Cambria Style - Winter 2009

CAMBRIASTYLE INAUGURAL ISSUE / WINTER 2010

Cheryl Tiegs

America’s original supermodel raves about her new kitchen

Living the Dream

One family’s vision produces a masterpiece home in North Carolina

CambriaUSA.com

Publisher’s Letter

Welcome To Our Place Welcome to this, our first issue of Cambria Style, a magazine devoted to the values of our company, to its people, and to our goal of inspiring you to create a special place in your home.

Cambria…. Ours is not just a product, but rather a unique place, a refreshing, invigorating place where we take much pride in how we work, how we manage, how we communicate, how we serve, how we innovate, how we think, how we feel, and, yes, even how we mow our grass—all with the hope for our Cambria family and for our products that together we will come to connect with and become a part of the lives of many people. It’s a connection that can only be forged through people’s emotions—through their wants, their needs, their lust for great design, and their hopes for their most cherished place, their home. This inspiration, we hope, comes, to some degree, from our beautiful, elegant, warm, breathtaking natural quartz surfaces and the distinctive place and space from which they come.

We strive each day to develop and inspire relationships with all those that make up Cambria’s extended family. We hope to inspire our Cambria partners, our all-important consumers, our kitchen and bath dealers, our friends in the architecture and design community, our builders, our installers and fabricators— indeed, everybody who is a part of the sale, delivery, installation, and service—not to mention the use—of our beautiful products.

That entire Cambria family—consumers and all—plays a major role in breathing life into our products and in bringing that life to its zestful, rewarding, and satisfying position in the marketplace.

All of this comes from a shared culture. A culture that values quality, elegance, warmth, beauty, excitement, individuality, innovation, the pursuit of perfection, and many, many other things, big and small, that together say—style. To put it simply, Cambria has it, and now we bring it to you.… Cambria Style.

In Cambria Style we strive to offer you an opportunity to pause, every few months, to allow our place into your place. We hope, through our stories and insights, to begin an ongoing and valued conversation that creates a new place, neither yours nor ours, where, inspired by our discussion on these pages, we can explore the future of your beloved sanctuary, your home.

We hope you’ll come to welcome our periodic visits to that deeply emotional place where you live every day, inhabited by all the desires and feelings, all the wants and needs that ultimately define your personal look, your individual design, your unique combination of taste and emotion that is your style. We also hope that your style will be inspired by our style, Cambria Style.

In the end, with our stories and our ideas, we seek to nurture in you a sense of comfort and excitement about your home, and inspire you toward that profoundly individual dream we all share for a place of existence that compels us to say very simply: This is my home and my style—and I love it.

ENJOY!

Martin Davis PRESIDENT AND CEO

Cambria

INAUGURAL ISSUE

CAMBRIASTYLE SPRING 2009

12 Color Basics Choosing the appropriate colors for your kitchen is a critical starting point for the renovation process.

18 At Home with Cheryl America’s original supermodel blended an eclectic set of influences with stunning Cambria surfaces to create her own, very personal, oasis.

24 Living the Dream

32 Sticking with It

Pam and Sam Hooker’s decision to build a new house in rural North Carolina resulted in a masterpiece.

18

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Cambria Lexus Partner Floform Countertops built its business by working hard and committing to its core values.

STYLE REPORT

A roundup of news and notes from the style frontier.

8

CULINARY SCENE

With a little help from Cambria, Anwar Mekhayech and his partners turned One Eleven Yorkville into Toronto’s latest hotspot.

10

STYLE SOLUTIONS MAXIMIZE YOUR SPACE: A little planning and

some innovative approaches can make a small kitchen feel a whole lot bigger.

36

DEALER DETAILS ALL INCLUDED: Mark and Jim Rutzick have

built All Inc. into one of the largest kitchen and bath dealers in the Midwest.

38

STUFF OF DREAMS ELEGANT EXTRAS: A medley of

useful but stylish items to add color and character to your home.

42 CAMBRIA COLLECTION 42

44 46

THE CORE OF CAMBRIA: With its roots in

the family dairy business, Cambria has always retained its key values.

THE COLORS OF CAMBRIA: A look at Cambria’s industry-leading palette.

THE BEAUTY OF CAMBRIA: 2009 Cambria Lifestyles Contest winners.

48 LAST LOOK Cheryl Tiegs relaxes with one of her beloved dogs outside her Beverly Hills home.

CambriaUSA.com

KNOW YOUR ADJECTIVES: Invaluable advice

from noted interior designer Billy Beson.

ON THE COVER: CHERYL TIEGS AT HOME Photographed by Dominique Vorillon

Style Report NEWS AND NOTES FROM

THE WORLD OF INTERIOR DESIGN

Costs and Fees 1) Fixed/Flat rate—In this case, the designer provides a specific, upfront project total that includes everything from developmental costs and blueprints to materials and labor.

For smaller projects, this method is very common. Nevertheless, clients should insist on a written contract that spells out the final price and sub-category costs as well as how unexpected overruns or changes in the scope of work will be handled.

2) Hourly fee—Here, compensation depends upon the actual time expended by the designer on the project. The drawback to paying by the hour is that there’s no clear-cut expectation of the project’s final costs at the outset. However, for someone undertaking a more ambitious project with several unknowns, hourly fees offer a more realistic and flexible working relationship.

3) Cost plus—This involves letting the designer purchase all of the materials and services for a job first and then resell them to the client at an agreed-upon higher rate that covers the cost of the designer’s time and effort. For extensive projects or significant remodels, cost plus provides a good amalgam of flexibility for the designer and some measure of financial control for the client.

Working with an Interior Designer Before you hire a professional designer, be sure you’ve done your homework and are prepared for some critical issues you are going to have to address.

Here are a few to consider.

Key Questions Is the designer licensed or accredited by the American Society of Interior Designers?

Does he or she have previous experience working on the type of project you’re considering? (Can they provide recommendations from former clients or evidence of work on similar projects?)

Have they demonstrated creativity, resourcefulness, and talent?

Are they responsive to your design questions and receptive to your individual needs?

Are they reliable and do they possess professional work habits (i.e. show up on time, hire only reputable subcontractors, etc.)?

Find a Designer page on the American Society of Interior Designers website: asid.org/designservices/selecting For more on the costs and fees of an interior designer, go to: asid.org/designservices/costs 4

Recycling Made Possible With everyone going green these days and recycling all the rage, how can you be a good environmental citizen while still retaining a stylish kitchen? Here are a few thoughts on the subject. volume you’ll need in your kitchen. A good rule of thumb: for a small family, one standard 27-quart garbage can holds about one week’s worth of uncrushed, sorted recyclables (i.e. just plastic bottles or just aluminum cans).

Ideally, you should locate these recycle bins within or near your kitchen’s work triangle, close to both a sink (for washing out food and beverage residue) and the unrecyclable trash can.

Countertop color: Nottingham TM

Do you really need all those cabinets? How about designating one or two of them for your recycling bins?

As more and more Americans have embraced conservation, the kitchen has increasingly had to fulfill yet another of our homes’ daily missions: recycling. (Roughly 50 percent of U.S. households now have curbside recycling and more than 80 percent have access to a plastics

recycling program, whether it’s curbside collection or community drop-off centers.) But performing that mundane yet important task doesn’t mean having to give up a kitchen that is fashionable or functional.

Here are some tips to make recycling work for you:

Four- and two-bin undercounter styles from Kraftmaid.com

Consider how many different items will be recycled, how often they will be picked up or dumped, and how separate they must be (single-stream or separate bins for each).

You can either add selfcontained, stand-alone recycle bins or below-counter kitchen cabinet inserts. Keep in mind, however, that stand-alone bins will be more visible and may not exactly match your existing kitchen décor.

If your kitchen is adjacent to or above a garage or mudroom, consider building a pass-through or drop-chute that sends recyclables straight into a larger tub or the actual curbside pickup can, minimizing the need for storage space in the kitchen.

Once you’ve figured that out, you can determine the storage

Rotary recycling center from Organize.com

Stand alone recycling system from Ecopod.org 5

Style Report Now You See It...

Current trends in appliance design tend toward the colorfully retro or inconspicuously modern.

1950s

1970s

1980s

turquoise

harvest gold black

pink

avocado

1990s

2000s

2010s

white

stainless steel

TBD

Can you find the refrigerator?

The vertical handles on the cabinet to the right are the only clues.

Island color: Ashford

TM

On the runways of the fashion world, it’s only a matter of time before everything old becomes new again. Well, the same holds true in today’s kitchens, as the pastel and primary hues of the 1950s are once again proving popular among homeowners looking to make a bold design statement with their refrigerators and stoves. After the somewhat psychedelic harvest golds and burnt oranges of the 1960s and ’70s, the more austere blackthen-white era of the 1980s and ’90s, and the quasi-industrial stainless steel-look of the past decade, it’s perhaps not surprising that consumers are seeking out appliances with visually engaging colors to make their kitchen appliances pop. To accommodate this, large, established appliance-makers, like

Viking, as well as smaller, retrostyle brands, like Big Chill and Elmira/Northstar, now offer up colors like robin’s egg blue, flamingo pink and fire engine red as part of this kitchen colorpalette renaissance.

Now You Don’t Of course every trend in fashion fosters a counter-trend, so the move toward bolder, more colorful kitchen appliances has likewise begotten a contrasting trend that seeks to make them disappear. This “full overlay” look, as it’s known, camouflages appliances behind thin veneer panels designed to blend in with the kitchen’s (usually wooden) cabinetry. This seamless look tends to appeal to homeowners looking for a more traditional and calming effect in their kitchens.

Growing Homes, Shrinking Families?

Has the era of the massive McMansion finally ended?

2015

For nearly 60 years, an unmistakable trend has continued apace in American households—as family size has gotten HOME DESIGN smaller, houses have grown increasingly bigger. In fact, since 1940, the average amount of HERE TO STAY: square footage per person in new, single-family U.S. homes has more than tripled—from roughly 300 to 965 square feet.

ON THE OUTS: Where has all this extra square footage been added? Some of it has been devoted to the creation of in-home retreats— master suites with upsized bedrooms, bathrooms, and generous walk-in closets. But more and more these burgeoning floor plans have focused on a house’s public spaces, whether it’s awarding much more space to traditional areas like family rooms and kitchens or the creation of brand-new spaces like media rooms, children’s playrooms, or home theaters.

Now, for the first time in decades, some experts are predicting average home size will shrink (albeit slightly).

“We don’t think the size will rise anymore,” noted Gopal Ahluwalia at the 2007 International Builders Show.

Ahluwalia, vice president of research for the National Association of Home Builders, also pointed out that a consensus of industry experts polled by the NAHB now believe that the average size of new, single-family homes would decline from 2,521 square feet to 2,330 square feet—a roughly 7.5% drop—by 2015. Several factors could be pushing this trend, including the recent nationwide dip in home prices, the rising cost of energy, and a notable increase in empty-nest Baby Boomers looking to downsize.

