Natural stone walls, stone veneer, front steps, porches, pillars and fireplace surrounds, built by our own crew across Oshawa, Whitby, Bowmanville and the rest of Durham Region. We build what holds the stone up before we lay a single piece of it.
Masonry and stonework covers anything we build out of stone and the mortar that holds it: a natural stone wall at the front of a house, veneer over an old brick or block face, a set of front steps, a porch, garden and gate pillars, wall caps, and stone fireplace surrounds indoors.
It is for homeowners who want the outside of the house to look finished and stay that way. Most of the stone work we are called in for is not a cosmetic problem. It is a set of steps that has dropped away from the door, a cap that lets water into the wall below it, or veneer that was stuck onto a wall nobody prepared. The stone was rarely the issue. What was under it was.
So every job starts below the surface. We look at the base, the footing and the backing wall, fix what needs fixing, and only then choose and lay the stone. Twenty years in the trade has taught us that the part nobody sees decides how long the part everybody sees lasts.
Four stages, and the first two happen before any stone arrives on site.
We walk the job with you and check what the stone will sit on: the old base, the footing, the backing wall and where the water goes. That decides the scope, not the stone.
Steps and walls get dug out to firm ground and built up on a compacted base or a footing set for frost. Veneer gets a sound, prepared backing. This is the part that keeps it level in ten years.
Stone is laid out dry first so the colours and sizes are spread evenly and the cuts land where they should. Then it is set in mortar suited to the stone and the location.
Joints are tooled and the face is cleaned. We walk the finished work with you, leave the site clean and back it with a written warranty.
There is no single right answer. Here is what each option is good at and what it costs you elsewhere.
Real stone laid at full thickness, a few inches deep, the way stone houses and walls have always been built.
The same real stone sawn to about an inch thick and adhered to a prepared wall.
Cast concrete shaped and coloured to look like stone. Light, consistent and quick to install.
Single-piece stone or precast treads set on a built base, instead of a poured slab with a stone face.
We do not quote stone work from a photo, because the number depends on things you cannot see in one. Every price comes after a site visit, and it is written down before we start. Small jobs get a free visit. Larger ones carry a small consultation fee that comes off the final bill.
Fireplaces, front steps, porches, walkways and walls from jobs in Courtice, Oshawa, Whitby and Toronto.
Tap any photo to view it full size.
We are based in Oshawa and do most of our stone work within a short drive of the shop.
Many of the Whitby homes we work on have stone at the entrance: walkways, landings and wide front steps leading up to the door. We rebuilt one of those entrances in natural stone with a circular inlay at the top landing, and we have set new cap stones on walls and steps on other Whitby jobs. Caps matter here as much as anywhere. A cap that sheds water keeps the wall under it dry through the winter.
Oshawa is home, and a lot of our stone work here is on older brick bungalows and side-splits whose original concrete steps have cracked and dropped away from the door. We have replaced those with solid stone treads and planter walls, and clad a tired porch in stone with a single slab top and side steps. The shop is in Oshawa, so we are rarely more than a few minutes away.
Bowmanville mixes 19th-century brick and stone around its old downtown with newer subdivisions on the edges of town. The two need different approaches. Older walls want soft mortar and stone that suits what is already there, while newer homes usually want veneer or new steps done properly from the base up. If your Bowmanville home is a designated heritage property, exterior changes may need approval from the Municipality of Clarington first, and we can work around that.
Also serving:Toronto, Pickering, Ajax, Courtice, Scarborough, Newcastle and Newtonville.
They solve different problems. Natural thin veneer is real stone sawn to about an inch thick, so the colour runs all the way through and does not fade. Manufactured stone is cast concrete with colour added. It is lighter and costs less per square foot, but chips show grey and the colour can soften with years of sun. On a front wall that has to look right for decades we usually steer people to natural stone, and we will tell you plainly when manufactured stone is the sensible call.
Usually, yes. Adhered stone can go onto sound, clean masonry. Painted or sealed brick needs to be prepared or covered with metal lath and a scratch coat first so the mortar has something to grab. If the brick behind is spalling or the wall is wet, that gets fixed first. Stone on top of a problem only hides it for a while.
Most poured steps were set on a shallow base. Water gets under them, freezes, lifts the slab and lets it drop back unevenly every winter. Over the years that opens cracks and pulls the steps away from the house. When we rebuild steps we dig out to firm ground, build a proper compacted base or footing, and set solid stone treads that shed water instead of holding it.
Yes. Natural stone and stone veneer are non-combustible, which makes them a good match for a gas insert. The insert's installation manual sets the clearances to the mantel and surround, and we build to those numbers. A timber mantel can sit on a stone surround as long as it respects them.
We try, and we are honest about how close we can get. We bring samples to the house and lay them against the existing wall in daylight. Some older stones are no longer quarried, and in that case we will show you the nearest match or suggest a deliberate change of material at a corner or a step, which tends to look better than a near miss.
Tell us what you have in mind and we will come out, look at what is underneath, and give you a straight answer and a written price.
