Hi Friends! I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend!! I am off to sunny California for a wedding with the family and then three days with just my husband! I am leaving my very capable staff moving forward in organizing our new wonderful space. It is so different than our last showroom which was in a renovated 1950’s 2,200 square foot home. With limited space, we all bunked two to three in an office and left the rest to house and display our samples. The new space is our converted warehouse, which originally was a big tin building used as a machine shop. I have always thought that one final reveal would be so fun, but I seem to enjoy letting the space evolve little by little and thinking of creative elements to incorporate along the way.

I know you have seen this picture before of my daughter Kirby selecting some colors. The paint display area was a small wall that was about 7 by 7 ft. at our previous location. I always like to test all things we offer to our clients before we do a full launch. For the last three years we have used and tested the paint line personally, as well as talked to designers about the depth of color and to experienced painters about the paint quality and coverage. With great reviews on all ends, and the line really taking off, we dedicated an entire room to our Segreto palette. Now you can meet in a room full of light with clients, designers or our staff to pick that perfect tone!

The new palette room is right off the entry when you walk in. We wanted to incorporate a SegretoStone fireplace to give a cozy feel to the space. This one also doubles as a ledge, giving a place in meetings to line up fabric and surface selections. This fireplace isn’t done yet! It has a topcoat, polish and sealer left to go!

There were lots of late nights and pizza parties with everyone chipping in to get the space functional for move in!! We really thought the cup holder hooks used to hang paint chips were a wonderful way to display chips in the old showroom, so we decided to install them at the new location the same way! Thank goodness we had a laser level and a tripod stand this time!! It was so much easier and faster to layout the grid!! It was so fun to see my two gals working together to get this part done! Of course, they were still competitive as sisters can be, racing to see who installed the most!

Segreto staffer, Ellie, installed all the new chips the next day!

We really enjoyed our painted floors in our old space. They gave the chosen rooms such individual character and for a high traffic area, they were much easier to keep clean! I forgot that years ago before the staff had grown so much, we used some of the office for retail and an art gallery! We would buy pieces to transform and paint, then offer them for sale!

Goodness, I am not even sure how many years ago this was!! I am excited that neighbor Gail Taylor, founder of Taylor and Taylor Designs, purchased our place and is going to turn it into a consignment store. With such a great eye, I can’t wait to see what she does! She even wanted to keep our paint wall! Loving our color palette, she wanted to offer it to her own clients! Now she will have two stores steps away from each other.

Our new space has a bit different feel! Wanting this room fun and whimsical, we decided to do a painted floor incorporating fun pops of color from our line. We asked Floor Designs of Houston, who had done such a great job restoring the floors at our old location, to lay a pine floor in this room. They stained in a bleached warm honey color. He first bleached and finished it with one coat of sealer, then my team went to work!!

After we completed the graphics another coat of sealer was applied for durability! The feel and tone of the base is so important to our finished product, and we were thrilled with what they had done! We love the fun and funky vibe the pattern gave to the room!! The light fixtures from Circa Lighting were a gift from a client for our old showroom 10 years ago. She originally had them in her dining room and was transitioning to something more formal. We still loved them, so they made the move to our new place!

Here is what they looked like in our old space! We had our main conference area combined with our sample library. Because we had multiple meetings going on at the same time, you were often interrupted with others pulling samples. In our new space, the library is completely separate. We are so excited about that!

We wanted to incorporate two working spaces. The production team built a SegretoStone waterfall worktable with a metal shelf for storage. With our new warehouse we now have a metal shop where we build the structure for our pieces, and we are now able to mix materials in our custom furniture!! The back wall was just plastered in this photo! You can see when wet the walls are many shades darker and take about 24 hours to dry to their intended shade.

Here is Kirby in our new entry reception area contemplating what we do next…. We were so excited when the drapes installed. Interior Fabrics is still my favorite place for an affordable, in stock white linen! We found the perfect shade to marry well with our SegretoStone plaster floors and reception desk!! I love the way our production team transitioned the plaster floors into the concrete ones, and integrated our plaster lighting line, beam and engraved logo into the space! Stay tuned for the share of each space as it unfolds! Our new location is 2211 Wirtcrest Ln, Houston, 77055. Until next time!! XO Leslie