A Q&A with Natalyn from @modernfarmhouse_nat
 

Q: Why did you decide to build your new home?

A: We originally were looking at buying an existing home, but with how high the market was and having a specific style in mind, building is what ended up working best for us.

Q: What made you choose Cashmere Limestone as your exterior stone?

A: I have always loved the modern farmhouse style. With the black and white exterior of our home, I knew I wanted a stone that would complement those tones. The Cashmere Limestone was the perfect choice - it has that modern and clean look to balance out the classic farmhouse feel.

Nat also chose our Sandcastle brick product, from our Linen Series, for her interior fireplace. Sandcastle is a fresh, crisp product that shows slight hints of white to grey tones, and while this product has an absence of color, the heavily textured face speaks volumes. 

Q: What was your design inspiration?

A: “Modern farmhouse” was my inspiration for our whole house. Black, whites, and grays, with different pops of color.

While Nat chose a white stone for her project, which was the perfect fit, Glen-Gery also offers a variety of Landmark Stone products in different colors, hues, and profiles. View the full Landmark Stone offering here. 

Q: How has Glen-Gery products helped to transform your home?

A: The element of stone that we added from Glen-Gery really is what gave our home that more modern style.

White stone has become increasing popular over the last few years in residential home designs. Our Cashmere color is also available in a Stackstone profile, for those homeowners who are looking for a different edge.

Q: Would you use Glen-Gery products again in the future?

A: Absolutely! I always recommend Glen-Gery and get so many compliments on our exterior stone and fireplace.

Glen-Gery has over 600 brick products, and over 40 stone products to choose from. While this is a large variety of products, and can be viewed as overwhelming, we have tools available to help narrow down your selection. Like our virtual design tool, Picture Perfect, that allows users to upload an image of their home (or even a blueprint!) and virtually apply our different products to their home to see how their vision will come to life. 

Q: What would you do differently if you had the chance to redo this project?

A: Nothing, I love how everything turned out.

Q: What was your favorite/least favorite part of the whole process?

A: Being patient with how long the building process takes but the best part is seeing my vision come to life!

On average, it takes about seven months for a new home to be built, from the beginning stages, to the move in day. This an exciting time for the homeowner, and also leaves plenty of time to finalize any interior designs, as well as exterior landscape designs. 

Q: How would you rate the projects outcome?

A: 10/10

POPULAR BRICK DETAILING IN RESIDENTIAL DESIGN

Brick is one of the most consistently popular building materials among architects, designers and builders alike, due primarily to brick’s versatility to adapt to various designs. Glen-Gery boasts an extensive selection of brick to create extraordinary details within the extruded, molded, and handmade brick lines.

Here we’ll break down four of the most common brick details used in residential construction so you can decide which patterns and accents are most appropriate for your home style. Regardless of the brick and details selected, your new brick home will provide the same unbeatable benefits of brick that no other building material can offer… for a lifetime and beyond.

SOLDIER COURSE & ROWLOCK
A soldier course is a row of brick are laid standing up with the narrow edge (or face) exposed. Think of a soldier course as a rank and file of bricks standing at attention, as the soldiers do. This detail is used for decorative effects over doors, windows and other openings such as fireplaces, or as a transition between two materials. A rowlock is a course of brick laid on the long narrow side with the short end of the brick exposed. The rowlock is similar to the header course except that the brick are laid on narrow or face edge. This type of course is often used as the top course or cap of garden walls and as window and door sills.

QUOINS
Quoin is the accentuation of a building’s corner with short side header bricks and long side stretcher bricks or stone blocks that may or may not differ from the wall masonry in size, color or texture.

CORBEL
Corbel refers to an architectural piece that projects out from a wall and serves as a bracket to carry weight, such as that imposed by a balcony. Corbels are built into walls to a depth that allows the pressure on the embedded portion to counteract the load on the exposed portion.

Corbelled Arches
Corbelled arches are decorative curved elements in the corners of an opening that appear to be supporting the opening. A corbel arch is constructed by offsetting successive horizontal courses of brick, beginning at the springline of the walls.

DESIGNING IN BRICK: BRICK SHAPES

Brick is one of the most consistently popular building materials among architects, designers and builders alike, due in large part to brick’s versatility to adapt to a variety of designs. 

Glen-Gery boasts an extensive selection of brick shapes to correlate with our comprehensive line of extruded, molded and handmade brick as well. Here we’ll break down a few common brick shapes used in residential design.

	Flat Arches Glen-Gery’s flat arches achieve the look of the classic jack arch with the cost of custom dimensions for every brick in the arch. Flat arch pieces, except for the keystone, are the same size and shape and have parallel sides. The voussoirs are designed with a 70° skew-back angle and 3/8” nominal mortar joint.
	Circular Arches These arches are manufactured only from architects’ full-size details and must include specific information including the type of arch, rise, dimension of the masonry opening, thickness of the mortar joint and radii of the arch. It also must be determined whether it is a one- or two-brick arch.
	Water Table Rowlock and on-the-flat water tables, historically used to reduce water penetration, are now used by architects and designers to achieve decorative design details. These details can vary from the use of a single style for simplicity to a combination of styles to achieve highly ornate and intricate brickwork. In addition to their traditional use, these shapes can be used to add dimension to flat walls, rotated to form door and window jambs, or inverted to form cornice brickwork. Continuity of design can also be transferred into the landscape by using the water tables as caps for walls or edging accents for walkways.
	Sills, Copings & Treads The basic function of copings and sill is to reduce the potential for water penetration. This is easily and attractively accomplished with a variety of Glen-Gery brick shapes. Their profiles, whether angular or curvilinear, add distinctive detailing to wall caps, windows, and door openings. Tread shapes are manufactured to properly finish brick steps and other paving applications.

View more shape drawings here!