Save the dates for Coverings 2012

Coverings is a must-see show and conference for the tile and stone worlds and Coverings 2012 is coming to the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando from April 17 through April 20.

Whether you're looking for the next big idea or the bottom line, you'll find the inspiration you're after at this year's show. There are over 1000 exhibitors from 50 countries signed up so far, Coverings 2012 promises something for everybody in the architecture, builder, design and fabricator communities.

Coverings 2012 features a robust conference schedule including accredited seminars and live demonstrations led by some of the most reputable authorities in the industry. Oh, and it's all free.

So add it to your calendar and make it a point to be in Orlando on April 17th. I know I'll be there!

You can learn more and register to attend on Coverings website. See you in Orlando.

Starck towers over Warendorf

German kitchen manufacturer Warendorf just rolled out a new collection called Tower. Tower is the result of a collaboration between Warendorf and the design world's enfant terrible, Philippe Starck.

Tower consists of three components, two tall cabinets and an island.

Starck's forever deconstructing things and looking at every day objects and setting in a new light, hence his enduring popularity as a collaborator.

The towers are function-specific. One tower is for dish and pantry storage, the other holds a refrigerator/ freezer, a dishwasher, an oven and a steam oven. Each tower takes up a single square meter of floor space and they rotate to allow easy access to their contents. The appliance tower has electric, waste and water lines that run up into it through the floor.

The island holds a stainless steel sink and an integrated induction cooktop. Power and water run into the island from the floor and are hidden by the chrome leg under the sink.

Open kitchens are all the rage in Europe these days and this open kitchen takes that concept into the stratosphere. A set up like this could be installed in any open space. When it's not in use, it becomes just a few pieces of furniture but come meal time, it's a full kitchen.

It's a pretty wild idea and even though it's not for everyone, I'm curious to see how this idea trickles down into the rest of the industry and how it affects aesthetics on both sides of the Atlantic. What do you think? Is there any appeal to the idea of a kitchen not being in a dedicated room but instead being another furniture vignette in an open space?

Endless thanks to my brilliant cousin Tim for bringing this to my attention.

Real design stars and a concrete counter guy

During my travels last fall, I had some incredible opportunities to meet some people whose work in the design world I admire greatly.

Everything started at Cersaie in Bologna last September. Endless thanks to Chris Abbate, Novita Public Relations and Tile of Italy for making it possible for me to meet and talk with some people whose work I've long admired.

In order of appearance, I met Patricia Uriquiola,

Philippe Grohe

and the Bouroullec brothers, Ronan and Erwan, all in the same day.

I've written about these peoples' work quite a bit over the years. I shower with a shower that Ms. Uriquiola designed and Mr. Grohe brought to the market. It was great to be able to tell them how much I appreciate their vision and hard work in person.

Later in London for BlogTour 2011, I met such notables as Nicky Haslam,

Barbara Barry

and Lee Broom.

There were more people whose work I admire during those weeks on the road but I don't want to be too much of a name dropper. BlogTour 2011 dropped me into the middle of the London Design Festival and were it not for BlogTour I'd have never been there otherwise. So thank you.

But out of the entire who's who of the world design scene I met, none can compare to a man I had the pleasure to meet in San Francisco last month.

I'd been brought to San Francisco by Zephyr to attend a design event at their spectacular showroom in San Francisco's Design District. One of the night's speakers was Fu-Tung Cheng, the man who brought the decorative and functional possibilities of concrete to the world's attention.

There were at most 30 people in attendance at Zephyr's event and most of us knew one another. It felt more like a dinner party than it did a formal function.

After Fu-Tung spoke, he mingled with the everyone as if he were just another guest at a party. Never mind that there was a stack of his books by the door.

Here's a little back story. In 2002, Fu-Tung Cheng published his first book, Concrete Countertops; Design, Form and Finishes for the New Kitchen and Bath. I was a relative newbie to the kitchen and bath industry then and his book was nothing short of a revelation. It gave rise to a new aesthetic in my work but far more than that, his first book showed me that I could forge my own way and that I could create a career for myself. All I needed to do was channel my passion and my energy as tirelessly as I was able.

