Stone vs Pavers: Advice for Choosing Between the Two for Your Landscape Design in White Plains, NY

The title image features Limestone.

When it comes to deciding between natural stone or pavers for your White Plains, NY, patio, driveway, walkway, or pool deck, the answer isn’t always “set in stone.” While both natural stone and patio pavers are both high quality products from Unilock, they have some key differences. In many applications on your landscape, the right options will start to present themselves once you understand these differences. Here is your guide to stone versus pavers.

The Advantages of Natural Stone

Without a doubt, using natural stone in your landscape will make an incredibly beautiful surface. Every stone has unique characteristics. If you were able to hold one of these stone slabs in your hand, it would be a unique experience—there has never been a stone in that exact color or composition before, and it’s this uniqueness that makes natural stone—or the look of natural stone—a draw for many homeowners.

When coming up with an arrangement of natural stone, it’s an exciting process. Seeing the unique arrangement come together will be inspiring. Choosing some larger pieces of sandstone or limestone natural stone slabs will go great with a modern outdoor living space and even make smaller spaces look bigger.

The natural stone options from Unilock—Limestone and Sandstone—are non-slip yet barefoot-friendly, which makes them wonderful materials for a patio or pool deck.

The Disadvantage of Natural Stone

Natural stone slabs are intended for pedestrian applications. To achieve the load-bearing capacity necessary for driveways, the stone would have to be much smaller, and much thicker. If you want to carry the look of natural stone throughout your entire hardscape—driveway included—then consider a concrete paver alternative with a gorgeous stone look, such as Richcliff pavers from Unilock.

The Advantages of Modern Pavers

One of the biggest advantages of modern pavers over natural stone is that modern pavers are consistent in terms of strength, finish, shape, color, size, and texture. At the same time, pavers are available in a much broader range of styles than natural stone. In fact, there is so much flexibility in paver designs that you can really have fun during the design process.

Modern pavers have a uniform strength throughout the structure of the paver that is tested and verified during manufacturing. Many of the pavers from Unilock are specifically rated for use in driveway applications as they can withstand the weight and pressure of vehicles. In fact, the patented Ultima technology from Unilock ensures that those pavers are rated four times stronger than conventional poured concrete.

Many of the modern pavers available from Unilock come pre-sealed with EasyClean stain resistance technology. This sealant is applied during the manufacturing, and it helps protect the integrity of the pavers as well as retaining the brilliant colors for many years. Popular pavers from Unilock that feature EasyClean include Bristol Valley and Umbriano pavers.

The One Disadvantage of Modern Pavers

A potential downside to modern pavers is that you won’t have the same authenticity and randomness of natural stone. However, choosing a premium paver such as Richcliff, which features Reala Technology (which takes casts from a multitude of natural stones)—and by blending some of the available colors randomly onsite—can give your outdoor space the gorgeous unconstrained look of natural stone, and it will really take a second or even third look to notice that you’re not in fact standing on a natural stone surface.