Crystal Ball Higher Ceilings Formal Living Rooms

3.0 2.0

NUMBER OF PEOPLE

A TREND REVERSED 4.0

Average Household Size (persons)

0.0

SIZE OF HOUSE

Average New House Size (square feet)

1.0

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

FLOORING

CARPETING

PAINT EXTERIOR COST OF IMPROVEMENT INCREASE IN HOME VALUE

PAINT INTERIOR

KITCHEN/BATHROOMS (minor/cosmetic)

$0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Home Sale Maximizer Get the greatest bang for your buck with these home improvement projects.

According to a survey conducted by HomeGain, an online marketplace that connects realtors, home buyers, and home sellers, cleaning and de-cluttering as well as lightening and brightening your home can noticeably rejuvenate a house’s appearance and pay relatively large dividends in the value of your home compared to the money invested (see table above). “These steps can cost as little as a couple of hundred dollars and have returns as high as $1,500 to $2,000,” says HomeGain’s Jessica Gopalakrishnan. Other tactics, like outdoor landscaping, repairing the electrical wiring, plumbing, and flooring as well as shampooing a home’s carpeting, also made HomeGain’s list of straightforward, worthwhile,

and relatively inexpensive ways to freshen up a home.

But to achieve the most dramatic results—and if you’re prepping your home for resale, the biggest potential increase in sales price—realtors recommended repainting the interior and exterior walls and making minor updates and repairs to a home’s kitchen and bathrooms. However, Gopalakrishnan points out that these steps typically involve the largest upfront costs. But the greater aesthetic effect and the larger impact upon the asking price—on average, a $7,500 increase—of repainting a house and updating its kitchen and bathrooms often justifies the extra time and expense.

For more information and additional low-cost, high-impact home improvement projects, check out HomeGain’s Home Sale Maximizer tool at www.homegain.com/download/max_guide.pdf.

Commercial Design

Culinary Scene

Mekhayech (opposite, middle, with partners Allen Chan and Matthew Davis) designed a coffered ceiling (opposite, below) with inlaid gold mirrors to reflect the candlelight and create the illusion of extra height; the tabletops (right) are composed of two Cambria colors, OakhamptonTM, with a custom inlay of Cambrian BlackTM.

With a little help from Cambria, Anwar Mekhayech and his partners at Toronto’s Design Agency turned One Eleven Yorkville into the city’s newest hotspot.

BY M A X B E R RY

Anwar Mekhayech has a knack for restaurants. The Toronto-based designer, a coprincipal of architecture and design studio the Design Agency and co-host of the popular HGTV series The Designer Guys, grew up in a restaurant family and even owned a couple himself. “If you’ve worked behind the scenes, you get a better understanding of what it takes to offer a two-star experience as opposed to a four- or five-star experience,” he says.

So Mekhayech and his partners Allen Chan and Matthew Davis were shoo-ins to design the interiors for One Eleven Yorkville, a new upscale restaurant and lounge in the tres chic Toronto neighborhood of the same name. Owner Michael Etherington became familiar with the Design Agency’s work as a manager at Lobby, another Toronto hotspot that benefited from the Design Agency’s touch.

“Michael wanted it to be luxurious,” says Mekhayech, “not necessarily splashy,

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but he wanted it to make an impact.” In a play on the menu’s emphasis on what Mekhayech calls “seafood nibbles,” the Design Agency, with input from Etherington, conceived of an aquatic theme for the space; upon entering the restaurant, patrons are greeted by a waterfall cascading over the One Eleven Yorkville logo.

The restaurant’s innovative “bubble walls” incorporate that aquatic element with a nod to the bar’s extensive selection of highend champagne: Acrylic wall panels are filled with water that, with the help of an air pump sending tiny bubbles from floor to ceiling, gives the restaurant the feel of a room set deep in a sea of champagne.

And “deep” is right. The restaurant is on the bottom floor of a commercial building and sits at about six feet below grade; patrons don’t enter One Eleven Yorkville, they descend. This, coupled with the relatively small 2,000-squarefoot space, created some design chal-

lenges. Nothing new in that, says Mekhayech: “I’ve never seen a restaurant designed perfectly. There are always compromises with the space.”

Compromises with this space involved getting creative in ways that would give the illusion of more space. “The lighting was key” for this, says Mekhayech. The restaurant’s bubble walls feature colored LED lights to open up the shadowy rooms.

In the fall and winter, the lights can be set to a golden amber and in the summer they shine cool blue. The ceiling is also inlaid

with a gold mirror that gives the impression of extra height by reflecting the candles adorning the tabletops—reflective in themselves since they’re fashioned from Cambria quartz.

“It was our team’s collective idea to incorporate a tailored and customized look for the tabletops and we had heard of Cambria’s quartz surfaces and the ability to do a custom inlay with different colors,” Mekhayech says. The tabletops, picking up on the motif introduced by the restaurant’s branded waterfall, also bear the restau-

rant’s logo. “We used the logo to form a graphic pattern on the tabletops,” Mekhayech continues. “Each table has a different part of the logo’s script. A few of the square tables can be pushed together to make the logo legible from above.”

Mekhayech and his partners combined these ultra-modern touches—LED lights, indoor waterfalls—with natural elements like the slab of African hardwood they hand-fashioned into the restaurant’s bar to achieve what Mekhayech considers the essential component of any great design:

balance. “There’s definitely a relationship [within] the space. If certain things [within a space] are angular, there has to be an equal and opposite element to soften it up or make it flow more.” A lifelong appreciator of, and participant in, all things culinary, the ultimate reward for Mekhayech is watching others enjoy a culinary experience he helped craft. “It’s fun to sit back and watch people interact with the space,” he says.

One Eleven Yorkville is now open to the general public.

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Style Solutions

Maximize Your Space A little planning and some innovative approaches can make a small kitchen feel a whole lot bigger. These timely tips can help.

BY C H R I S TO P H E R F R E E B U R N

S

ometimes a small kitchen can seem like a big headache. Whether it’s a small city apartment or a modest house in the suburbs, we often spend so much time in our kitchens that they become the focal points of our homes.

Between routine meals, entertaining, and simple living, any kitchen sees the bulk of a home’s traffic and activity. This leaves small kitchen owners pondering the eternally vexing question: how can I do so much in so little space?

Fortunately, with a little planning and resourcefulness, even the smallest kitchens can be designed to handle your busy lifestyle without breaking

your bank. The following are some tips for putting together an efficient small kitchen.

Planning. Before you consider how to redesign your kitchen spend a little time observing how you use it. Do you do a lot of cooking at home, or does the microwave simply reheat takeout leftovers? Do you entertain often or rarely? How does your family actually use the kitchen space you have? Once you’ve answered those questions, and understand your priorities in the kitchen, you can set about redesigning it to maximize its potential.

Make the most of cabinet space. Large kitchens

Light, especially under the cabinets (below), increases the sense of space; available space savers include: (right, top to bottom) an overhead hanging rack, a narrow sliding spice shelf, a wall-mounted wine rack, and a drawer dishwasher.

have the luxury of half-used cabinets. Not so for small kitchens. Add lazy susans and pull-out trays to your cabinets to help maximize your use of available space. Keep non-essential items out of the cabinets. Cook books, for example, can be stored on a shelf elsewhere in the house. Use overhead hanging racks to store pots and pans.

Not only does this save precious cabinet space, but it can add an air of culinary attractiveness to the kitchen.

Light & Bright. While you might not have a lot of

space to work with, you can create the illusion of more space with a few simple tricks. Nothing reinforces the sense of enclosure like dim light. Add bright lights, especially under cabinets, and take advantage of natural light sources like windows to bring in as much light as possible. Choose light colors for walls, counters, and backsplash tiles to increase the feeling of space.

Appliances. You’re not the only one out there with a small kitchen. Plenty of people face the same space constrictions as you do, and appliance makers have designed products to meet those challenges.

KitchenAid, for instance, offers 24-inch-wide singleand double-drawer dishwashers. Many manufacturers also make appliances for over-the-counter installation, saving precious counter space.

CAM 01-13.7:Cambria

5/27/10

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The Beauty of Stone K The Durability of Quartz

The Beauty of Stone K The Durability of Quartz

CambriaUSA.com Š Cambria 2010

ColorBasics for the kitchen Choosing the appropriate colors for your kitchen and its key components is a critical starting point for the renovation process.

BY JILL KIRCHNER SIMPSON

Use the “60-30-10” rule of thumb, advises color consultant Jill Clarkson. Use your predominant color on roughly 60% of the room’s surfaces (say, the cabinets); choose a secondary color for about 30% of the room (which might be the walls, or the countertops and floors); and pick a third color as an accent (often a stronger or complementary color) on just 10% of the room (perhaps a backsplash, piece of furniture, or artwork).

Whether you are preparing to renovate, build new, or just refresh your existing kitchen, there are myriad decisions you must confront as you make your plans: In no other room are there as many materials, appliances, and decisions to be made! While color might not be the first element that comes to mind in planning a kitchen, it is actually one of the most important, and can help guide many of the other decisions you have to make.

Where To Start What’s nearby? Look at adjacent rooms. Does your kitchen open onto a great room, family or dining room? Even if they’re only glimpsed through a doorway, adjacent rooms and color schemes have an impact. Ideally there should be a relationship or flow between rooms, rather than a total disconnect.

What’s your comfort level with color? Look in your closet for clues: How we dress is often indicative of how we decorate, in terms of color preferences, and how bold or safe we tend to be in our choices. “In all instances,” suggests Lyn Peterson, author of Real Life Kitchens (Clarkson Potter), “start with your personal preferences. If you are a blue and yellow person, chances are you will never be a bittersweet and sage person.”

What’s fixed and finite? Do you have appliances you’ll be keeping, or cabinets or counters that are staying? Your scheme will need to incorporate and complement any existing materials or elements.

What’s the overall look and feel? Light and airy?

Rich and European? Crisp and modern? Warm and cozy? Will it be an eat-in kitchen? Do you have children? Do you like wood, or white or painted cabinets? Not sure? Start tearing out pages from magazines of kitchens you like— whether it’s just one element or an overall look.

Think about other people’s kitchens you’ve liked and why. After you’ve culled a group of tearsheets, go through them and look for common ground—you might find that you’re drawn to blue kitchens, or open kitchens with few upper cabinets, or that you prefer concealed appliances.

All of these clues will be invaluable in your planning process. As Susan Serra, a kitchen designer based in Northport, N.Y., and the author of an influential blog, thekitchendesigner.com, puts it, “Look at the ‘big picture’ first to visualize the end result you are seeking.”

