Adventures in shower pans, Italian style

At Cersaie in Bologna last September I saw all kinds of amazing innovations and new products, many of which were making their world debut in Bologna that week. Worldwide, the tile industry is more properly known as the ceramics industry, and a large component of the world ceramics industry is bath design.

Two Italian manufacturers came up with interesting ways to deal with a shower pan this year and both companies are onto what I say is the next big thing in shower design. The first of these innovations is Rapsel's Pianolegno. I'm showing it here with their Pluviae shower fixture.

By the way, Pianolegno means wooden floor in Italian and Pluviae is French for rain.

The Pianolegno is a teak grid that fits into a stainless steel shower pan that's been countersunk into the floor. The pan looks like this and can also be used on its own without the teak inserts.

Here's how it looked when I saw it at Rapsel's booth at Cersaie. It's been paired here with Rapsel's Cobra shower.

Pretty slick. Check out the rest of Rapsel's wares on their website.

Another great innovation I saw in this department is the Volo from Flaminia. Volo means flight for what it's worth.

The Volo is a ceramic, basket weave grate that sits in a ceramic pan. That pan can be countersunk into the floor or it can sit on top of the floor. If it's sitting on the floor, it's make a small step up obviously.

Here's how it looked at Faminia's booth,

and here's a detail of the grate.

Flaminia has an enormous collection of bath products and you can see them on Flaminia's website.

Granted, these two products are still kind of edgy to North American eyes, but could you ever see using something like this in your own home? Does the idea of a shower without a curb, meaning it's flush with the floor appeal to you?

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.

Seeing solid surface in a new light

In the last 11 months I've been fortunate to attend nearly 20 trade venues in six countries and in each of those venues I've seen such things that I thought my eyes were deceiving me half the time. Due to my experiences in Europe in particular, I've come to see solid surface in a whole new way. This post is illustrated with sinks and vanities designed by Marike Andeweg  and her Netherlands-based studio, Not Only White. Not Only White's work is a great example of using solid surface in a new, and stunning way.

Throughout my design career, I'd been conditioned to turn up my nose at solid surface whenever and wherever I saw it. I'm old enough to remember when Corian hit the market and I still cringe at the thought of coral-colored Corian with white swirls.

When I started designing kitchens, the move to granite counters was just getting underway and anyone who was designing then pushed stone over solid surface in our quests to deliver high-end designs. My solid surface sample boxes sat unloved and unused for years.

My bias against solid surface seemed hard-wired.

But a funny thing happened as I was walking around at IMM in Cologne last January. There was solid surface everywhere. There were counters of course, but also furniture, sinks, vanities and more accessories than I could count.

A couple of weeks later in Spain I saw solid surface toilets and bathtubs. The stuff was all over Europe it seemed. I saw Not Only White's brilliant sinks and vanities at 100% Design in London's Earl's Court in September. I was in London as part of the inaugural Blog Tour and by then my knee-jerk, bad reaction to solid surface was but a memory and I could appreciate the beauty of Not Only White's products.

And they are beautiful. They use solid surface in a way that makes jaded design people like me stop and think, "Oooooh, what's that?" I love the idea that their hand washing sinks are so small, that their vanity sinks are so shallow and use interesting drains and I love the simplicity of all of it.

To see the rest of Not Only White's collections, check out their website and give some thought to what's possible with solid surface.

What did I want to be when I grew up: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What did I want to be when I grew up?"

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What indeed?

Family photo of one of my brothers and me in the summer of '69.

I am one of those people who never knew. I mean it, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. The question would come up in elementary school and I would say anything just to have the question move along to the next kid.

As I got older, I'd have an occasional glimmer. At one point I wanted to be a physician, then a PR guy, then an attorney. But none of those things really had any passion attached to them.

So I suppose as a result of that, I've been a lifelong career chameleon. I've been a journalist, scientific copy editor, a waiter, a restaurant manager, a proofreader, a copy writer, a production manager, a case manager in a halfway house, a construction worker, a residential designer and now a PR/ marketing/ social media guy. That resume's not getting me a job at Bank of America any time soon but I can no sooner imagine me in an environment like that than I can see me teaching kindergarten.

To an outsider, my various hats worn over the last 30 or so years must look kind of schizophrenic but to me they follow a narrative that makes sense. They've also left me flexible and ready to tackle anything. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Most of my peers and friends knew from an early age and they followed a path to get to where they are now. I took a path too, it was just a winding one. Part of me envies folks who knew all along and could follow a singular vision through life. But another part of me relishes the fact that I've had so many varied experiences and worn so many hats.

As the day progresses, a list will appear below with all of today's participating bloggers as they weigh in on today's topic. It's going to be an interesting day, so check out what bloggers from all over wanted to be when they grew up.

Will do social media campaigns for food (and reasonable fees)

via

Around a year-and-a-half ago, I started doing social media project work for a number of agencies and it's been a pretty wild ride. Because of my background in the kitchen and bath industry, many of the things I've worked on have involved that industry. Though I did branch out a bit into real estate and retail, I consider the K&B industry to be my home.

Recently, an opportunity that I thought I had in the bag has started to look like it's not going to materialize and it's time for me to get aggressive in my quest to scare up work and, oh yeah, to keep a roof over my head. I've been making the usual rounds of making phone calls and sending e-mails to colleagues and I was thinking of other ways to get my name out there yesterday when it hit me, my name's already over the place on and through this blog. This blog and my marketing it are how I learned what it takes to be an effective social marketer. Every talk I give on this topic (here, here, and here are three videos on the subject), begins and ends with Kitchen and Residential Design.

This blog has been my personal Giving Tree and now it's time to ask it for one more thing. And what I'm asking for are opportunities.

I am a capable, responsible social media professional with a proven record and a sterling reputation in the industry. And I'm looking for project work on either the brand side, with individual clients or with an agency. I can either consult and teach you how to master social media or I can conceive, write and execute campaigns for you. Whether it's providing web content or running a Twitter account, I can help you achieve your goals.

I can be reached at p.anater@gmail.com and please pass this article around to anyone who might be interested.

Thanks,

Paul