Yesterday we installed the Lake Champlain-inspired bartop in its intended home in Wilmington, Vermont; it “fit like a clock”, as a friend used to say, and the installation process went  quite smoothly and with dispatch. The thoughts behind the design elements incorporated in this highly figured piece were apparent once it was resting in the surroundings; all the colors, shapes, and features worked together to form an ensemble or collage that “belonged” in the owner’s beautiful new kitchen. And there’s the magic: it is all about the client, the environment, and the artisan’s interpretation of it all through the medium of concrete. Functional art: You have to see it to comprehend it.

Pantone, the world-reknowned authority on color, has announced that the color of the year for 2010 is Turquoise, specifically #15-5519 in their coding scheme. What does that mean? Well, it will get a lot of buzz in the fashion and design world, and show up in increasingly large amounts in our current surroundings until a new lucky winner is announced. But for some people, turquoise is already a favorite and the endorsement of a global taste-maker is only icing on the already-baked cake.

We have been working on a custom vanity top with an integral sink for a local client with whom we have had a pleasant collaboration in the past – a garden sculpture/fountain. Expanding on the ideas we explored in that venture, we are now incorporating them into into the new commission. The  four foot wide top is hand-pressed in natural gray concrete (our “Stone” tone) and features a gently rounded, deep oblong basin inspired by an antique  hand-carved wooden bowl. On the edge of the basin is a  terraced soap recess which will hold a special incised leaf tile. The faucet fixture is a wall-mount style, a Waterbridge style in Rustic Nickle finish, from Sonoma Forge. We created a narrow backsplash “shelf ” to house the fixture at the back of the concrete countertop, since the wall partition there was too shallow to accomodate it. The whole is acid-stained in the aforementioned turquoise, with a touch of green and brown, to work into the bathroom’s design scheme. This includes warm Mexican tile on the floor, original natural wood trim and cabinetry, and white fixtures and tub/tile surround with a sprinkle of turquoise blue decorative inserts.  Another wonderful example of artisan concrete’s ability to become whatever one might wish!

The “Lake Champlain Shoreline” project we are currently working upon has taken on another manifestation: after several days of wet-curing, the piece was unwrapped and partially diamond ground to expose the native aggregate and the crushed beach glass hidden below the cast surface. The bands of color are striking in their many hues and shapes, wandering across the bartop suggesting eddies of water and an undulating coastline. The solid color band at the arched edge will be acid-stained after final processing and add its own characteristic mottled patina to the composition. Small terraced topographical indentations add to the freeform shape and lend contrast to the adjacent smooth surface.

The lake interpreted in customized concrete: Art-formed by Concrete Detail.

We are working on a sweet little project with some neighbors of mine in Wilmington, Vermont (I commute down the mountain to the studio in Brattleboro every morning…). The clients are a great couple I have known for a long time; I actually worked with Matt in my past life as a carpenter in the Deerfield Valley. He and his wonderful wife Angela have a summer cottage on the northeastern shore of Lake Champlain, Vermont’s closest thing to seashore (Vermont is the only New England state without a coastline!). Well, it may be a lake, but it’s a huge one and it has its share of beachcombing treasures. The bartop we are creating for their newly renovated kitchen in Wilmington is incorporating some of the glass treasures they have collected over the years. We are also emulating the undulating shape of a natural shoreline with the outer perimeter of this raised peninsula counter which will serve as an informal eating area overlooking the cooktop.

The crushed glass is only one facet of this accent piece: there will be three bands of color winding across the polished surface. One with the glass; another with exposed aggregate (native gravel), and a wider band with an acid-wash in greens and browns. Several small topographic terraces are sculpted into an edge to suggest natural erosion and the work of the elements that shape our world. Concrete is an excellent medium to showcase all of these design motifs in a single work of functional art which ties together the client, their environment, and the artisan/interpreter.

This is what we do – we love concrete!

The postman has nothing over us; we deliver in rain and snow also… Last month we transported and installed a new set of concrete countertops for a beautifully remodelled home in Putney, Vermont - just 10 miles north of our studio. With an eye toward the future and realizing her lifestyle was going to change, the client had Evergreen Homebuilders do a wide-ranging makeover of her residence. The accommodations in the kitchen include a universal-access stainless steel undermount sink and a dropped (lowered) eating bar. More typically, a kitchen layout might incorporate a raised breakfast bar section but this was a client- and site-specific adaptation – much as custom concrete tops are by nature.