Don’t forget a touch or two of black. “Black creates drama and contrast,” says Ann Morris, CMKBD, of Allied Kitchen and Bath in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Whether it’s a set of framed prints or a coffeemaker, a worn black cabinet, or ebonized bar stools, a bit of black adds punch. Similarly, Jill Clarkson, a color consultant in Corte Madera, in northern California, suggests adding a touch of red to enliven a neutral color scheme: “A little bit of red—in a vase or a picture frame—can add visual richness.”

How will you use your kitchen most? “If someone is a great cook, the appliances will often lead the discussion,” says interior designer 13

Barbara Schmidt, of bstyle, inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who is also a set designer for Cambria.

“If you entertain a lot, then the island area becomes the focal point. Or if you want to update for resale, surfaces become the most important factor.”

Ask for help. Designing a kitchen involves much more than just ordering cabinets. A kitchen or interior designer can help ensure that you don’t make expensive mistakes, and also organize the space for optimal efficiency, help you navigate the vast array of choices available, and make sure every element works well together.

Gather swatches and samples of every material you’re considering and try them out in the space. Not just paint chips, but also wood flooring or cabinet samples, countertop samples, backsplash and/or floor tiles, cabinet hardware, and appliance finishes, if possible.

“Try to gather multiple options for each element, because you never know what will work best until you get it into your own home and look at it in the lighting of the room,” advises Kyong Agapiou, CKD, ASID, a kitchen and interior designer for The Kitchen Factor in East Haven, Connecticut. “People are often surprised when they see what works best in the actual space.”

Color, Step by Step CA B I N ETS

There may be other starting points for designing a kitchen—for example, a beautiful backsplash tile, or a fire-engine red Aga range—but since cabinets are

generally the largest surface and biggest expenditure in the kitchen, they play a key role in setting the overall style and are often where most people start. Here is some advice from designers on choosing cabinets, whether wood, white, or colored: Think long-term. “Part of the answer to the color question is how long you will be living in your home, and your concern for resale value,” points out Susan Serra. “The cabinets usually cost the most, so color decisions should be made carefully.” Barbara Schmidt concurs: “Neutrals sell a home. Anything strong in color or design limits the market. The kitchen and master bath close the sale of the home, so your choices now may be reflected in your home’s value later.”

Instead of using only one type of cabinetry throughout, consider using a different finish or color in one or more areas. You might opt for wood cabinets but introduce color in an island (see photo, opposite), message center, or pantry cabinet. This adds interest and helps break up monotony, especially in a large kitchen.

Wood cabinets, while neutral, are themselves a color—one of a wide range of browns, from light ash or beech to rich mahogany and cherry to dark walnut or ebonized wood. Woods are a versatile partner with many types of countertops and surfaces; they also generally have good durability and endurance. However, “Think about how much light is in the room,” advises Kyong Agapiou. “If it’s a bright room with lots of sunlight, dark wood can be gorgeous. If it’s a dark room, you have to be more careful. You may want to opt for

Countertop color: Oakhampton Island color: Brownhill TM

TM

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With white cabinets, consider using tiled backsplashes and patterned countertops to provide relief from glare and add needed texture to the kitchen; warmer wood cabinets (opposite) call for countertops that pick up their base notes.

Resources Real-Life Kitchens,

by Lyn Peterson (Clarkson Potter) Can’t Fail Color Schemes for Kitchens & Baths,

by Amy Wax (Creative Homeowner) The Kitchen Designer blog

by Susan Serra: www.thekitchendesigner.com

Try the “Online Kitchen Designer” tool at www.hgtv.com and also browse through their “Design Portfolio,” featuring dozens of kitchen designs.

Kitchens.com offers a wealth of resources, including tons of kitchen photos, product news, and designer advice.

Countertop color: VictoriaTM Island color: Welshpool BlackTM

Order a free Kitchen & Bath Workbook or find a certified kitchen designer in your area on the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s website, www.nkba.org.

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lighter wood, or a glazed finish. You could break up the wood with open shelves, glass doors or an accent color, so it doesn’t feel too heavy.”

The type of wood you choose can guide the other color choices in the room. Jill Clarkson suggests: “For dark, warm finishes such as cherry, a contrasting cool color such as celadon green will look fresh and clean.

For lighter wood cabinetry, such as maple or pine, you might want to go for a mid- to darker wall color that will really make the cabinetry pop.”

White cabinets can help a kitchen feel light, clean and airy, but keep some pointers in mind: “If you have all white cabinets and are thinking about white counters as well, make sure there is some place you have relief from that glare,” advises Amy Wax, author of Can’t Fail Color Schemes for Kitchens & Baths (Creative Homeowner) and color consultant at Your Color Source Studio in Montclair, New Jersey. “White can actually be tiring on the eyes. Add some soft color on counters, backsplash, or walls for relief.” The backs of glass-front cabinets can be another nice place to add color.

“Texture is essential in an all-white kitchen,” says Ann Morris. Add interest to white with a raised-relief tile backsplash, or accents of stone, wood, textured glass, or other tactile materials.

“All whites do not match,” Morris adds. White has clear undertones, whether warm and yellowish or cool and bluish. Try to keep the undertone consistent and always look at all whites in the space, in natural and artificial light.

White plus a color always looks fresh. “For cool white cabinetry, you may want to add warm colors such as yellow, almond, or biscotti. White also looks fabulous with sage green and blues,” advises Jill Clarkson. And, black and white is a classic that’s in vogue with retro and industrial kitchens.

Don’t be afraid to try colored cabinets. “In my last home, I had red cabinets. That kitchen was on the cover of House Beautiful and in their advertising for years,” says Lyn Peterson. “I had my Viking range sprayed the same red, and Viking later introduced that exact color because they had so many requests for it!” Peterson suggests choosing a color with “a quiet base note. Blues need a gray base note; reds a browner base note; greens want to be sage-ier. Loud brights are hard to pull off.”

CO UN T ERS

“People put a lot of emphasis on cabinet choices, but your countertop can be just as important,” points out Amy Wax, “because it’s what you look at most as you’re working. If you don’t like your countertop, you won’t like the room.”

“Do you want contrast or to blend in and go monochromatic?” asks Ann Morris. Neutral stone counter16

Countertop color: Snowdon WhiteTM

tops, such as quartz, in grays, black, browns, or whites, go with almost everything. Keep in mind that “very dark surfaces can be hard on your eyes for long periods, and reflective elements like mica can sometimes be distracting,” says Wax. Counters with a lot of “movement” or pattern should be balanced by a quieter backsplash, or perhaps a different countertop on the island. “If it is a ‘busy’ countertop, I would not use it on the backsplash as well,” says Peterson. “Pattern doesn’t read the same when it is both horizontal and vertical.”

“Different countertops can help define different areas and provide added interest,” says Susan Serra.

The island is a common place to use a differently colored countertop; a desk area could be another. “But the traditional design of countertops in one material and color is still very much alive and helps create ‘flow’ in a kitchen,” she says.

If you want to use a colored, rather than neutral, countertop, “It can either be the ‘star’ of the kitchen, with more neutral or quiet cabinets, or you can pick up the color in other areas, such as a tile feature above the cooktop, or a colored appliance,” suggests Serra.

“White countertops look contemporary and sleek and reflect a lot of light in darker closed spaces,” says Barbara Schmidt. “If your space needs that extra light, be sure to add texture and layers of warmth in

Pottery, cookware, patterned dishes, colored appliances, etc. (left) can all bring bracing splashes of color to an otherwise muted kitchen palette. White cabinets and light countertops (below, left) cry out for a bold color on the walls to add a dramatic accent.

the rest of the kitchen. I love rustic woods mixed with white, and bringing the outside in with elements of wood or green tones.”

FLO O R ING

“If I’m doing a tile floor—for example, one of the great porcelain tiles that mimic the look of stone but are easier to care for—I like to coordinate the tile backsplash with it,” advises Kyong Agapiou.

If you have wood cabinets and are putting in a wood floor, make sure the two coordinate. “It’s safer to go either lighter or darker on the floors. You don’t want it to be too matchy-matchy,” advises Susan Serra.

BACKSPLASHES AND WALLS

The backsplash can be a great place to add a splash of color. “A tile backsplash can bring beautiful art to your walls, perhaps in an inset above the cooktop, with some accents continuing beneath the cabinets. There is an almost infinite range of options—from glass mosaic to ceramics to stone,” says Agapiou.

“The backsplash sits back and is obscured in large part by countertop accessories and appliances,” points out Lyn Peterson. “If it is dark, it gets even darker when undercounter lights are off. So nothing too deep in color for the backsplash unless you want a gloomy counter work area.”

Because walls are often a relatively small surface area in a kitchen, they are a good place to experiment with bolder color. Paint is also the easiest and least expensive element to change. If your cabinets, counters, and floors are neutral, try adding rich color on the walls, whether a deep red, sunny yellow, or grass green.

A P P L IA NC E S

Stainless steel, still popular, is a good midtone that goes with everything. But given the proliferation of appliances in the kitchen—“not only bigger refrigerators and cooktops, but sometimes also beverage centers, wine fridges, double wall ovens, or duplicate dishwashers,” points out Peterson—you may want to consider concealing some appliances with cabinet fronts.

Because stainless steel is very reflective, it can stand up to darker or richer background colors in the kitchen. In a light

kitchen, you can consider using white appliances, and for medium to dark woods, such as walnut and dark oak, you could use black appliances. “White or black can work well so long as the contrast level is held in check,” says Jill Clarkson. “Be sure there is additional white or black added throughout the space to make it look cohesive.” Barbara Schmidt believes white appliances are passé, especially when used in non-white kitchens.

For a statement-making blast of color, adventuresome types (not overly concerned with resale) could consider choosing a colored range, such as those from Aga, Viking, or La Cornue, in shades like cobalt blue or lipstick red. Or, play it safer with vibrantly colored small appliances such as mixers, toasters, and blenders.

ACCESSORIES

You can’t go wrong by adding shots of color with bowls, cookware, pottery, artwork, even dish towels or flowering plants. Accessories are an inexpensive, flexible way to change the color story of your kitchen as often as you’d like. In a white, wood or otherwise neutral kitchen, pops of bright color will stand out brilliantly and enliven the overall scheme.

If your kitchen has a predominant hue, choose a shade across the color wheel (what’s called a “complementary” color) for your accent or accessory color.

Complementary colors energize each other.

Putting it all together Here are some good rules of thumb for making your choices work together successfully: Use the “60-30-10” rule of thumb, advises color consultant Jill Clarkson. (See page 13.)

For a monochromatic scheme, use different intensities, or “values” of the same color, to make it interesting.

Decide what’s going to take center stage. “Walls, cabinets, counters and floors shouldn’t all be similar,” says Amy Wax. “Choose one element to be the strongest.” On the other hand, “Too many different colors can create discord,” points out Ann Morris.

“Your eye is going all over the place. It feels like McDonald’s or a kindergarten. Save bright saturations for accent colors.”

