Sample Circuit Presents: The Entertaining Home, Volume 3

Custom Backsplash for your Custom Kitchen

Most people fully appreciate the idea of building a custom home or remodeling a custom kitchen. In my experience people want their kitchen to reflect their own personal style, taste and daily lives. But what is custom tile? And how can using it enhance how you feel in your kitchen?
As Fantasia Showrooms Marketing Manager, one of my roles is to help the industry and homeowners understand how we work with our artists, vendors and manufacturers. One of the niches that we have striven to fill is the capability of offering custom tile and plumbing products for the kitchen and the bath. To that end, we have made a point over the years to form relationships with tile artists and designers who are driven by the love of their art. These artisans make their tile with each order instead of stocking product in warehouses. They are eager to work with us to craft custom sizes, colors, shapes and patterns. This allows us to offer homeowners something completely their own that they will not see in any other kitchen. It also lets us offer designers the ability to use their creativity and expertise to fashion a backsplash that perfectly fits their clients’ kitchen.

At Fantasia Showrooms, we work with artisans in Virginia who hand-cut stone into custom mosaics designed by our clients. There is a hand-made ceramic tile design studio in New Hampshire we’ve partnered with for twenty-five years to create unique color combinations and patterns for our clients. One of my favorites is a husband and wife team out of New York City who hand-make custom stained glass mosaics. We recently completed a project where our client wanted mermaids created for a local seafood restaurant. The interior designer drew what she had in mind. We have all of the color samples in our showroom, so she was able to pick from those what would work best with the rest of the décor. We sent the drawings to New York and voila—six weeks later they had a hand-made stained glass mosaic mural that had literally never existed before.

These days, I’m finding that homeowners don’t want the standard cookie-cutter kitchen. These are the same clients who love to cook and entertain. As a result many new kitchens are doubling as entertaining space so the host can cook, serve drinks and prepare while still interacting with their guests. So why relegate your art to the living room? A custom, entirely one-of-a-kind backsplash or mural behind the range or above the sink can make the same type of statement as a unique piece of art. All the while it expresses your own taste and sophistication, but in everyone’s favorite room of the house; the kitchen.

Jesse Diamond
Marketing Manager, Fantasia Showrooms
jesse@fantasiashowrooms.com
www.fantasiashowrooms.com