Concrete Countertops was far more than a book about a new idea in surfaces, it was a wake up call for me and it challenged me to strike out and make a place for myself in the world. Fu-Tung Cheng's generous spirit jumped off the page as I read his words and I realized that my making a place for myself wasn't a matter of my ambition. A career of my own making could only happen if I could be of service and use to other people.

Part of me knew that already, but Cheng's book about concrete drove home that point and sent me on my way. I'm not kidding when I say that his first book changed the trajectory of my life.

Fast forward to October, 2011 and I found myself in the same room with the man who'd had such an impact on me. I walked up to him and told him essentially what I just wrote in the previous few paragraphs. He was as gracious as he was grateful to hear that he'd impacted me so positively.

We ended up having a longer conversation and later, exchanging business cards when the event was breaking up for the night. And in a final gesture, he inscribed his latest book, Concrete at Home for me.

I'm a fortunate, fortunate man. I say that all the time and I mean it. I have opportunities extended to me on a regular basis that make my head spin, not the least of which are numerous opportunities to meet some of the  people I admire. So thanks Zephyr for a great event and thanks for allowing me to complete another circle.

Three reader questions for a Monday morning

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Help! My husband and I are planning to finish up our kitchen with all new appliances and by fixing our old cabinets at some point after the new year. Ideally we want to replace the cabinets rather than just fix them, however  we want to keep the granite counters we had installed a few years ago. Is it possible to replace cabinets and keep our existing granite counters?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but here goes. No.

Except for cases that are very few and very far between, a granite counter can't be reused. The act of removing them carries with it the very real chance that the counter will crack or break all together. Granite's a very hard material, but it's also very brittle. I has to be supported completely when it's in a horizontal position. That's why it's always transported vertically. Sliding a counter off of the cabinetry where its's resting will leave it very vulnerable to being held in an unsupported, horizontal position.

Adding a layer of complication and risk to all of this is granite's sheer weight. 3cm slab granite weighs between 18 and 20 pounds per square foot, depending on the density of the stone you have. So if you have a counter that's eight feet long and 25 inches deep, that single counter will weigh around 330 pounds. Manipulating a large object that weighs that much will take a team of people. Dropping it will destroy whatever it lands on, be that a floor or the feet of the people carrying the stone. If it breaks while it's being carried, potentially catastrophic injury and damage await. Do not attempt this on your own. Please.

Since it's not a DIY project, one would think that a stone yard would take on a project like that. Don't hold your breath. You'll be amazed at the cost if you look into it. A team of stone workers' labor costs that aren't folded into the cost of an installed counter can be pretty steep and that's if you can find a company willing to take on the liability of moving a previously installed counter.

Barring some miracle, you'll end up saying goodbye to those counters unless you're willing to do a cosmetic do-over on the cabinets you have already.

Since you asked me this question I'm going to tell you what I think is a better plan. For 2012, have you and your husband set a goal to save between $25 and $30,000 so that you can renovate your kitchen correctly and without having to resort to Band-Aid solutions. Once you have that goal set, make an appointment with a local, independent kitchen designer. If you need a referral, I will find someone for you. In that appointment, tell the designer your budget and talk about the items on your with list for your new kitchen. Explain too the time frame you have in mind.

If you have a rapport building, terrific. Any designer I'd send you to is there to help you get as much for your money as it's possible to get. It's his or her job to do the math, figure everything out that needs to be addressed and to make sure that everything not only looks great, but that it works too. You'll spend less money with a good designer at the helm than you would on your own, as paradoxical as that sounds. Good luck!

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Help! Do you have any idea how to refinish brass cabinet hardware? The knobs in my kitchen are legion and I'm in no hurry to buy new ones. I just replaced my faucet with a new one that has a brushed nickel finish. I really like how that looks and I'm wondering if there's a way to change the finish on my knobs to brushed nickel. Is there a product out there that can help?

No there isn't, sorry to tell you that. While it's true that there are metallic spray paints out there, they cannot accurately recreate the appearance of something like brushed nickel.

