What you see in the stone wall is real stone from the property. A) we're in New England with lots of rocks left behind by the glacier. B) we tore down an old house built about 1790 that had a stone foundation, so we saved a lot of the flat rock from there which the masons were able to use in the walls. They did not saw them, except maybe some edges to help shape them to a particular location. At most they may have split them. Sawing them would give too flat a surface and wouldn't look right. A lot of it has to do with placement. The flatest surface to the outside..the other sides could be all wonky as it's inside the wall. These walls here were cemented in but we kept the cement on the inside and so it looks like a loose stack, but it's not.

The other stone is on the foundation wall. It too is real field stone, but we purchased that from a stone place -- https://stoneyard.com/ -- that sawed it thin so the face was still the real irregular face, but the back side was flat and smooth and made easier mounting and the wall contains much less weight and thickness that way. The place also used corner saws to saw corner pieces which were purchased separately to wrap around outside corners of the building.

We purposely got the new england field stone so it would match our other stone...which I think it did quite well.

I believe the masons did end up buying some squared stone to put the pillars together as it was going to be too much work/time to split all the stone needed to make them square. So probably less than 10% of the stone walls in the patio were purchased.

One of the most important things to the look of the wall is how thick the joints are. Masons like thick joints as it makes their job easier, but I didn't like the look and told them I wanted them tight even if it was more expensive, so they did that...had to use a lot of saws to shape the edges of rocks so they'd fit tightly, but I think it was worth it.

Definitely worth the $$, Annie -- absolutely gorgeous. And I do so agree about the thinner mortar,

Annie...It looks FANTASTIC!

We purchased THIS house about 22 months ago. I'm working on the exterior again with the warmer weather. A rough rock wall came with my house....and I'm trying to decide if I want to tear it down and start over. Then add another wall that matches. I need to figure out "my design". What's important. I really like the look of YOUR walls! Thank you for the explanation!

Note: I have diamond blades. I can cut granite or stone. It's just a LOT of work.

SO nice!!!!

The other place the stonework went was in the stone wall at the front of the house.

When we were building, there was a stone wall but it stopped near the front walk for the old house, but it left the opening to the new house very wide. For zoning/wetlands reasons, we had to set the house closer to the road than we would've liked, and given the proportions of the new house, it really looked too close to the road. So once we got the house finished, we extended the existing stonewall up closer to the driveway to give the illusion that the house was set back further and to provide a better barrier from the street. In doing so, we had to make sure the stone masons weren't too fussy as the wall needed to look as rough as the original wall. They did a great job with it.

Without the wall extension:

After the wall was extended:

What a gorgeous home, Annie.

This would be my dream home!! I love stone and yours is just amazing. We have new builds going in all over the place in my little neighborhood and the best of the new houses, in my opinion, have stone fronts on them. There's just something about stone that is so attractive to me. Like living up close and personal with nature. Thanks for showing your pictures and your explanations. Just great!!