“I design spaces to have focal points and resting areas, and those can be defined by tones of color from the same family,” says Barbara Schmidt. “By using different tones of one color, I can highlight architectural details and special areas.”

In the end the best rule of thumb may be the simplest: It’s your kitchen, make it your own!

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Countertop color: Dover TM TM Floor colors: Hazelford and Dover

At Home with

Cheryl America’s original supermodel blended an eclectic set of influences with stunning Cambria surfaces to create her own, very personal, oasis.

BY R E E D R I C H A R D S O N

For someone who has lived much of her adult life traveling the world to exotic locations with an endless barrage of flash bulbs illuminating her every move, it is perhaps understandable if Cheryl Tiegs tends toward a more grounded and subdued lifestyle when out of the glare of the public eye. Nowhere is this desire more apparent than in her thoughtfully designed and tastefully understated home in Bel Air, California. It is her oasis, the place where she can escape from the hustle and bustle of L.A. to meditate, where the closest thing to an entourage involves her two Labrador retrievers gamboling along behind her, and where her iconic status as America’s first supermodel takes a back seat to a much more important role—that of being a mom to her 17-year-old son Zack.

“I like the simplicity of the design of my house,” Tiegs says, while sitting comfortably in the midst of it. And despite the swirl of photographers, cameras, and lighting that she has graciously allowed in to document her recent kitchen renovation, Tiegs says her home’s design is all about producing a “soothing, calming effect.”

Tiegs describes her Dover But befitting the eclectic, wellextra-thick countertops traveled nature of her life, her home’s from Cambria’s Desert design has never been about rigidly Collection as “very smooth, very zen.” The two- conforming to any one architectural moment, place, or style. Raised on a toned octagon-and-diafarm in Minnesota, Tiegs has posed mond pattern on her Camon secluded tropical beaches, lived bria tile floors mirrors the light tan and dark brown abroad for a time in Africa, trekked TM

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colors on her cabinets.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOMINIQUE VORILLON

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through Mexico’s Copper Canyon and above the Arctic Circle, and now embraces the environmentally conscious ethos of Southern California. Accordingly, Tiegs has modeled her house’s style on those personal experiences, blending together a number of different design influences—Traditional Country, Balinese, British Colonial, Eco-friendly—to create a harmonious and peaceful inner sanctum.

But, as many homeowners discover, striking just the right balance between what’s aesthetically pleasing and pragmatically possible, isn’t always easy. Recently, Tiegs confronted just this very problem when she found herself more and more frustrated with the elegant, yet exasperating, Italian ceramic tiles covering the countertops and floors of her kitchen.

“They looked good,” Tiegs readily admits, “but these days, because I live with two dogs and a teenager, we have an active household and so what becomes very important in my life at home is making things easy.”

Her Italian tiles, she increasingly felt, were anything but.

“I would find myself agonizing over them all the time,” she explains. “If I had friends over and someone would leave a wine glass stain on the counter or if I was squeezing a lemon to make a salad for myself or if the dogs tracked in something from outside, I would just constantly be thinking, ‘I can’t leave any trace or that [stain] is going to last forever,’” she says. And no matter how diligent she was about keeping them clean, Tiegs says the tiles always seemed unkempt and dirty.

Occasionally, she would break down and hire an outside cleaning service to come in and spend a whole day scrubbing out all the stains and resealing the surface of the tiles. But the excessive cost to maintain their appearance—around $3,000 a cleaning—and the harsh chemicals used to seal them, simply made her kitchen more of a hassle than it was worth. “I didn’t want to end up a slave to my floors and counters, but that was exactly what was happening,” she recalls. “Finally, I said to myself, ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’”

Once she decided to replace the Italian tiles in her kitchen, Tiegs, along with her close friend, interior designer Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, turned to natural quartz surfaces to create her new kitchen countertops and flooring. Because of their nonporous nature, quartz products resist stains, which means no more worries about wine stains or dog prints (or costly chemical sealants) residing on her countertops and floors. And when it came time to choose which brand of quartz products to use, Tiegs’s choice can be traced back to her roots.

“I still go back to Minnesota quite a bit and I met [Cambria President and CEO] Marty Davis and his family a few years ago and we’ve become friends,” Tiegs explains. After accepting an invitation to tour Cambria’s state-of-the-art production facility in south central Minnesota, she came away impressed with its environmental sensitivity: The facility recycles every drop of wastewater back into the quartz production process. She also admired the products: Cambria’s 93-percent pure natural Balinese, Traditional quartz countertops and floors are Country, and British Colonial stain resistant, twice as strong as styles co-exist gracefully granite, and both Greenguard Indoor

Making Things Easy

The Cheryl File: Tale of an Enduring Legend Ever since her first appearance on the cover of a national magazine in 1964, Cheryl Tiegs has been a fixture on the American scene 1947— Born on September 25th in

Breckenridge, Minnesota 1964— Debuts on the cover of Glamour

magazine at the tender age of 17 1970— Makes first appearance on the cover

of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue 1975— Second time on the cover of Sports

Illustrated’s swimsuit issue 1978— First appearance on the cover of

Time magazine (cover line: “The AllAmerican Model”). Popular poster of Tiegs in a pink bikini appears and quickly becomes a pop culture icon 1979— Tiegs becomes the first prominent

model to cross over into the celebrityendorsement business; begins selling her own signature clothing line at Sears 1980— Tiegs authors book The Way to

Natural Beauty 1983— Graces the cover of Sports Illustrated’s

swimsuit issue a then-record third time 1984— Appears on the cover of Time magazine,

which touts her role in the comeback of Sears 1995— Buys her current home, a 1950s

“Hawaiian house,” in Bel Air and begins extensively renovating it 1996— Appears on Travel Channel series

Pathfinders: Exotic Journeys, backpacking through Mexico’s Copper Canyon 2004—In Sports Illustrated’s 40th anniversary

swimsuit issue, Tiegs is inducted into the magazine’s swimsuit Hall of Fame 2007— Tiegs again named one of People

magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People.

Embarks on 10-day expedition to the Arctic Circle. Partners with Cambria 2009— Begins new role as celebrity judge on

ABC reality show, True Beauty

throughout Tiegs’ elegant but comfortable home.

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Going Green Her beloved dogs Truffle (left, and opposite, right) and Bugs (opposite, jumping) are Cheryl’s constant companions, and greatly enjoy the eco-friendly salt water pool, just one of the many green features of Tiegs’ California home.

Air Quality® and Greenguard for Children and Schools® certified.

Finally, she was impressed with the company overall, with its values, and with the people she came to know. So impressed, in fact, that in 2007 she decided to partner with Cambria.

“I’ve found throughout my career, whether it was with Cover Girl makeup or my clothing line at Sears or my eyewear collection, it’s best to work with people that really care about what they’re doing,” she explains. “I’ve found that connection with Cambria.” And when it comes to endorsing a product or company, Tiegs is someone who clearly understands the stakes involved.

Her clothing line partnership at Sears during the 1980s brought in an estimated $100 million in revenue in its first year and was so successful in reviving the moribund brand that it landed Tiegs on the cover of Time magazine. “But the real turning point in my decision to become a Cambria partner,” she stresses, “was understanding the company’s commitment to the environment.”

For Tiegs, environmental advocacy is no mere pose. She traces her eco-awareness epiphany back nearly 25 years, to the time she spent observing the wildlife while living in Kenya. Now an avowed recycler of pretty much everything (she even takes newspapers off of airplanes to ensure they don’t end up in the trash), her current 22

home is a wealth of individual earth-friendly initiatives. Tiegs has installed both compact fluorescent light bulbs and light-channeling solar tubes to cut down on the use of electricity, converted her pool to a more natural salt-water based cleaning system, and now boasts of three low-emission vehicles in her garage (two gas-electric hybrids as well as an experimental SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell). And at the start of her recent remodel, she even had each of the Italian tiles in her kitchen painstakingly removed one by one so she could reuse them elsewhere. “We’re not a throwaway society anymore and that’s how it should be,” she says.

Still, Tiegs points out that “it doesn’t make any sense to buy something that’s practical but still ugly.” On that account, she and designer Lawrence-Bullard, who has worked with other high-profile clients such as Elton John and Cher, were anything but disappointed. “Because of the different design influences in my house and because I was keeping my cabinets, I wanted my new flooring and countertops to match all that,” she says. “And I found it was really easy because of all the choices and colors Cambria offered.”

For her countertops, she and Lawrence-Bullard settled on a fairly monochromatic dusky tan color (Dover ) from Cambria’s Desert Collection . Describing its look as “very smooth and very zen,” the TM

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the kitchen. In fact, Tiegs says she was so dazzled by the way her kitchen floor turned out that she expanded her flooring renovation to include her guesthouse.

Previously covered with seagrass fiber flooring, the guesthouse’s living room, which her son Zack uses as a music rehearsal space, now has a cool, Fieldstone Cambria tile floor (left) that extends all the way into the bathroom and up and around the shower stall. “It’s beautiful,” Tiegs says. “Originally, I was going to stop at the bathroom wall, but then I thought, ‘Why stop there?’ and I did the sides of the shower in it as well,” she explains. “Because of that, the whole thing just kind of flows beautifully from one room to the next.”

One year later, Tiegs continues to be pleased with her kitchen and guesthouse renovation. “They’re more than just beautiful slabs of something,” Tiegs points out. “If I see a spill or a stain now, I’ll just wipe it up and it’s gone.” But even more important than how her remodeled spaces function or how they look, she says, is how her new countertops and floors fit within her home and lifestyle. Timelessly beautiful, eminently practical, and environmentally sensitive—her new renovations fit all of these to a tee, so much so that the cover girl proudly says of her rejuvenated home, “I’ve made it my own.”

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Floor color: Fieldstone

extra-thick, blunt-edged countertop adds a subtle, modern touch to an otherwise traditional country kitchen. And its color, when joined with the pale-yellow backsplash, creates a light-colored horizontal beltline around the kitchen that balances nicely with the dark wooden hues of the cabinets and doors above and below.

For her kitchen floor, Tiegs opted for a more interesting look, going with a two-tone, octagon-and-diamond pattern (Dover and Hazelford , respectively, from Cambria’s Desert Collection ) that mirrors the light tan and dark brown color pair in the rest of TM

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Living the Dream When Pam and Sam Hooker decided to build a new house in rural North Carolina, they searched high and low to find just the right elements to fulfill their vision. In the end, they selected Cambria surfaces for their kitchen and three of their bathrooms. The result is a masterpiece.

