Paver Color: What Nicolock Builds Into the Stone

Of everything decided on a patio job, color is the one a family looks at every single day. Shape gets absorbed into the yard. Size stops registering by the second summer. Color never does. Ten years on, a patio gets judged on two questions: whether it is still flat, and whether it still looks like the color that was chosen. Nicolock is one of the paver makers J&E builds with, and color happens to be the thing the company builds its whole case on, which makes it a useful place to understand how a paving stone gets its look in the first place.

The color is mixed into the unit, not painted onto it

A paving stone is cast rather than cut, and that is what makes any of this possible. Quarried stone is whatever color came out of the ground. A cast unit is a recipe, and a recipe can be repeated. Nicolock's published account of its own recipe, which the company calls paver-shield, runs like this. The mix uses fine sand and Portland cement, and iron oxide pigment bonds with the cement so the color is carried all the way through the stone rather than sitting on the face of it. The company also describes a dense, smooth surface that does not bring heavy aggregate to the top as the stone wears. That is the maker speaking about its own product, and it is worth reading as a claim rather than a law of nature. What it does tell you is where to aim your questions with any brand: ask how deep the color goes, and ask what the surface does after a decade of sun, sand and shovels.

Twenty eight blends, and a blend is not a color

Nicolock publishes twenty eight color blends. The word blend matters more than the number. A blend is a range rather than a single flat tone, so a finished surface carries movement across it, the way a stone terrace does. That is why a patio almost never looks like the small photograph that sold it. Two pieces of the same blend can sit side by side and differ, which is the point, and it means the sample in your hand is telling you about a family of colors rather than about one.

A patio is rarely the only thing that needs a color

Most yards need more than a patio surface. Nicolock also makes wall units, steps, piers, coping and caps, along with stone veneers, so a seat wall, the steps off the back door and the cap on a garden wall can all be drawn from one place and one color story. That is worth knowing early, because the awkward version is a patio chosen on its own in March and a wall chosen next to it in July. Whichever brand the job lands on, the yard reads better when those decisions get made together.

What the company publishes about itself

Nicolock describes itself as family run for more than fifty years, producing in plants it owns in the United States, and its color technology page puts the number of them at seven. The company also publishes a lifetime warranty on its paving stones that it says transfers to the next owner of the home. Treat that the way you would treat any warranty: a document with terms, worth reading on the maker's own site before it becomes a reason to choose. A warranty on the stone is also separate from the work around it, which is a distinction any honest contractor will draw for you.

Where a color decision usually goes wrong

Three ways, and all of them are avoidable. The first is matching to something that will not be there long, like a trim color you already plan to repaint or a roof coming up for replacement. The second is choosing the boldest option because it stood out on a table, when the same tone across four hundred square feet is a very different amount of it. The third is forgetting what will sit on the surface. Furniture, a grill, plantings and a fire feature all land on that color, and a busier blend under a lot of furniture starts to compete. Quieter color, busier yard. Bolder color, simpler yard.

The house gets the final vote

A New England street settles the question faster than a catalog does. Red brick pulls warm, gray shingle pulls cool, white clapboard will carry either and is the reason half of these yards end up in the middle of the range. Look at the house first and the pavers second. J&E builds patios, walkways, steps and walls across Woburn, Winchester, Reading and the towns around them, and the color conversation happens in the yard where the stone is going to live. Start with an estimate on your own property. J&E is at 781-608-4425.