Counterpunch: Recycled glass product to star at Q-C Home Show
You don’t have to be a HGTV junkie to know there’s been an explosion of countertop choices in recent years.
Everywhere you turn, it seems, people are swapping their Formica countertops for something more “high end,” such as solid-surface Corian, marble, engineered stone or the wildly popular granite.
Now there’s a new choice called Vetrazzo, made of 85 percent recycled glass bonded together with cement, adhesives and pigments in a smooth, shiny surface that is durable, handles heat and can be cleaned with a damp cloth.
It’s available in 16 colors, but the palette evolves as the California manufacturer locates new sources of glass.
A particularly eye-catching choice called Cobalt Skyy is made with cobalt blue Skyy Vodka bottles. Cubist Clear is comprised of tempered glass, such as car windshields and shower doors. And Alehouse Amber is, as the name suggests, heavily populated with shards of brown beer bottles.
In the Quad-Cities, Vetrazzo is sold by Warestone, a 2-year-old company in Bettendorf that will showcase the product in a kitchen setting next weekend (Feb. 8-10) at the home show at the Expo Center, Rock Island.
More than 175 vendors are signed up for the Quad-Cities Homebuilders & Remodelers Association show, with information on everything from remodeling and financing to windows, doors and floor coverings.
Chris Ware said he first heard of Vetrazzo several months ago when a customer called asking for it. After some research, he decided to become a dealer.
It’s expensive stuff. Prices range from $70 to $180 per square foot, depending on availability. By comparison, a widely available green granite called Uba Tuba costs $22 per square foot, although the upper end of granite is similar in price to Vetrazzo, Ware said.
Vetrazzo was invented in 1996 in Berkeley, Calif., by a glass scientist working on his doctorate degree who wanted to recapture the beauty of recycled glass and transform it into a building material, according to the company’s Web site, vetrazzo.com. The scientist formed a partnership to sell the product in small batches and business kept growing.
In October 2006, a new team under the name Vetrazzo opened a manufacturing facility in the San Francisco Bay area. The plant’s first panel was installed on the nationally televised show, “Living with Ed,” starring environmental activist and actor Ed Begley Jr.
The company trumpets the fact that the product is American-made and that workers receive a “living wage.”
The cabinets in Ware’s display will be provided by Kitchen Consultants, which is among six home-related businesses, including Warestone, located in the River’s Edge development in downtown Bettendorf. The others are Comfort Concepts, Fireplaces Plus, Midwest Barbecue & Patio and Automated Lifestyles, and they all will have displays in the same area at the home show, Ware said.
The cabinets by Kitchen Consultants will be from Koch and Co., and they, too, incorporate green components. The side panels and drawer boxes are made of wheat stalks, said Brent Ovens, owner of Kitchen Consultants. Wheat is more sustainable than lumber particle board because wheat can be grown and harvested in a single season, he explained.
In addition, no formaldehyde is used in the cabinets’ manufacture, and the finish does not give off volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, Ovens said. The wood veneer is German beech, harvested from a managed forest, meaning that trees are replaced as they are taken down, he said.
“I see the green products being very popular,” he said. “We’re not going in and harvesting a bunch of trees and not replenishing them.”
As for which kinds of cabinets are most popular nowadays, “It’s wide open,” he said.
“If you want purple, it’s available. Whatever you want, it’s available. Nothing is standard anymore.”
Ovens has been in the cabinet industry since 1979 and began his own business in 1995. The trend in that time has been toward the different and the unique. Homeowners today are building/remodeling for themselves and their lifestyle. “It’s all about you,” he said.
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.