BY C H R ISTO PH E R F R E E B UR N 25

One of the things that we really wanted was a house that looked like it had been sitting there for 100 years.... Every detail of the house seemed to fit perfectly with the colonial look we wanted.� –SAM HOOKER

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hen Pam and Sam Hooker decided to build their dream house, they knew they wanted something that radiated old-fashioned southern charm. So it is no A pre-planned home design from architect William E. Poole produced a house with such remarkable architectural detail and such a powerful old-fashioned feel that many observers assumed it was built in the 19th century, which is exactly the response Sam and Pam Hooker were hoping for.

surprise that the house they finally built stands like a magnificent plantation manor, complete with stoic white columns, great glass windows, and ample verandas from which to gaze on the tobacco fields that surround their North Carolina home. And to make sure that they blended the best elements of the past with today’s modern elegance, they chose Cambria to reflect the home’s refined sense of sophistication.

The Hookers grew up together in King, North Carolina, a piedmont town of about 6,000 people, 10 miles northwest of WinstonSalem. “We were high school sweethearts,” says Pam. “After college, we moved back to King and lived there for about eleven years.” During that time, the couple had two children, Harrison and Gabrielle, both now teenagers. Sam is the chief operations officer at Ridge Care, which offers assisted and independent living options to seniors in the region. Pam worked as the human resources director at the North Carolina YMCA until about four years ago, when she opted to stay home and care for Harrison and Gabrielle.

As their children entered their teenage years, Pam and Sam began to feel that their home in King was too small for the family.

They began to explore the possibility of building the home of their dreams. When they mentioned the idea to Pam’s father, Thaxton 27

Countertop color: PrestonTM

The Hookers used Cambria throughout their house, including Preston in the guest bathroom (above) and Windsor (right, and opposite, right) on the wet bar that sits in an alcove between the dining room and the kitchen.

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Harrison, a great opportunity presented itself. Pam’s grandparents had been tenant farmers on a large farm in Westfield—a neighboring town about ten minutes from King. “They lived in a small tenant house and raised tobacco and managed the farm for the family that owned it,” Pam explains. When the farm’s owners decided to sell the farm fifteen years ago, Thaxton bought it. He and Pam’s mother, Allene, continued to grow tobacco and other crops on the farm’s hundred-acre expanse.

“When Daddy found out that we were going to build a new house, he said, ‘you know you are already going to inherit part of the farm, so why don’t you take it now and build the house there?’”

Pam says. The Hookers were delighted by the prospect and quickly took Thaxton up on the offer and work began on the new house in late 2007. Building their home on a working tobacco farm fit the Hookers perfectly. “My parents grew tobacco over at the farm while I was growing up, though we lived in King at the time,” Pam ex28

plains. Her father operated under a sharecropper agreement with the farm’s owner to grow tobacco. After they purchased the farm, her parents took up residence in a log cabin located just a stone’s throw from the new house. Sam had also worked for tobacco growers when he was younger. “So we’ve both worked around tobacco since we were kids and, of course, it’s just part of the local environment,” says Sam. Pam’s parents continued to work the farm until recently. Now the productive acreage is leased to other farmers who continue to plant and harvest tobacco. “So this year we had great big fields of tobacco across and to the left of the house,” says Pam. “It’s going to stay a working farm, that’s our plan.” For Sam, having working tobacco fields around the house is simply an added bonus. “I think it adds historical credibility to the house,” he says. “This land has been growing tobacco for almost a century, maybe more. I like the idea that it’s going to continue that way.”

Countertop color: WindsorTM

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he charm of locating their majestic plantation-style home amid working tobacco fields wasn’t the only motive driving their choice of location. The Hooker’s farmland comes with panoramic views. The house has large verandas, as well as a second-floor terrace, which maximize the family’s enjoyment of the surrounding landscape. To best fit this majestic setting, the Hookers chose a preplanned home design from Wilmington, North Carolina–based architect William E. Poole. “I started on the Internet and looked at hundreds of house plans,” Sam says. “One of the things that we really wanted was a house that looked like it had been sitting there for a hundred years.” Sam ultimately settled on a house plan called “Verandas,” which blends modern openness and convenience with classic southern style. “I kept coming back to that plan,” he explains. “Every detail of the house seemed to fit perfectly with the Colonial look we wanted.” Indeed, the house’s design so closely resembles the Colonial Revival-style architecture that was

popular in the late 1800’s that many people simply assume that the house is more than a century old. “We actually have had a number of people who have driven up to the house and they think that it is an old plantation home that we are remodeling,” says Pam. In fact, according to Pam, the house bears a striking resemblance to nearby Cone Manor, the former home of the southern textile magnate Moses Cone, whose gleaming white, 13,000-square-foot 1901 mansion is a North Carolina landmark.

While it’s one thing to want a house that might seem like it’s been standing for a century, few people want the headaches that come with a truly old home. The Hookers, with considerable help from general contractor David Allen, avoided most of those troubles by melding modern building technology into oldstyle décor. All of the home’s exterior surfaces, for instance, are made of Fypon, a polyurethane mixture created by blending isocyanate and resin. Fypon can be molded into almost any shape, design or texture. The principle advantage of fypon is that it mimics the appearance of natural wood, but is entirely resistant to mildew, insects, pests, and rot. “So we won’t have problems with termites in the future,” says Pam, laughing. Thus the Hookers’ home looks like a century-old plantation, but won’t have to have extensive amounts of exterior woodwork replaced every few years.

In true plantation style, upon entering the Hooker home, one encounters a grand foyer with a sweeping staircase and chandelier.

At a total of 7,200 square feet, the home is spacious and airy. “On the second floor we have the large glass doors so that you can go out into the terrace,” says Pam. Throughout the house, hardwood floors emphasize the home’s historic feel. Pam says they stained 29

the doors a dark color to complement the floor. “Our painter had a hard time with that,” she recalls. “He said he really didn’t want to do it, but we wanted it to have that really antique look, the sort of aging that occurs with stain and wood.”

When it came to the kitchen, the Hookers decided not to deviate from the design contained in William Poole’s house plan, which called for a large kitchen with a curvy central island and lots of countertop and cabinet space. “I didn’t want stained wood cabinets,” Pam explains. While the Hookers scrupulously followed the specifications of the house plan, the overall look of the kitchen was the result of a collaboration with Melissa Jessup of BL Cabinetry, the cabinetry design studio at Rural Hall, North Carolina-based Brannock-Lynch Lumber Company. “They were really excellent,” says Pam. After deciding on green as the right color for the cabinets, Pam, Sam, and Melissa set about looking for the right countertops to match the cabinet color. “We looked at a lot of different options from granite to other quartz products,” Pam says. Ultimately, she and Sam settled on Cambria. “The thing that attracted us to Cambria was the depth and vibrancy of the colors,” Pam says. “Other products had similar colors, but not the depth that Cambria has.”

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The Hookers choose Kensington for the kitchen countertops. Sam agrees that Cambria was the perfect choice, especially for the curved island. “I was impressed that Cambria could be so easily cut to that odd curve, and yet still look so natural,” he says. “I appreciate Cambria’s functionality in addition to its great look.”

“Aside from the great color depth, the other thing that made me choose Cambria was that it doesn’t have to be sealed,” Pam adds. “I’ve been to other people’s kitchens that had granite countertops, which had been sealed, and you could clearly see variations in the surface from the sealing process.”

The Hookers also selected Cambria for the countertop in the wet bar that sits in an alcove between the kitchen and the dining room. The wet bar’s cabinetry is rosewood, painted a distressed black to give it an aged appearance. “We knew we wanted a copper bar sink and we used bronze-colored faucets, so we wanted a countertop that would bring these colors together and the Cambria Windsor did just that,” Pam says.

The Hookers also put Cambria in the guest bathroom, and upstairs in the children’s bathrooms. In the guest bathroom, which features a combination of black and white cabinetry— mostly a distressed black TM

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The elegant curves of the main island countertop were no problem for Cambria and the Kensington pattern blended perfectly with the green cabinetry aound the perimeter of the kitchen. The result was a highly functional space, perfect for the preparation of food, of course, but also great for hanging out and maybe even doing some homework.

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Countertop color: KensingtonTM

with a washed out white trim—Cambria’s marvelous color depth helped pull together the color scheme by blending seamlessly with the cabinetry and wall color. “The Cambria countertop is gray (Preston ) and we painted the walls a pale gray to match,” says Pam. Upstairs, Pam took pains to match the Cambria countertops with the colors used in the floor, walls, and cabinets to give each child’s bathroom a unique look. “In Harrison’s bathroom, for example, we used Cambria’s Lancaster , which has dark gray tones that work well with the hues of brown and copper in the slate on the floor.” In Gabrielle’s bathroom, the Hookers opted for Cambria’s Wilshire Red to complement the more feminine color scheme.

Pam says she worked closely with the contractor and salespeople at the cabinetry and tile stores to ensure that the work on the house went smoothly. “Probably the biggest key to pulling it all together, from selection of cabinetry, to paint color, to countertops, was taking samples of the cabinet colors and the Cambria colors to the tile store to make sure that everything was going to work together.” The process took time, but saved them trouble later on.

“We didn’t end up saying ‘oh, I hate that paint color,’ or ‘I wish we’d chosen a different color for the countertop,’ once it was inTM

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stalled, and then have to go back and change it,” Pam says. “There was a lot that we tried to do on the front end and during the selection process to make sure we didn’t end up with too many cases of ‘I wish I had done this or that.’”

Once their dream house was finished, in November of last year, the Hookers began the task of moving their family from the old home in King, to the new house in Westfield. “Gabrielle and Harrison actually adjusted to the new house a lot easier than I did,” Pam recalls, laughing. “They really fit right in.” Gabrielle in particular, quickly adopted a new morning routine. “She gets up every morning, eats her breakfast, and then goes to visit with her grandparents—whose cabin is just 300 yards from the house—for a bit before she goes off to school.”

“I’ve been fortunate in life to have many opportunities,” says Sam. “But this home really is a dream come true for us.” He adds that leaving their old home, with all of its memories—especially from when the children were young—was difficult. Still, this magnificent new home, with its elegant exterior and old-fashioned charm, offers the Hookers a chance to write another wonderful new chapter in their family’s story in the years ahead.

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Sticking with it

Cambria Lexus Partner Floform Countertops has built something approaching an empire by working hard and committing to its core values.

BY M A X B E R RY

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hen Cambria announced in October founded Floform in 1961. He would come to the business 34 2008 that Floform Countertops would be years later as the generator of its rebirth. the inaugural inductee to its Lexus Partner “Those early years were very pioneering,” says Frank Program, the choice seemed natural enough. Floform is a Dyck of Floform’s fledgling days as a fabricator and full-service kitchen renovation company specializing in installer of laminate countertops in Winnipeg, Manitoba. hard surface countertops with locations across Canada’s “[Laminate] was a new product for the industry.” It caught western provinces. It also more than meets the Lexus on quickly. After a few years in a less than ideal storefront Partner criteria of sales success, commitment to market- in Winnipeg (“In today’s terms we talk about a building ing, and exceptional customer service. But, like any busi- like that as a matchbox,” says Dyck), Floform moved to an ness that has survived for more than 40 years, Floform all-concrete building across town more accommodating to had to endure its share of growing pains along the way. their purposes. (“It was like Fort Knox compared to that Luckily, given the choice to simply stop growing or try first building.”) While brother Harry left Floform in 1969 springing up in a new direction, the folks at Floform to begin a career as a contractor, Frank and John Dyck chose the latter. went on to open their second branch in Edmonton, Alberta, Most entrepreneurs can describe a moment when they in 1980. Locations in Calgary, Alberta, and Saskatoon, first knew they had it—a sticking point where ambition Saskatchewan followed within the decade. The brothers and idea coalesced and a business was born. For Ted were marching west.

