios, walks and planters.

Build Your Own Natural Stone Patio, by Steve Willson  Build a natural stone patio that will last for ages and look great the whole time.

A traditional flagstone patio can be a great addition to just about anybody's yard. The material is attractive and durable, and nicely complements a wide range of other landscaping features. Many varieties of stone are available at landscape and masonry outlets. Slate, a metamorphic rock, is one of the best-known types. Bluestone, which is cut in northeastern U.S. quarries, is what we used on this project. It's a sedimentary rock with a very engaging color. When installed, both types yield a relatively smooth, flat surface.


Build A Stone Planter, by Joseph Truini  An elegant planter that you construct out of stone.

The stone wall planter shown here is functional, beautiful and relatively easy to build. It's designed to hide an exposed concrete foundation, and provide a place to grow plants and shrubs.

 

 

How To Install A Stone Walkway

You have a lot of options when it comes to building a walkway, from a simple gravel path to a formal brick walk set in an elaborate herringbone pattern. You also can build a walk using poured concrete, cast-concrete pavers, pressure-treated lumber, or fieldstones that you salvaged from an old country wall. All these materials can deliver a good, serviceable walk, if properly installed. For this job we chose another option: quarry stones, which are often called flagstones or simply flat stones.

 

PopularMechanics.com  Over the years, Popular Mechanics Magazine has featured a variety of backyard building, home improvement and woodwork projects as feature articles. Now, they offer many of the best projects on their website. These in-depth articles are illustrated with plans, photos and detailed isometric views. They follow the building from the planning stage through final finishing. So, they are step-by-step guides that will help you build the perfect project.