Porotone and Stone Accents | Our Big Italian Adventure

On our second morning, we had two tasks: meet with the door and window supplier to select the portone and go to a stone yard to find some stone pieces to use around the outside of the house.

The first stop was a bust. They had a limited selection of options and the only one Anne liked I didn’t I thought it was too much like the interior doors, but, of course, that’s why she liked it. So we decided we needed to find a picture or draw a sketch of the door we want and then have them bid on it. That’s a task for later.

Stone Craftsmen — Rolando and Roberto
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The second stop was much more fruitful. It was a combination stone salvage yard and stone-cutting shop. It is run by an older man, a master stone craftsman, and his son. It consists of a large warehouse-type space full of stone cutting and shaping equipment and pieces of stone in various stage of completion, surrounded by a large yard full of old pieces, new pieces, and raw materials.

We were hoping to find a number of items.

Faceplates for the faucets
A trough we can make into a fountain
A faceplate for the fountain
A country sink and a faceplate
Whatever else caught our eye and might be interesting

Here, we had good success. We saw a number of choices for each item, mostly old, but also new stone that could be “cut-to-order” and then magically aged.

Simulating Years of Grime
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The craftsman showed us how the aging process works. He has a special mixture based on motor oil that he applies to the new stone. The results are quite convincing when we compared them to the old pieces.

We selected a list of possible items. Next, we’ll wait for their proposal with item costs.

Here’s a slideshow of parts of the yard and workshop.