Sherritt, that moment was less about what happens But their march almost ended in the early nineties when when things stick than what happens when they don’t. the effects of that aforementioned ‘change’ in the adhesive “There was a change in the adhesive industry began to show in kitchens across Sherritt (in his Winnpeg industry” is not the answer one expects when Canada. Floform countertops installed years showroom) praises asking the Chairman and CEO of a thriving earlier with glue relying on a new kind of Cambria for the quality company how he came to his current station binding agent—one that lost its hold after a of its training and for its in life. A career accountant for much of his few years’ exposure to oxygen—were quite litindustry-leading color adult life, Sherritt wasn’t even born when erally coming apart at the seams. Like a drove palette, which he describes as “fantastic.” brothers John, Harry, and Frank Dyck of cicadas emerging from their stay under-

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Cambria University Craftsmen from Floform—along with about 200 other quartz dealers—have all sharpened their skills at Cambria’s one-of-a-kind training institute.

You wouldn’t know it by looking, but a nondescript building in St. Peter, Minnesota, houses the facility where more than 200 North American quartz dealers have sent their fabricators, foremen, and sales teams to hone their very distinct craft. Fourteen miles from Cambria’s main plant in LeSueur, it is the headquarters of Cambria University.

“The University is all about business training. I’m responsible for making sure our programs are meeting the training needs of our partners,” says Cambria U Operations Manager Doug Wilson.

Dan Kortuem, former Cambria U Operations Manager and now Project Manager, Fabshop by Cambria, agrees: “Whatever [our partners] need, we can do it,” he says . He isn’t kidding. Cambria University’s curriculum is built to instruct North America’s quartz dealers on every facet of the design, fabrication, installation, marketing, and selling of the surface. The university, as it stands today, officially opened its doors on January 1, 2006, though Cambria had been offering less formal training courses for a couple years prior to that.

At its inception, there were three basic courses: one for fabricators, one for installers, and one sales course. But the University’s course catalog grew to match the needs of Cambria’s partners. The university now offers seven courses, geared toward everyone from office-bound business owners to hands-on installers.

Structuring course work around Cambria partners’ day-to-day needs is the university’s specialty. “We have a core program, which we publicize,” says Wilson, of the U’s fluid approach to partner training, “but if one of our partners needs to customize a course to fit their needs, we’ll help them with that.”

This occasionally means going out into the field to work with dealers in their own facilities, as instructors did a couple years ago to help craftsmen at Floform get the best use of their own equipment. Wherever courses are held, Wilson and Kortuem take a great deal of pride in their instructors, whom Kortuem refers to as “practitioners of the art” of quartz fabrication. The typical Cambria U instructor has hands-on experience in several steps of the quartz process; a machine operator has worked in field measurement, and knows what each job has to do with the other. It’s an appropriately holistic approach to teaching a long and careful process.

The approach is working: 81 companies visited the U in 2008 alone.

That’s up from 72 in 2007 and 62 in 2006. And from all of these companies, Cambria University has raked in a grand total of zero dollars in tuition money. In a show of Cambria’s commitment to lasting, ethical partnerships, all classes are offered free of charge to Cambria partners, whether there is one person taking the course or a dozen. Talk about a lesson in customer service. “I would say Cambria U is an innovation in itself,” says Kortuem. “I know of no one with a system like ours.”

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ground, countertops all over western Canada popped up, and the noise was deafening.

The resulting loss in business prompted John and Frank Dyck to seek some professional help with the refinancing of their company. Enter Ted Sherritt.

It was 1995 when Sherritt began working with the Dyck brothers on the financial restructuring of Floform. By his own account, Sherritt had “always been a little entrepreneurial,” but his decision to actually buy into the company he’d been charged to help save was more than a little bold. “They were running out of money fast,” says Sherritt. “John was over 70 then, hanging in there, making sure they got through it.”

Still, the move made sense. “We were getting on in age,” Frank Dyck says of he and his brother, “and maybe didn’t have our P’s and Q’s in order [for retirement].” Sherritt helped with the P’s and Q’s, and provided Floform—and the sizable staff the Dycks had amassed throughout the years—with something else the company needed: a future.

Thanks in part to some venture capital and a restructuring of the company that saw several branch managers become partial owners, Floform began to recover. But it’s hard to imagine the most rigorous financial restructuring doing the job of responsible customer service. It was in this regard that the Dyck brothers truly impressed Sherritt.

“Lots of people would have gone bankrupt and started again,” he says. “That just wasn’t in their nature.”

What was in the Dycks’ nature: extending the warranty on every Floform countertop that had peeled as a result of the faulty adhesive and offering replacements at a deep discount. By 1998, Floform was back in the black.

Sherritt and his branch managers bought out John Dyck shortly after the restructuring of the company and Frank retired in 2000. “I had a ton of respect for [them],” Sherritt says. “They were exactly the kind of people you’d want to do business with.

They built a great tradition. All I had to do was carry it forward.”

He has carried it across what he calls the “prairie provinces.”

In addition to Floform’s locations in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Saskatoon, 2008 saw the opening of new facilities in Regina, Saskatchewan and Vancouver, British Columbia.

That’s six cities in four provinces—all home to a company that looked for a moment as though it would be undone, in a stroke of painfully literal irony, by a batch of faulty glue.

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t may not be a coincidence that Floform’s rolling expansion has coincided with the addition of natural stone surfaces— like Cambria natural quartz—to its product line. It was in 2003 that Floform began fabricating and installing granite countertops. Quartz was added in 2004 and, in the five years since, has become the fastest-growing part of Floform’s business.

“Granite has different lines,” says Sherritt, referring to the stone’s natural ridges and weak spots. “The things that make granite beautiful are also what make it unpredictable. Quartz is easier to work with and it’s stronger than granite.”

The desire to gain as much knowledge as possible about this new product inspired Sherritt, in late 2005, to send 12 employees

Gerald Schade, Floform’s installation manager for the Winnipeg region, applies Gorilla Grip clamps to ensure a secure and level fit at the joint of two soon-to-be-installed Cambria surfaces.

to the then brand new Cambria University. (See sidebar, opposite.) Taking part in Cambria’s specialized fabrication, installation, and sales courses, Sherritt’s staff learned their product inside and out. “That experience was important to us because we were brand new to the stone game,” says Sherritt.

In the past three years, Sherritt has sent nearly 40 employees to Cambria U and the number continues to grow. “Once a year we send a sizable group,” he says. Cambria has reciprocated by sending their own instructors to Floform’s fabrication facility, to work with fabricators and installers in their own space with their own equipment.

This back-and-forth is indicative of the strong partnership between the companies. Sherritt, for his part, sees several benefits to the relationship. “I like that they’re North American made, the quality of their training, their colors—Cambria’s color palette is fantastic. They have the best colors for our market.

When you open boxes of other colors and theirs, people gravitate toward Cambria.”

If Sherritt and his staff were new to the stone game in 2003, they’re something like seasoned pros in 2009. Sherritt now sits on the board of the International Solid Surface Fabricators Associa-

tion (ISSFA). It was through ISSFA that he met Luke Moore of Seattlebased fabricators Fineline Pacific. The two struck up a friendship and, in May 2008, Sherritt became a partial owner of Fineline. The former accountant with the ‘little’ entrepreneurial streak is now a partial owner of businesses in two countries. The deal means increased resources for both companies, and it will deepen the well of experience for Floform; gangbusters as the last few years have been for the Canadian company, Fineline has been fabricating stone for a decade.

But all this growth doesn’t mean Sherritt has lost touch with his predecessors’ spirit. Frank Dyck, now 75, still comes by the office from time to time, often bearing donuts, to see how things are going. “I’ve been known to pick up a few dozen donuts and then not eat any,” Dyck says, alluding to the crowd he draws when he pops in to Floform’s Winnipeg store. “Everybody knows me. I avoid going too often because everybody wants to talk to me. I’m wasting too much production time. I shouldn’t loiter around. They have a business to run.” There is, for the record, an audible smile in Dyck’s voice when he says this that suggests he won’t be handing off his donut-buying duties any time soon. This should please Sherritt, who is more than happy to have him around: “He’s proud of what [he and his brothers] started and he should be.”

The Dyck brothers can also take pride, one hopes, in the fact that traces of the business they started 48 years ago remain, and aren’t likely to disappear any time soon. “We have at least half a dozen craftsmen with forty years of experience,” Sherritt says.

“Forty years…” he repeats the number as if he can’t quite get his head around it, as if this man with three separate accounting degrees might have made a mistake in his math. “They’re fantastic people,” he continues. “They can work here for as long as they want.”

If the past has taught Sherritt anything, it’s that the future will be unpredictable. It’s the people around him who carry the more important lesson: that there are few attributes more valuable—in business or in life—than the ability to endure.

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Dealer Details

All Included Building on a business started by their father, Mark and Jim Rutzick have built All Inc. into one of the largest kitchen and bath dealers in the Midwest. BY C H R I STO P H E R F R E E B U R N

All Inc. stands by its name. The St. Paul, Minnesota-based kitchen products distributor is the one and only place you need to go to create, remodel, or simply improve your kitchen.

The company boasts what may be the largest kitchen-related showroom in the entire Midwest—more than 18,000 square feet of cabinetry, appliances, countertops, sinks, faucets, tiles, and furnishings virtually guaranteed to satisfy almost any homeowner’s wildest dream. And, of course, All Inc. is one of Cambria’s largest retail partners.

The company is the creation of two brothers, Mark and Jim Rutzick, who co-own the business. They built All Inc. out of their father’s existing business, which dates back to the 1940s. The elder Rutzick had built a sizeable business operating washers and dryers in local apartment buildings. “When I decided to join the family business in the late ’80s, I was looking for an opportunity to do something different,” says Mark Rutzick. “We had a relationship with General Electric (GE) since we bought laundry machines from them.

So I just started going to apartment buildings selling refrigeration and replacement appliances,” he explains. His brother Jim eventually joined him and they formed All Inc. in its current configuration in 1988.