Spray painting cabinet knobs is a surprisingly enormous undertaking because all of those knobs have to be removed from the doors and drawer fronts, attached to something like a piece of cardboard and then sprayed evenly. Spray painting is not as easy as it looks under normal circumstances and in the case of kitchen cabinet hardware, the existing finish will will working overtime to prevent you from painting it.

Metal knobs and pulls (and faucets and just about everything that gets installed in a kitchen) have a stain-resistant clear coat applied to them while they're being manufactured. This clear coat locks in a factory finish and makes cleaning up spills a whole lot easier. It makes adding a new finish over top of that clear coat nearly impossible at the same time.

While it's true that you can remove that clear coat with a solvent, you'll probably end up damaging the metal underneath as you rub off the clear coat.

A much better use of your time and resources is to bite the bullet and replace everything. Lee Valley Hardware sells a plain, brushed nickel knob from their Atherly collection for $2.80 and if you buy ten or more, the unit cost drops to $2.40.

Start saving up your shekels and save yourself a whole lot of heartache and replace your brass knobs.

Andrew Coppa, Vis Vitae/In Touch Weekly

I get it that in certain areas of the country like Florida and California there's a historical and cultural link to Spain, so the architectural heritage of that country informs the aesthetics of those parts of the US. But in the northeast, kitchen designers are still pushing miles of tile, corbels, distressing and glazing in an attempt to recreate their idea of Tuscany. I think theme rooms belong at Disney hotels or Graceland. Any thoughts?

Oh you bet I have some thoughts. You hit a nerve. But before I get to that, let's have some geography first. While it's true that Florida and California were once Spanish territories, so was the rest of North America. However, it was only in the southern areas of what's now the US that the Spanish actually did any kind of development. Surviving Spanish structures in California were primarily missions and the surviving Spanish structures in Florida were forts and a handful of homes. Oh, the wild pigs that wreak havoc in our great state are their legacy too.

Furthermore, Tuscany is a region in northern Italy. Tuscany, while lovely, is a very different place than Spain is and the Italians never played a role in the colonization of North America.

What passes for Tuscan design in the United States is a uniquely US creation and yet another embarrassing example of trying to prove one's cultural awareness through excess. The nightmare in the photo above has nothing to do with Tuscany or anywhere near the Mediterranean. It is however a testament to the striving ambition of the nouveau riche vulgarian standing in the middle of it.

Here's a kitchen in a home for sale in Gandia, a coastal city 70km south of Valencia in Spain.

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The hole on the left side is where a washing machine will go and the hole on the right side is where a dishwasher will go. Notice the oven and the cooktop. They're the metric equivalent of 24" wide. Note the absolute lack of "Mediterranean" details. By Spanish standards, this is a large kitchen and by Italian standards, it's enormous.

Here's a kitchen from a villa in Montagnana, 20 minutes outside of Florence, the capital of Tuscany. That makes this a real, Tuscan kitchen.

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Where are the corbels? Where are the multi-step glazes, the dried flowers, the tapestries and the enormous appliances? I'll tell you where they are. They are in every cul de sac subdivision in the United States.

I've said it here more times than I can count, a home is no place for themed decor. Architecture should look the time when it was built and it should reflect the place where it sits.

There is no way someone walking around the streets of Florence or Valencia could conceive a kitchen such as the fist one show at the top of this question and then call it Tuscan or Mediterranean. A kitchen such as that is the product of some kind of warped nostalgia, too many weekends in Las Vegas and too many dinners at the Olive Garden.

But all of that excess is expensive and I believe very honestly that it's the expense of that stuff that drives peoples' asking for it and designers' willingness to give it to them.

So there you have it. My thoughts.

Undermount sinks with laminate counters? Yes you can.

For as long as I've been part of the Kitchen and Bath Industry, I've believed the maxim that undermounting a sink with a laminate counter was impossible. But then last January I found myself the guest of Blanco at the trade show IMM in Cologne. It was at Blanco's booth that I saw this.

That is a porcelain kitchen sink that's been undermounted to a laminate counter. I'd never seen anything like it and it kind of blew my mind.

Here's a close up of the edge of that sink.

