Easily swapping materials and patterns

[Involute]

I'm thinking of using SketchUp for the redesign of my backyard. I've been using it for a number of years for mechanical design. One capability that would be very handy would be the ability to easily swap materials in a scene. I'm specifically trying to decide between different kinds of stone for a patio. Is it possible to lay out the stone and then apply different stone textures to the layout? I can imagine creating a few stones as individual components and then copying them repeatedly to make the pattern. Then I could apply different textures to the master components. There might be only three or four masters, so that wouldn't be the end of the world, but I thought I'd check here to see if there's an easier way. Also, suppose I want to experiment with different patterns? Is there a way to quickly and easily generate these? Thanks.

Involute

[remus]

When youve got the brush out you can replace every instance of a texture in your model by holding shift when you paint a surface. Im not entirely sure how it would work with textures within a component, though, so you'd have to do a little playing around.