For the first time, prestige kitchen and bathroom fixture company Kohler has opened its own fully dedicated boutique in Vancouver, right on the corner of West Broadway and Fir. It is an expansive, thoughtfully designed space, divided into discreet rooms in which the various aspects of production are featured.
“It is the ideal way to showcase our product lines to full effect,” says Donna Church, Kohler’s manager of marketing and communications for Canada. “And the boutique is designed to fully maximize every inch of available space—something our designers understand as essential in today’s world.” It is a kind of lead by example thing; the bathroom shower door samples, for instance, are tucked away in a set of pocket doors, so you can see a wide array of options without them taking up any floor space. Similarly, a dozen or so samples of shower floors complete with drain options are located in sliding shelves. “It just shows what we can do,” says Church. “Maximizing space is far more than a trend, it is a reality—especially for condominium and townhome living.”
Kohler is a family-owned company, David Kohler being the fifth generation at the helm, with corporate headquarters in the village of Kohler, Wisconsin. In addition to its Kitchen and Bath Group, which includes the ultra-premium Kallista, the company now encompasses, under its Interiors Group, such furniture brands as Ted Baker and McGuire, plus Ann Sacks tiles.
At the new Vancouver showroom, some faucets and taps are mounted on individual pieces of square stone and can be fitted into square slots, almost like a chess board with recessed spots. This way, you can mix and match a limitless amount of combinations to get exactly the look you want.
Technology plays a part in the Kohler product on offer, too: there are hands-off no-flush toilets, and even one model that has a demure blue light on the front-right side of the base; a foot strategically placed there will cause the lid to rise, and 30 seconds after flush, it goes back down automatically. Another advancement deals with rain-style showerheads, which have not lost any steam in the marketplace. “The issue of pressure for those showerheads has been solved,” Church explains. “There is a tiny hole just near the base of the fixture, which allows air intake, providing virtually double the shower pressure. So, rain heads are if anything more popular than ever.”
This is an inviting place. Even before it opened, as passersby made their way along, many stopped to gaze at the various sculpted bathtubs or the entire bathroom ensembles—one of the latter being a black motif that seemed to get a lot of attention. “The ‘black theme’ bathroom is the newest hot thing,” says Church. The immersive experience here means when you get back to the surface, you have your dream kitchen, or your dream bathroom, all ready-set-go.
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