To help promote the popularity of one of their most popular products, Caprock Hardscape Supply, sister company and the retail distribution center for Quality Stone Quarries located in Stigler, OK, built an outdoor kitchen to help their customers visualize the scope of stonework they can produce. According to Sarah Ratliff, the director of marketing for Quality Stone Quarries, the outdoor kitchen allows them to promote their stone that they mine in their quarry, as well as to provide customers with an impressive finished view of their product, so they can generate ideas and inspiration for their own home.
“One of the ways we did this was by laying the stone in various ways,” said Ratliff. “Dry stack, hidden joint and mortar. With the mortar, we also used different colors so people could see how different colors looked with the stone, and decide what their preference would be. A lot of people have a hard time visualizing a finished product, especially one as large as an outdoor kitchen. Our outdoor kitchen is there to help fill that gap for them.”
For the kitchen, the company used around 7 to 8 tons of their popular Oklahoma Blue and Oklahoma Multicolored natural stone, creating a 20- x 15-foot outdoor kitchen. “For us, it is one of our more popular products, and it is one that we have seen rise in popularity in the outdoor sphere,” said Ratliff. “It is also super easy for us to attain since we have a direct quarry connection with Quality Stone Quarries. We also love the way it works. When you are able to lay the Oklahoma stone up well, it looks absolutely gorgeous in its finished form. Lastly, it is a very easy stone for masons to work with. Because of that, it is very doable for us to work in intricate details and unique features that we probably could not do with other types of stone.”
Quality Stone Quarries also used the stone for the mantle and hearth, the arches around the fireplace, the benches, the Texas shape and the bull-nosed edge on the countertop. “We created a smooth surfaced countertop with a bull-nosed edge,” said Ratliff. “We have tons of people that are in complete disbelief when they see it, because it is so smooth and does not look like a slab of Oklahoma Blue.
“We cut out the shape of Texas from a piece of the Multicolor,” Ratliff went on to say. “But with that stone, you can easily cut out custom features like that for really any project you have. We created benches out of the stone, with a smooth slab as a seat and squares and rectangles as the base. The arches around the fireplace were custom cut. This detail took some extra time, but does look fantastic and gives the finished product that extra little something to stand out. Both the mantle and the heart were used with 4-inch-plus Oklahoma Multicolored slabs.”
The two-week project didn’t come without its set of challenges. Quality Stone Quarries wanted to make sure they were displaying their stone in the best way possible and staying true to its colors. “We wanted to make sure we were able to display the true colors well, and in a way that was completely unique,” said Ratliff. “A lot of the little details took a lot of extra time to do, but it was completely worth it in the end.”
As a tool to not only show off their product, but also to give customers ideas of what stone is capable of, the project has been extremely successful. “We have a lot of customers that tell us that they want the exact same thing [as the kitchen], which is great,” said Ratliff. “That is what it’s there for. It is really nice for our staff, and for our customers, to be able to walk outside and see an outdoor kitchen showroom. We get tons of compliments and visitors from all around the Dallas / Fort Worth area wanting to see it. We also have seen a significant increase in the Oklahoma Natural Stone sales since, so I would say it is a very good return on investment.”
