Our Day with Style Maven Kelly LaPlante
Aug. 11, 2010
Organic Interior Design Style Maven Kelly LaPlante Checks out Fireclay Tile
We were thrilled to recently spend a Friday with the lovely interior designer and style maven Kelly LaPlante! Fireclay Tile has worked with Kelly on several custom tile installations over the years, and we’ve even developed custom shapes for some of her interior spaces which have turned out beautiful. A Los Angeles native, Kelly happened to be in the Bay Area recently working on her new online magazine, Standard, and after finding this out via twitter we invited her down for a visit and some of Martin’s infamous tacos. We figure it was the tacos that got her attention!
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| Kelly LaPlante Custom Kitchen Backsplash | Custom Tile Design |
We love hosting visitors and showing them around (if interested just email us), and after seeing our San Jose Factory Tile Showroom for only a few minutes, Kelly informed me that she was canceling the rest of the day (including a Belly Dancing class!) to hang with us and tour the headquarters and factory.
We showed Kelly around the showroom, introducing her to our various products and showing her some of our beautiful cuerda seca decorative tile. She definitely loved the Boneyard, and was stoked to see us supporting our community with discounted overstock and seconds. And then she feasted on our overstock cuerda seca section, where we had her make some of her very own coasters and trivets! At that point Martin let us know that the tacos were ready, and while Kelly had thought we might be kidding, after trying one chicken and one beef taco, she was hooked! A touch of wine made for a great welcome lunch.
After hanging in San Jose, Kelly got in her pick up (Yup, she drives a super awesome heavy duty pick up, which is amazing considering she is all of 5’3”) and followed me to our factory in Aromas. Seeing our product made really drives home our commitment to using recycled materials and sustainable practices, as well as seeing a fully operating U.S. factory when so many other ceramics come from abroad. Kelly spent the next two hours in Aromas, hanging out, watching production, taking photos of the guys playing soccer on their break, and just soaking it all in.
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| Kelly in front of Fireclay Tile Factory | Decorative Handpainted Cuerda Seca Tiles |
While Kelly had used Fireclay Tile several times before, seeing everything first hand helped really drive home not just the beauty of the products but the story behind it all. For Fireclay, we got to hang with one of the coolest designers out there and spend time talking about what we love most – tile!
Thanks for stopping by, Kelly. We can’t wait for Standard to launch and look forward to continuing to follow your success!