The company’s path to its current positon of prominence has not always been smooth. “A couple of years ago, we were prepared to merge with another company, but at the last minute, it fell through,” Rutzick recalls. “The other company walked away and ultimately was liquidated.” With the home construcphilosophy behind it—invest in tion and remodeling market in free quality, maintain your standards, or fall, the failed merger put All Inc. in get out of the business—have ressome difficulty. “We had to close two onated with consumers and business showrooms and scale back the busipartners alike. (“We really ness,” Rutzick says. “It was a sort of impressed some of the representa‘come to Jesus’ moment for us.” In the face of such setbacks, many tives from the big suppliers like GE,” Rutzick notes.) And the companies might have chosen to go conservative and avoid any added investment is obviously paying off. “We are now the biggest kind of risk. But in January of last year, when All Inc. received an kitchen remodeling distributor in the region and are very well opportunity to acquire several new lines of kitchen and home positioned going forward,” Rutzick says. products, including Sub Zero and Viking, the Rutzicks essentially While the average homeowner looking to remodel his or her chose to go on the offensive, investing additional funds to add kitchen, or just seeking to upgrade cabinets or appliances, curshowroom space to accommodate the new lines, burnish the com- rently represents the smallest slice of All Inc.’s business, Rutzick pany brand, and do whatever it took to maintain the company’s says the company goes out of its way to bring these consumers in reputation for quality and service. That gutsy decision and the and make the kitchen remodeling process as easy and painless as

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As demonstrated by his massive showroom featuring a wide variety of kitchen products, Mark Rutzick (relaxing next to one of his many Cambria displays) strives to make All Inc. a one-stop shop for builders and consumers alike.

possible. (Apartment management companies, general contractors, large-scale homebuilders, and small single-home contractors make up the bulk of the business.) “We have kitchen designers here so we will design entire kitchens for consumers from A to Z and put them in contact with any of a dozen or so contractors whom we deem reliable,” Rutzick explains. All Inc’s designers can take a kitchen’s measurements and enter them into a computer-aided design (CAD) program that will create a three-dimensional rendering of the kitchen. The designer and homeowner can then use the rendering to explore how different design options would appear in the new kitchen.

Rutzick takes pride in the fact that All Inc. offers an enormous selection of Cambria products. “We believe we have one of the largest selections of Cambria displays in the marketplace,” he says.

Part of that pride comes from the fact that Cambria is a Minnesotabased company as well. “Having Cambria manufactured and headquartered in Minnesota is pretty exciting for our state,” Rutzick says. “But while we always like to support local companies, we stock Cambria because the quality of Cambria products has created huge demand. We are excited to have Cambia on our showroom floor. It gets a lot of attention,” he adds.

According to Rutzick, All Inc.’s relationship with Cambria began some years ago when Innovative Surfaces, a countertop fabrication company based in Hastings, Minnesota, brought Cambria’s products to their attention. Now Cambria products abound

throughout All Inc.’s massive showroom. “We have this beautiful Cambria countertop with a chiseled edge,” says Rutzick.

“Most consumers we encounter haven’t seen a chiseled edge on Cambria—they’ve done it to granite for years—and it’s a beautiful look,” he explains, noting, “A lot of people don’t even know what it is because it’s so unique.” The rough-hewn chiseled edge appears on more than just kitchen countertops, according to Rutzick. “We also have a Cambria bar that’s very exquisite which also has a chiseled edge. We just think it’s very special.”

Visitors to All Inc. can view Cambria products in a variety of different kitchen and non-kitchen settings. Rutzick says that great care was given to creating the perfect environment for homeowners to see kitchen products. “When you walk into our showroom, it’s a very soothing environment,” he says. “We have light jazz playing in the background all the time and the lighting is designed to mimic what the typical homeowner would find in his or her own home.”

Rutzick notes that he expects All Inc.’s retail business with individual homeowners looking to remodel their own kitchens to increase dramatically in the next few years, in part because of the consumer interest Cambria products attract. “We have the best environment for them to see Cambria products in realistic kitchen settings, which gives people a good idea of how it will ultimately look in their homes,” he says. “That’s a big advantage and it brings people in.”

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Stuff of Dreams

Elegant Extras Accessorizing your home with beautiful but useful objects can be an easy and stylish way to add color, texture, and character to your favorite rooms. Here we present a collection of exceptional items for your consideration.

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1. WILLIAMS SONOMA HOME SOLID CASHMERE THROW ($298.00; wshome.com; 50” x 70”, 4” fringe)

Designed for luxury lounging, this throw has the exquisite softness and warmth of pure cashmere; a waterweave pattern adds subtle visual texture. Dryclean. Imported. May be monogrammed for an additional $6 charge.

3 . KO H L E R K A R B O N A R T I C U L AT I N G FA U C E T ($990; us.kohler.com)

A kitchen faucet serves a multitude of functions and the Karbon Articulating Faucet is versatile enough for all of them. Engineered to hold any pose, the Karbon offers a complete range of motion through its five pivoting joints. Extend the faucet completely to fill a tall vase, lower it into the sink for food preparation and cleanup, or position it anywhere in between; the Karbon allows you to guide and lock in water flow with absolute precision. Fold it compactly out of the way when it’s not in use. Or, if you’re looking for a conversation piece, don’t.

3 . FA R M H O U S E D U E T P R O

(Approx. $2,400 – $4,000 depending on dealer and finish; nativetrails.net)

Add a unique and functional work of art to your kitchen with a pair of striking hand-hammered copper sinks from Native Trails. Available in brushed nickel and antique finishes, these basins are easily maintained—much like Cambria countertops—with mild soap and water. Recent studies have shown that copper has remarkable natural antibacterial properties, which actually kill bacteria such as E. coli in a matter of hours, while stainless steel and other traditional surfaces may allow them to survive for weeks. Elegant, safe, durable, easy to maintain—Native Trails basins will add style to your kitchen for years to come.

4 . V I K I N G F U L L- H E I G H T WINE CELLAR

(Dealer information at vikingrange.com)

Different wines must be cared for in different ways, as any serious collector knows. Luckily, this 30”-wide cellar can accommodate the needs of 150 of your favorite vintages. The exclusive TriTemp storage system provides three independent temperature zones, preserving different types of wine at optimal serving temperatures. Each zone is adjustable between 43 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit and the electronic control center constantly monitors the temperature in each zone while maintaining a 60-percent humidity level. While the cellar’s ultraviolet-resistant glass and black interior protect wine from harmful light, and bottles are stored horizontally to keep corks moist, you can still show off a label or two: Convertible shelves and low-intensity interior lighting are excellent for bottle display.

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5 . K I TC H E N CO M P O S T C R O C K

7. ACC E N T S BY C A M B R I A

Everybody knows that composting does good things for the environment and the garden, but with this ceramic crock, it can also do downright elegant things for your kitchen. The one-gallon crock is much more pleasing to the eye than a standard plastic bin and, thanks to its glazed interior, it’s also stain resistant, meaning you won’t need to replace it any time soon. Simply toss scraps and leftovers into the pot and empty it in the compost heap when it’s full. The crock’s imperviousness to stains, along with the charcoal filters (included, with replacements sold separately) also ensures that going green doesn’t require bringing unfortunate odors into your kitchen.

Available in complementary colors and fashioned from the same quartz as Cambria countertops, this line of home accessories provides added character to rooms already outfitted with Cambria surfaces. The Accents collection’s cabinet knobs, drawer pulls, paper towel holders, and switch plates for electrical outlets, phone jacks, and light switches allow for style continuity with Cambria countertops. Items like cheese plates (shown) and coasters, meanwhile, bring a touch of Cambria class to any room in the house.

($24.95 for crock, $5.95 for filters; homesteadhelpers.com)

6. REISENTHEL MINI MAXI LO N G H A N D L E B AG ($8.99, reusablebags.com)

This versatile shopping bag expands from mini when closed and compressed (5.5" x 2.5" x 2.5") to maxi when open for use (25" x 15.7" x 10.4" / capacity: 26 lbs). Designed in Germany, these bags are especially popular abroad, in countries with bans or restrictions on plastic bags. Its sleek design features long handles so you can carry it over your shoulder, and it is made of rip-stop polyester for extra strength and longevity. The Mini Maxi Long Handle bag neatly folds into its own zippered container, with a bit of room to spare for keys or other small items. The container also has a clip to attach to a key ring, belt loop or other "hookable" surface. Put one in your glove compartment, desk drawer, coat pocket, purse or backpack and you’ll always be prepared.

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Stuff of Dreams

(CambriaUSA.com; contact for pricing)

8. BEAR CREEK

GLASS OCEAN SINK

(Small: $1,795; Large: $1,895; bearcreekglass.com)

Every bathroom has a sink; the Bear Glass Ocean sink, as the company’s web site puts it, is a focal point. An organic take on more modern, uniform bowl sinks, the Ocean is handcrafted, meaning yours will be entirely unique to your home. Made from 100 percent recycled glass, the sink ranges in size from 16" to 19" across and 4" to 6" deep. Available in 10 different colors, ranging from clear to black, and with custom colors available upon request, the bowl can be fashioned to lend an artisanal touch to any décor.

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9. A S C A S O D R E A M E S P R E S S O M AC H I N E ($750; ascaso.com)

Whether it’s a latte, cappuccino, or straight shot of espresso, the Ascaso Dream’s 16 BAR water pump has the power to extract every bit of flavor from your favorite gourmet coffee. The machine works with ground coffee or ESE coffee pods, and the professional grade frothing tip, pressure gauge, and portafilter allow you to brew café quality espresso drinks at home. The top surface of the machine, with a metal rail designed to hold nine cups, even doubles as a cup warmer. But there are pleasures beyond the coffee: These Dream machines, at once retro and new age, are works of pop art in themselves. Ascaso’s “Crazy” collection features the Ladybird, available in red or yellow with black polka dots, and, as shown here, the Cow.

10. W O O D M O D E A N D S H O W P L AC E W O O D F I N E C U S TO M C A B I N E T RY (Retail locations, products, and pricing information available at showplacewood.com & wood-mode.com)

There is no better companion for a quartz countertop than beautiful custom cabinetry. Look no further for yours than these two fine cabinet makers. Billed as “employee owned” and “environmentally responsible,” Showplace Wood Products allows customers to select their “skill level”—from “I’m real new at this” to “I know what I want”—and provides them with the appropriate amount of guidance from there. Showplace works with all the classic species of wood: maple, cherry, hickory, and oak—as well as lyptus, an exotic hardwood sustainably grown on environmentally managed plantations in South America. Wood Mode, meanwhile, uses kilns in its own highly integrated manufacturing facility to dry their lumber to optimum moisture levels for a variety of home applications. The same level of finesse and attention to detail is maintained by Wood Mode’s craftsmen through the multi-step finishing process, so the cabinets in your home will be tailored precisely to your tastes and needs.