I chalked it up as just one more of those things that would never cross the Atlantic.

Then a couple of months ago at Cersaie in Bologna I saw this vanity by Duravit. Sure enough, that's another undermounted sink with a laminate counter.

Around the corner from that display was a cross section of one of these installations.

Remarkable.

Well yesterday morning I was on Twitter as I'm wont to do and I started having a conversation with the Formica Corporation (@FormicaGroup) and two designers from England, Marion John (@Majjie) and Russ Buckley (@russrb).

The topic turned to undermounting sinks with laminate counters and I showed them those photos of the Duravit displays I'd seen in Italy. Then Formica posted this photo of an undermounted stainless sink in a counter laminated in their Calacatta Marble pattern from their 180fx Series.

After ten minutes of oooohs and ahhhhs and trying to figure out how on earth you could make a waterproof seal in an installation like that, Formica pulled out this video from Karran sinks.

Mystery solved.

Now, this won't work with just any sink and the labor involved will not make this an inexpensive option. However, should you find an installer willing to do this, you can now show him or her a video that explains how to do it. Thanks Formica and thanks Karran for making this information public.

More wonders from London

It feels like it was six months ago already, but three weeks ago I was walking around at 100% Design with my friends Bob Borson and Veronika Miller. 100% Design was one of the featured events of London Design Festival and I was there thanks to the sponsors of Blog Tour 2011. 100% Design takes place at the large but manageable Earl's Court Convention Centre in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London.

I saw all kinds of cool stuff at 100% Design and it was the perfect mix of furniture, fabrics, lighting, surfaces and appliances. However, what stopped me in my tracks was this:

That's a concrete induction cooktop and it's part of a concrete kitchen from Vienna-based Steininger. Here are their photos of their Betonküche, German for concrete kitchen.

Much like the Pryolave integrated induction cooktop I wrote about earlier, this concrete induction cooker throws out all preconceptions when it comes to cooking appliances. Who says appliances need to look the way everyone expects them to and who says they need to be made from the usual materials?

Add to that that this entire kitchen (except for the wooden counter) is covered in 8mm concrete veneers and I was in love. The Betonküche was designed by Martin Steininger whom I met. Thanks to Veronika and her language skills, Martin described his creation with the pride of someone who's made something game changing. My German consists of little more than "Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch [I speak a little German]" and had Veronika not been there I'd never have been able to tell the man how amazed I was by his creation.

If you want to look at some cutting edge Austrian design, look over Steininger's website.

Buy this book!

The book is Kelly's Kitchen Sync and it was penned by my great friend Kelly Morisseau.

I've known Kelly for a couple of years and among all of the peers I've befriended in the last few years, Kelly's always stood out for her good-natured expertise. Kelly's one of a handful of pros I turn to when I need design advice and through this book, now anybody with a question will find an answer in Kelly's Kitchen Sync.

Kelly starts at square one and talks a reader through every decision that needs to be made over the course of renovating a kitchen. This is Kelly's introduction:

Ready to remodel your kitchen? Great! It sounds so easy -- buy a few cabinets, some appliances and perhaps even replace a worn counter. Then you discover the dishwasher handle blocks a drawer, the refrigerator door hits the cabinets and the dishwasher won't fit under the new counter.

Some of you may think you'll never run into this --after all, your kitchen is pretty simple without a lot of changes, right?

Here's the reality: designing the kitchen of today is like stacking dominoes. Every choice, every product and every finish you add to your kitchen impacts the design, simple or not. One piece can send the rest tumbling if not thought out --and there are a lot of pieces!

I'm not trying to scare you, but rather provide you with a bit of hope --with the help of this book, you'll sail past all this. You'll learn how to spot those errors --and many others-- long before you ever get to the installation stage.

Kelly then spends the next 18 chapters and 210 pages reviewing every detail an eager renovator will run into. She discusses the importance of each step of the process and to someone new to the renovation market could easily see this resource she's penned as the most thorough visit with a master designer they're likely to get.

Kelly talks about how much money you can expect to spend. She talks about how to interview a designer and a contractor. She talks about cabinetry of course, then goes on to dissect the vagaries of cooking appliances, ventilation and refrigeration. If you have a question and you'd like an answer from an unbiased source, your answer is probably within the covers of this book.

