KBB BIRMINGHAM: IMPRESSIONS OF THE SHOW

kbb 2018: Aerial view of the NEC, Birmingham.

With its road, rail and airlinks, the NEC  is one of the UK’s best bits of infrastucture coordination.
kbb makes use of all that every other year.

The kbb Show is the big UK trade-oriented showcase for innovation specifically in kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. This year, as before, it was held at the NEC.  From 4th to 7th March, Halls 17-20 were filled by the stands of major suppliers in every sector of the industry. Our one day visit was too short, and inevitably we concentrated on worktop-related matters – basically talking with quartz suppliers and catching up with some of the big names in sinks.

In our blogs over the coming weeks and months we want to focus on individual suppliers who we saw at kbb, but for today this is a quick round-up of impressions. We had a good time, and came away with some definite impressions of directions that things are heading, especially in colour trends.

CRL at kbb

C R Laurence – CRL – are big distributors of all things in kitchen hardware. For a long time they were primary UK importers of Caesarstone, but when Caesarstone UK began as a separate outfit, CRL didn’t drop out of the worktop materials market. Instead they sourced their own – and, in our opinion, to a high standard and with great taste. It was good to see some of their new quartz and chat with their reps at kbb Birmingham.

Atlantic Gris from C R Laurence – a lovely new, on-trend quartz from the kitchen and bathroom hardware giant.

Naomi chatting quartz worktops with Dave Inwood, one of our fave reps, on the CRLaurence stand at kbb.

1810 at kbb

All the big sink companies have stands at kbb. Whereas some pare it back and have relatively empty stands, showcasing only their new products, The 1810 Company, our own main supplier, chose to show their entire range. From our point of view this was great; we saw a number of sinks in the flesh that we had never seen before, and even got our heads round some aspects of sink cutout and sink installation issues that we hadn’t understood without seeing the products actually fitted. Really useful visit, and it was good to catch up with Matt.

Impossible to walk past the 1810 Company stand with the coloured Spirale taps on display!

The trend to warmer colours throughout the kitchen is visible straight away in the arrival of copper sinks – a big move away from the dominance of stainless steel. 

Big sinks are in, as are detachable drainers.

Nice to see how that very square look drainer fits perfectly onto the slight curve inevitable with a stone worktop. 

Silestone Integrity Sink – distributed in the UK by the 1810 Company

Want a prep sink in the corner? The 1810 Company have a solution…

Naomi with Matt, our regular rep from the 1810

For the full 1810 range and more information about the company, please see here.

Neolith at kbb

Neolith is one of two or three companies offering a ceramic/sinterised style of worktop material, in the same mold as Cosentino’s Dekton. We had a quick chat with their rep, and a quick look at some of their latest products. We weren’t fond of the marble look materials, but loved the industrial-look stones, which are strong and thin enough to be used as unit door front panels.

Neolith fire surround – those panels are opening doors. 

Neolith panelled door open

Cosentino at kbb

Makers of the Silestone, Dekton and Sensa Granite brands, Cosentino has been a huge part of our lives at Affordable Granite over the last few years. We have enjoyed our visits to their headquarters and main plant, taking many of our most regular kitchen customers with us. New product launches from Cosentino are always major industry events, and, as ever, they had some interesting innovations at this year’s kbb.

Two new white calacatta marble style quartzes were (for us) the least convincing new arrivals…

… the new Silestone Dessert Silver is lovely, with an interesting choice of title…

… and the new Eternal Emperador marble copy absolutely blew us away. Cutting-edge engineered stone!

Dekton Trilium, the first industrial look sinterised material just got better…

… with full-body pattern becoming available for the first time in a ceramic-style worktop. This means that when you cut it, any veining or patterning runs right through the material – it is no longer printed on. Old stock must be used up, but the full-body look is on its way, folks!

Andrew and Rob from Cosentino know that real men don’t smile at the camera
(or is Andrew just worried that Naomi will drop his prized Nikon???)

Cambria at kbb

Ever since our regular stone wholesaler Granite Granite became the UK importer for Cambria, this exotic American imported quartz has become part of our bespoke range of exciting engineered stones. My personal initial reaction to it, a few years back, was that the designs were great for the US market, but would never catch on in the UK. I was wrong! The “hypernatural” look – like an exciting natural stone, only more so – has won a lot of hearts, and we have seen a steady flow of these magnificent products through the workshop and into people’s kitchens.

Stunning wall of samples on the kbb Cambria stand

Table top in Cambria Annicca – a Calacatta copy with subtle coloured sparklies!

Cambria are not afraid of BIG colour

Naomi deep in conversation with Kelley – head of marketing for all Cambria products outside of the USA and Canada.

Caesarstone at kbb

By the time we got to the Caesarstone stand (down at the end of the kbb halls) we were just about all in. How typical of the Caesarstone design and marketing geniuses that their stand was the most relaxing, most like a coffee shop – yes, good free coffee and snacks! – and had the hippest, coolest ambience of any. A great welcome from Sandra, Steve and Jon, who feel like old friends. Andy Phillips having only just visited the factory (see last week’s blog) I probably felt less pressure to take photos, and the one I did take, I am not allowed to show you! Here it is…

Naomi with the very latest quartz from Caesarstone. Kept behind closed doors at the kbb, this stunning stone is bang on trend, with the warmer colours that are steadily coming back into kitchens at the moment. This material was probably the single most exciting thing we saw at kbb – rest assured, just as soon as we are allowed to give you the name and show you the image properly, we will be blogging…

kbb 2018 at the NEC was a great show. I really enjoyed the visit. With quick journeys, good meetings with our suppliers and clients, and a lot learned, I am sure I will be back. And next time, I’ll make it a longer day!