The Core of Cambria With its roots in the family dairy business, Cambria has always retained a passionate commitment to talented people, to key relationships, and to excellence in every phase of its business.

to recognize how making cheese could prepare us for producing natural quartz surfaces. But in just eight years, we’ve been able to parlay our manufacturing expertise into one of the country’s fastest growing businesses. On a daily basis, Cambria relies upon critical lessons from our dairy business—commitments to innovation and efficiency, attention to detail, the critical role of longstanding relationships—to build and grow the new enterprise.

Partnership is a fundamental value at Cambria. It is not a term we use lightly—it is the mindset and motivation for how we run our business. We have known all along that the path to success involves partnering with companies just like ours: small businesses made up of dedicated people. Together we maintain integrity, pursue excellence, create opportunities for growth, work hard, and remind each other that we are all part of something bigger.

Our relationships enable Cambria to build passion for our brand outside our organization. Our partners learn about our dedication to quality, the nature of our people, and the strength of our product.

Cambria fabricators transform Cambria into magnificent countertops and our installers become our bridge to the consumer. All are master craftsmen.

TOGETHER WE REMAIN ABSOLUTELY COMMITTED TO:

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he roots of our company go all the way back to 1943, when Stanley Davis, the grandfather of our CEO and President Marty Davis, purchased a small business in St. Peter, Minnesota, called the St. Peter Creamery. In 1959, at age 19, his son Mark began driving the new bulk milk pickup route for the factory. Mark’s four sons each began working in the growing family business while in high school, driving trucks, filling barrels, and learning first-hand the values of hard work and innovation that continue to contribute to the success of Davisco Foods International to this day. After more than 60 years, Davisco still brings an exceptionally professional approach to the business of food processing.

We founded Cambria in 2001, allowing us to bring Davisco’s rich heritage into an exciting new industry. It took extraordinary vision 42

Innovation: We drive innovation through attention to detail. This focus has enabled Cambria to develop an industry-leading color palette. Exceptional colors don’t happen overnight, but require a team-wide commitment to exploring new avenues. New colors involve both employees and partners, who bring valuable perspectives. This input, combined with new technology and ongoing research and development, yields a dynamic quartz color palette.

Not only do brilliant Cambria colors unite our team, they also ultimately inject our brand with a distinct advantage.

Knowledge and learning: Continued learning has always been a priority. At the center of this knowledge-sharing initiative is Cambria University, located in Minnesota, where employees, fabricators, installers, and partners visit to learn about our brand, our culture, and our products, and about how to improve their production processes and how to best promote and sell our products.

Team Cambria: (above, l. to r.) Bruce Gebhart, General Manager; Jeff Hovanec, VP Business Development; Mackenzie Weldon, Market Representative; Matt Davis, Executive VP, Business Partner Services; Marty Davis, President and CEO; Kathy Ordahl, Market Representative, Jim Ward, CFO. The dragon logo (left), like the company name, has its roots in Wales, the ancestral home of the Davis family.

Quality: Quality is a bottom-line issue at Cambria. But it means more than manufacturing a great product. Our pursuit is detaildriven in order to enhance quality at every turn. This means that our facilities aren’t just clean, they are immaculate. We don’t respond with speed, but with urgency. Our people don’t simply work hard, they also look and act in a professional manner at all times. Quality is built into the Cambria culture. It supports our brand, strengthens and maintains our relationships, and keeps us focused on excellence.

Cambria production facility lobby, Le Sueur, Minnesota.

Vision: Because we’re a family business, we can have longterm vision. We’re not a “ninety-day dividend” company. We can take a patient approach to our business, allowing expertise to develop, relationships to gel, and people to grow. Cambria’s people and partners, linked together by a common passion for our product and our brand, remain dedicated to our fundamental mission to create the best natural quartz products in the marketplace.

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The Colors of With an eye-catching and industry-leading palette, Cambria has just the right colors, either alone or in combination with others, to enhance the look and feel of your home environment.

Samples can be ordered online or at your local Cambria kitchen and bath retailer.

THE QUARRY COLLECTION

AshfordTM

BradfordTM

BrownhillTM

ChathamTM

CranbrookTM

KensingtonTM

LancasterTM

NottinghamTM

OxfordTM

Park GateTM

PrestonTM

ReadingTM

SheffieldTM

SomersetTM

SouthamptonTM

SuttonTM

VictoriaTM

WindsorTM

ST RE N GTH & D U RABIL ITY

Cambria is 93% natural quartz, one of the hardest minerals on Earth. In fact, Cambria is twice as strong as granite.

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M AI NTENANCE F REE

FOOD SAFE

A LL NAT U R A L

G UAR AN T E E D

No sealing, polishing or reconditioning is needed. Simply wash with warm water. It’s that simple. Plus, unlike granite, Cambria will resist stains from common food items such as coffee, tea, and wine.

Unlike granite, Cambria has been certified by NSF International as safe for use as a food preparation surface. Cambria is nonporous, and therefore nonabsorbent, making cleanup easy and preventing food and moisture from penetrating its surface — the main source of growth for harmful bacteria.

Cambria is created from pure natural quartz, an extremely hard stone crystal. In fact, quartz is one of the hardest non-precious stones that can be found in the earth’s surface.

As the only producer of quartz surfaces in the United States, Cambria is covered by a Lifetime Limited Warranty.

For more information and to locate a dealer near you, visit CambriaUSA.com.

Cambria THE DESERT COLLECTION

Cambrian BlackTM

CherrybrookTM

DoverTM

FieldstoneTM

HazelfordTM

WhitehallTM

YorkshireTM

COMING SOON: Exciting new colors in Spring 2009!

OakhamptonTM

SussexTM

THE CLASSIC COLLECTION

Bala BlueTM

Brecon BrownTM

Bristol BlueTM

Burton BrownTM

Caerphilly GreenTM

Cambrian Gold TM

Cardiff CreamTM

Cardigan RedTM

Carlisle GreyTM

Carmarthen BrownTM

Coswell CreamTM

Flint Black TM

Hyde ParkTM

New CastleTM

Oxwich GreenTM

Snowdon WhiteTM

Stafford BrownTM

Talbot GreyTM

Tenby CreamTM

Welshpool BlackTM

Wilshire RedTM

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2009 CAMBRIA LIFESTYLES CONTEST WINNERS

The Beauty of Cambria

As evidenced by the flood of submissions received for the Cambria Lifestyles Contest held in 2008, Cambria’s distinctive quartz surfaces are rapidly growing in popularity. The 13 winners will all appear in our sumptuous 2009 calendar. To view this year’s winners, visit CambriaUSA.com and click on “2009 Lifestyles Contest Winners.” To submit your own Cambria design for the 2010 contest go to CambriaUSA.com/lifestylescontest.

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Grand Prize / January (opposite) RESIDENTIAL MASTER BATHROOM Fallston, MD COLOR: Yorkshire DESIGNED BY: Blue Arnold, CKD CBD Kitchens by Request, Jarrettsville, MD TM

February (above) STETSON MANSION KITCHEN DeLand, FL COLOR: Brownhill DESIGNED BY: Alice Designs For You, LLC Jacksonville Beach, FL FABRICATED BY: Discover Marble & Granite Orlando, FL TM

October (left) CAFÉ CAMBRIA Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON COLOR: Victoria , Yorkshire , & Cherrybrook DESIGNED BY: ZAS Interiors, Toronto, ON INSTALLED BY: Quartz Surfaces Toronto-Mississauga, ON TM

TM

TM

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Last Look

Beson chose Snowdon WhiteTM Cambria countertops for his condo near Palm Beach because “white is the color of the whitecaps on the ocean and because a neutral room indoors makes the colors outside really pop.”

KnowYour Adjectives Taking the time to define the most critical goals you have for your interior spaces will help you avoid a wealth of design mistakes.

By B I L LY B E S O N as told to REED RICHARDSON

In all my years in the business, I’ve seen every design mistake. So, with new clients I tell them to sit down in their space with a glass of wine, a cocktail, or a cup of coffee and write down adjectives to describe the pace and feeling that they want to achieve in the room. Then they edit that list down to just five or six words, which become the criteria for making all design decisions. If the goal is a “practical, functional” dining room in a home with young children, for example, then glass-top tables and pure white carpeting would be poor design choices. A “cool,

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sleek, light, and open” kitchen, on the other hand, might call for more glass and stainless steel as well as neutral, light-colored countertops. This method helps me justify my style choices to my clients and for the do-ityourself designer it helps keep them on track so that they don’t end up buying things on impulse that are out of scale or the wrong color for the space.

Billy Beson , A.S.I.D., is CEO of the Minneapolis-based interior design firm Beson Kading Interior Design Group.

CAMBRIA President and CEO

PUBLISHING PARTNER Touchpoint Media, LLC

MARTIN DAVIS

Chief Executive Officer STEVE FARBMAN

Director of Marketing

SUMMER KATH

President JIM MCEWEN

Communications Specialist

Senior Vice President DAVID JENSEN

JAYME MADSON

Controller LINDA ALLISON EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief MORIN BISHOP Art Director BARBARA CHILENSKAS Managing Editor REED RICHARDSON Senior Editors/Writers CHRIS FREEBURN MAX BERRY Photo Editor ALAN GOTTLIEB Production Manager WADE MARTIN Production & Sales Coordinator GINA KRUSEMARK Contributor JILL KIRCHNER SIMPSON

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS: COVER: Dominique Vorillon; page 1 (both): Courtesy Cambria; page 3: Dominique Vorillon; page 4: Courtesy Cambria; page 5: Peter Dazeley/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images; page 6 (bottom): Courtesy Cambria; page 7 (top): Courtesy Cambria; page 10 (bottom left): Michael Arnaud/Beateworks/Corbis; page 10 (bottom right): Johnny Bouchier/Getty Images; page 12: Beathan/Corbis; page 13: Stockbyte/Getty Images; page 14: Courtesy Cambria; page 15: Courtesy Cambria; page 16 (top left and top middle): Elizabeth Whiting & Associates/Corbis; pages 16-17 (bottom): Courtesy Cambria; pages 18–20 (all): Dominique Vorillon; pages 22–23 (all): Dominique Vorillon; pages 24–31 (all): Gil Stose; page 32: Ian McCausland; page 34: Courtesy Cambria; page 35: Ian McCausland; pages 36–37 (top): Susan Gilmore; page 36 (inset): Brandon Rowell/Courtesy All Inc.; page 37 (both): Brandon Rowell/Courtesy All Inc; page 40 (bottom right): Courtesy Cambria; page 42: Courtesy Cambria; page 43 (top): MMG/Todd Buchanan; page 43 (bottom): Courtesy Cambria; pages 46–47 (all): Courtesy Cambria; page 48 (top): Courtesy Cambria.

CAMBRIA STYLE is published three times per year by CAMBRIA, 11000 West 78th Street, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. Copyright © 2009 by CAMBRIA. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the express written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. The publisher assumes no liability for products or services mentioned herein.