Here are pictures of some rocks. They are solid. They are heavy. They sit on the earth. They are of the Earth. They are so solid, the living room and deck of the house (on the right) were built on top of the rock, and underneath is an actual “rock room”. (Not my design, but I did a remodel on this house).
Rock (stone) was a common building material in eras past, but you don’t see many real stone buildings today. Perhaps the occasional old house with a stone foundation. For the look of stone these days, a thin natural or manufactured stone veneer is applied as a cladding over a structural wall or column. Some applications are very well done.
The entry structure on this house in my neighborhood looks “real”, the stone is resting on the ground and appears to be supporting the structure, as stone would. The columns on the park structure look like solid stone, although more likely it is stone veneer wrapped around a structural column. Both good examples. But how often have you seen something like this:
Here, manufactured stone is used as decoration. You might call it wallpaper, for all the good it does. What could it possibly be supporting? It doesn’t even pretend to be anything but what it is – fake.
Stone is not wallpaper! Stop it!
And for goodness’ sake, don’t ever do anything like this:
