When architect Dale Anderson began the remodel of his 1921 Russian Hill apartment, he wanted to be sensitive to the original detailing of his historic co-op building. So he never expected to be using IRG’s EPIC porcelain slabs and porcelain tile for the kitchen and bathrooms.
With his remodel completed, Dale spoke with IRG candidly about his new perspective on using porcelain slabs and tile…and how he surprised himself when came in to select material.
Tell us a about the goals for your Russian Hill remodel.
DA: The project is a 1921 apartment in a historic co-op in San Francisco. The kitchen had many of the original cabinets, with some new added in the 70s with plastic laminate countertops. The bathroom had been remodeled in the 1930’s. My goal was to design a kitchen and bathroom that was sensitive to the original detailing of the rest of the apartment, but with a functional, modern up-to-date feeling.
I wanted to bring some of the elegance of the formal rooms into the kitchen and bathrooms by using porcelain marble slabs for the countertops and large-scale running course porcelain marble tiles on the walls. I did a large-format porcelain on the bathroom floor and did real marble (3/4″ x 3/4″) on the shower floor. I used real marble on the windowsill and shower bench, to make a cleaner installation. You can’t tell which is marble and which is not.
What made you decide to use porcelain as the main surfacing material for the kitchen and bathroom?
DA: My wife and I came to IRG looking for a marble material that would fit the elegance of the apartment’s time period. As we were looking around, we found the exact marble slab that we were looking for. We thought it to be Calacatta Oro. When I went to talk with the salesperson, I discovered that the material was porcelain. I was embarrassed as an architect that I had been fooled, but was pleased with how it looked, and especially pleased with the price. We used marble in a previous kitchen and were constantly trying to prevent staining, so we were happy with the durability of the porcelain. We’ve had a couple of open houses since we moved in and everyone is really impressed with the porcelain.
Will you be using more porcelain for clients’ projects? Why or why not?
DA: So much depends on the style of the project and what the client prefers. I’ve moved away from using as much granite as I did previously and I’ve been encouraging clients to use more quartz because I like the solid contemporary colors available. I’m not really fond of the quartz materials that try to look like a natural product; I think that porcelain is much more successful at looking natural. I have also used a porcelain-like product, IRG’s Lapitec, to clad a fireplace.
Are there challenges with porcelain that you would want to disclose to interested clients?
DA: The challenge with porcelain is the sinks, because it’s not possible to do undermounts. Since so many clients really want undermount sinks, it may be a hard sell to use porcelain. IRG told me about the TopZero sink, which I used in my kitchen but it was a complicated sink installation. In the bathroom I used a vessel sink and I liked the idea of having a washbasin-type sink in a 1920s bathroom. Right now I’m working on a project with a client who has seen my porcelain and is excited to use it. So we’ll see where it goes from there.