As we gear up for a beautiful weekend in the Pacific Northwest, we are reminded of Pantone’s color of the year for 2012: Tangerine Tango. We celebrate summer by combining this fresh, beautiful color with tile and some of our favorite summertime goodies!
House of the Immediate Future – Habitat for Humanity
United Tile and Crossville are thrilled to be a part of Habitat for Humanity’s House of the Immediate Future. Miller Hull Architects and Habitat have partnered on this project as part of The Next 50 celebration at the Seattle Center. This project is being built at Seattle Center, where the focus of the design is on environmental sustainability. The emphasis will be on forward looking materials and design, and will feature Crossville Shades AV141 Frost Honed 6×24 for the Kitchen backsplash. The house is on display at Seattle Center from August until October 21, 2012. After that time, the house will be relocated to its permanent location in the Rainier Valley area.
Other stats: This is a 1400 square foot, two story house.
Design goals: Demonstrates energy efficient construction using the best of readily available methods and materials. The house demonstrates what is possible and economically practical with today’s technology. The building, despite its modern design, is a simple structure designed to be inexpensive to construct. The building is designed to accommodate a variety of needs over time, with movable partitions and multi-use spaces that allow it to adapt to different needs and for aging in place for residents.
If you are anywhere near Seattle Center, be sure to check it out! For more information, check out Habitat for Humanity’s blog or facebook page.
Inspiration
What do you use for inspiration?
Peg Cox is a fabulous designer in Snohomish who frequently uses our Everett showroom to make her selections. In her own words, “I just love Dawn, Crystal and the gang. They are always so helpful. I love the selections and variety you have”.
Peg recently completed a remodel of an entire house in Woodinville, where the design throughout the home was inspired by our Walker Zanger Tuileries Rivoli Deco Field in the Loire color. She knew her client would love the shape and robin’s egg blue color. We love how the tile ended up being the inspiration for so much more in this beautiful home!
The kitchen featured the Walker Zanger Tuileries field tile in the Loire color, paired with Stone & Pewter Accent’s Sumi-E Tresse in color Hope Natural. The glass had so much depth and with the varying colors, it tied in well with the granite.
The bathrooms featured Casa Dolce Casa Pietre 2 in color Fiora. They loved the large 16×16 tiles and felt it made the smaller bathrooms feel so much larger. In addition, the through body porcelain allowed them to eliminate the use of edge tiles to make it look more like real stone – but without the maintenance. More Stone & Pewter Sumi-e Tresse in Hope Natural was used in the bathrooms. And of course the Walker Zanger Tuileries Rivoli Deco was featured again!
Notice how the Rivoli Deco design is repeated throughout the house – even in custom wainscot panels!
Congratulations on a beautiful project, Peg! And thanks for using United Tile!
NKBA Chapter Event in Spokane
We hosted a great NKBA meeting in our Spokane showroom last week, with over 40 local kitchen and bath designers, as well as industry partners attending. It was a pleasure to have this group in our showroom and learn more about the local chapter. The national NKBA president, Alan Zielinski, gave a wonderful talk about “Designing the Sale”. He spoke about “the extra degree” and the magic of number 212. 212 degrees is the point at which water boils. When water boils it creates steam, and with steam you can power locomotives. He emphasized that at 211 degrees, you are hot, but not as powerful as you would be with the extra degree. Whether it’s picking up a piece of paper in the parking lot, or going above and beyond to meet a customer’s needs, we need to be at 212.
Oceanside Glasstile Installation Seminar
We had a huge response to the Oceanside Glasstile installation seminar that we hosted in our Portland showroom this week. Over 90 tile installers, designers and architects attended and became so engaged many were still here at 10:00, five hours after it began.
The program featured David Fatula, Oceanside’s Technical Support Manager. The presentation was well organized, interesting, fast paced and visual. David has a wealth of experience in glass installations and made it clear he is anxious to share this knowledge to help ensure the success of every glass installation. He clearly connected with the tile contractors, who not only had questions, but were anxious to share their installation experience.
A video presentation showed how Oceanside glass is produced. It demonstrated the many steps that are taken to produce this beautiful handcrafted product.
Several of those attending asked if it might be possible to schedule another event with David so that friends and colleagues could attend. We are exploring that possibility and will keep you posted.
Thanks to all those who attended. We are delighted you found the program so valuable.
Beautiful Bathroom
Russ Finley, a Senior Interior Designer with LRS Architects in Portland, recently remodeled his own bathroom. In one of the most clever design ideas we’ve seen, he chose to update the look by adding tile within the panels of his wood wainscot. Russ used the new Gendai Series from Stone & Pewter Accents in the color Mila Silk. We think you will agree, the end result is STUNNING!
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