The kitchen was cast in our deep red “Cayenne” base color, with black sand added for character and texture in a lightly polished finish. Maple cabinets, stainless steel appliances and range exhaust hood, a beautiful bamboo floor, and warmly painted walls…

We revisited the scene of our first major commercial installation at Works Bakery Cafe  in Manchester, Vermont (this past summer) for a site review and to discuss an upcoming project with Richard French, the owner. Richard (“Frenchie”) is full of energy, optimism, ideas, and is just – well – contagiously alive. A great kick in the pants – and I mean that in all the best ways! I shot some of the interior while there, as we only had installation night pictures previously, and the joie d’vivre expressed in the design scheme (the work of Richard’s lovely and talented wife Christy Bonneau ) shows through in these images. And the food is great!

Art Underfoot

We’re just wrapping up another facet of the studio relocation to the Book Press building: the new office/showroom space. A 14 x 20 area was partitioned out of the 4800 sq. ft. shop to create a dust-free and “quieter” administrative workspace and display area for our concrete countertops and other cast architectural elements. We approached the project with an intention of honoring the hard-working past by giving it a new task: providing a textural counterpoint to the displays of finely finished artisan concrete which we will showcase there in the coming months.

The pre-existing  40 year old concrete slab floor was in pretty rough shape from its former life as a printing factory – gouges, drilled holes, layers of grease, ink, solvents, oil, and other nastiness had left their industrial mark. We scraped and scrubbed off the topmost layers, then rented a diamond floor grinder to get down to the raw concrete in preparation for staining it with a wash of transparent colors. We removedabout 60 pounds of concrete dust with the machine and an attached vacuum, exposing the aggregate to varying degrees in the process. Then multiple washes and wet-vaccing to clean up all residue before we spray applied 5 shades of water-based stain to create a vivid organic land/waterscape, sealed with a satin floor sealer. The result is a walkable canvas – what we call “Art Underfoot” – which will set the space apart as befits its purpose and “wow” our visitors with implications of concrete possibilities. Stop in and check it out!

A new day dawns

One of the mantras in our concrete countertop studio is KISS (and why not?) which is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid (in a nice way…); we try to apply this wholesale to a wide range of activities. Including visual references – hmm, does that make them visceral references? And so, Captain Obvious would like to share an overt snippet:

Concrete Detail has just moved our artisan concrete design studio, production shop, and (imminent) office/showroom into a new facility at 22 Browne Court Unit 165 in Brattleboro, Vermont. New beginnings. And every day, on the commute into the shop from Wilmington, this is the view with which I am blessed, atop Hogback Mountain on VT Route 9: looking southeast from the foothills of the Green Mountains into New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

A long absence from concrete countertop blogging, engendered by a protracted business relocation, is nearly over. No new posts since early December – wow! But now, six or seven weeks later, the shop is fully shifted and is now morphing back into production as we unpack boxes and crates and attempt to get the office/showroom into the same condition. We have been working the customer relations end from the old location at the Cotton Mill, waiting for the new office build-out to be completed – with mixed success; apologies to our clients and contacts who have been caught in the fallout. The new showroom plans include an overlayed and acid-stained floor!

Several concrete countertop projects have transpired in the interim and pictures and descriptions are long overdue. I hope to remedy that soon with updated posts and accompanying photos showcasing our latest work, including two more kitchens, a couple of vanity tops, a fireplace surround ensemble, restaurant tabletops and countertops, and others. Many more are in the wings as we begin to enjoy our new space and settle into a more efficient and productive studio workspace at the Book Press building in Brattleboro’s north end. Stay tuned, please!

Open Studio Visitors

Over the past weekend, between trips to Concrete Detail’s new shop space at the Book Press, we participated in our last in-house showing at the Cotton Mill building in Brattleboro, VT. This annual three day weekend event, known as “Open Studio”, showcases about 25 businesses and artisans which are part of the 60-65 member-strong Cotton Mill complex. The former textile mill is owned and operated by Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) as an incubator facility for start-up and existing entrepreneurs. The event allows the public to witness the amazing variety of endeavors flourishing behind the  century-old three story brick walls.

Our concrete countertop studio has operated within those walls for the past three years and the Open Studio weekend has been a fantastic avenue of   direct marketing exposure for us,  as well over a thousand visitors stream through the shop space and we are able to interact directly with them.  Artisan concrete must be experienced to be understood and this is a stellar example of that magic happening… The gleam of understanding and the excitement in the onlooker’s eyes is contagious, as they begin to comprehend the possibilities displayed before them. We converse with so many people that we literally begin to run out of voice toward the end, but it is most definitely worth the effort. Those seeds planted begin to sprout dreams, and then plans, and soon another concrete countertop creation is conceived and cast for an appreciative owner. And ’round it goes…