It's available now through Amazon and $20 spent today will save you a fortune down the road. Buy it!




As a personal aside, Kelly Morisseau is the first designer I ever started corresponding with. It's been a singular thrill to watch our little network of two grow into something that includes some of the biggest names in the industry. Eventually, we formed the Blogger 19 but that's grown into something more like the Blogger 75. The launch of Kelly's book is but one more achievement to celebrate from this amazing group of people I call friends and colleagues. Even though Kelly's now poised to become a world famous, best-selling author, she maintains the blog that started it all, Kelly's Kitchen Sync, and has a thriving Bay Area design practice.

There's a new color from Blanco

The great folks at Blanco just rolled out their newest color to their line of Silgranit II sinks.

The color is called truffle and it's a grey-brown that will look great in many situations and will help bring out the beauty of stone counters particularly. Silgranit is a manufactured material made from 80% pulverized granite and 20% arcylic. The material that results is stain-, scratch-, acid- and heat-resistant and will outlast the counter it's attached to and still look great. Speaking of looking great, that's Blanco's Kulina faucet int he photo above.

I have to admit that I was a skeptic when these manufactured sinks started to hit the market. I lumped them unfairly with the less-than-ideal solid surface sinks Corian is still trying to pawn off on an unsuspecting public. Silgranit II is in a league all its own however, and these sinks are some of the most resilient and long-lasting on the market.

But Blanco's not stopping with Truffle sinks. Truffle is also available as an accent color on four of their faucets. Those same faucets are available too in Café Brown, Biscotti and Anthracite. Pulling a sink color out of the sink and onto the faucet may be the accent some people are looking for. Color-accented faucets are all the rage from what I saw in Europe earlier this year so it's a look that's bound to catch on here eventually.

You can learn more about the world of Blanco products on their website.

Hey North America, meet Mal Corboy

One of the great perks to writing a design blog is that I get to meet people from all over the world. Over the course of the last few months I've had the pleasure to get to know New Zealand-based designer Mal Corboy. Mal's work is beyond impressive, it's some of the best kitchen design I've ever seen.

Mal's a rising force on the international design scene and has been racking up awards in his native New Zealand and in Australia for the last nine years. He entered his first design competition in 2002 and since then he's received 18 awards.

He appears regularly in the international design press and is a regular on New Zealand TV, most recently for New Zealand TV2's My House My Castle.

Already, he's designing for the North American market. He manufactures everything under license in Australasia and then ships his kitchens to North America. He's the first designer form Australasia to go down this path.

Mal's interested to increase his presence on this side of the Pacific and I'd love to see him succeed. In looking over his work, I determined to make sure he succeeds. We need his design sensibilities desperately.

You can see more of Mal Corboy's work on his website and you can contact him directly there too. I've been obsessing over German kitchen design since I returned home from Europe last month but after looking over Mal's portfolio I'm beginning to think I need to start looking to my west for inspiration. Here are some more highlights:

If you have any questions for Mal, feel free to leave them in the comments below. I'm sure he'll be checking in. Just keep in mind that there's a 17 hour time difference between the East Coast and Aukland. Thanks Mal!

Sensational Scavolini

One of the runaway hits at the Interior Design Show in Toronto last month was the debut of Tetrix, a new kitchen collection from Italian manufacturer Scavolini. Tetrix is the handiwork of design Michael Young and he was in Toronto to announce the debut.

In Tetrix, Scavolini decreased the number of sizes while increasing the number of options available in each cabinet. The result is a kitchen program that's even more customizable that it would be otherwise.

The Tetrix doors are available in a wide variety of colors and every door and drawer front is actually covered in fingerprint-proof etched glass. The glass is perfectly flush mounted and the entire line's been designed and engineered to work without additional hardware.

Tetrix is available in North America and and if you find yourself in New York, stop in the Scavolini showroom on West Broadway in Soho. Daniele and the rest of the staff there would be delighted to show you the line and the rest of the kitchens available from Scavolini.