We visit the DuPont Corian Design booth at Design and Construction week. This is our deep dive countertop episode where we sit down first with Designer Mario Romano with MR Walls and talk about what he and his team are doing with creating bespoke projects using Corian Solid Surface. To see more of his work: https://mrwalls.co/

We then sit down and visit with Maggie Ellis, Marketing Leader for DuPont Corian Design and discuss the new products for 2023 and dive into current design trends. To find out more: https://www.na.corian.com/

To watch the video of Eric's house you can see the video here: https://www.endura.corian.com/outdoor-applications.html

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Information given on the Around the House Show should not be considered construction or design advice for your specific project, nor is it intended to replace consulting at your home or jobsite by a building professional. The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed on the podcast are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Around the House Show.

Mentioned in this episode:

A new kind of decking and siding from Millboard

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Baldwin Hardware

Baldwin Hardware

[00:00:07] Maggie Ellis: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's, it, porcelain I think has had a, a bit of a reputation for being tough to cut. And that was one of the things when we launched Corey and Endura, we really wanted to make sure we were offering a material that was easy to cut and the fabricators would like.

[00:00:32] Eric Goranson: huge compli. You know, because, you know, of course, quartz has been such a huge part of the industry out there for countertops.

[00:00:44] Mario Romano: Absolutely.

[00:01:02] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. I really want 'em today to dive into countertops, and it's a subject that's really important and a little bit later on the show, we'll be talking to our friends over at Corey and Design here, but I wanted to start out with some countertop basics here so we could kind of set the stage for this.

[00:01:45] Eric Goranson: They have now created Corian Design. Now, Corian Design is the umbrella which Corian Quartz, Corian solid surface, which is the formerly Corian that you're used to seeing over the last number of years. And the [00:02:00] Corian Endura high performance porcelain. So just so you understand, the different products when I'm talking about Corian Quartz, that is their quartz countertop product versus the solid surface, which is the Corian we all know and love that is the resin based acrylic version.

[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: That is one of the beautiful things of that product, and I think it's really good for a lot of different things. I like it in. Projects like showers, I like it in walls. I love it in commercial [00:03:00] applications where you need to do a repair or any kind of a high traffic use with that. Now the thing is, is it is polish, so it will, with heavy wear, get a little more dull in scratch because it is a resin, so it is not entirely destructible.

[00:03:37] Eric Goranson: And of course we'll be talking a little bit later here about the product because there are some cool things you can do with it as far as texture. We'll get into that in a little bit. Now, this Corian Quartz, this is the quartz countertop that everybody loves and is one of the most popular products that go inside your home.

[00:04:14] Eric Goranson: So it's gonna be much more durable than maybe a natural marble. So if you're trying to do it, that is a great material for that. Now, the product I put in my house is the DuPont Corn Endura high performance porcelain, and you're like, what's the difference between quartz and porcelain? The difference is, you think of porcelain is is basically a hundred percent natural mineral that they create a product out of.

[00:05:03] Eric Goranson: It will change colors with time. UV is not its friend outside. So really that corn endura is super durable and I had a picture up on our social media recently where I had a, a picture of it out there with, you know, five inches of snow sitting on top. It not gonna hurt it. and this summer, if it gets to be 110 or 119 like it did last year, it's not gonna hurt it as well.

[00:05:48] Eric Goranson: We put it in my steam shower in there. Now, in full disclosure, I'm not sure if it's rated yet for a steam shower because. I did it. I knew that I was voiding warranty. I'm good at voiding warranty [00:06:00] sometime in full disclosure there. But, uh, you know, it wor has worked very well in my application, in my residential steam shower.

[00:06:26] Eric Goranson: So it is, it is in a good spot. It's not going anywhere. It's probably one of the most safest places in the house because it is. Solidly locked in place. So that's a little bit of the background with these materials and I just wanted to be able to, uh, kind of set the stage for our conversation today because all of these are great materials in their own place and they have their best places to be used, you know, the solid surface.

[00:07:09] Eric Goranson: Now porcelain over the years when it first came out, had a little bit more of a difficult reputation of being hard to work with because it is more durable than the quarts, which means it's usually a little bit harder to cut. The nice thing that happened on my project is that the manufacturer had the right tools that was doing the fabrication and the installation.

[00:07:50] Eric Goranson: The advantages of all three, these different materials over like wood, which holds up horribly around a sink and can be troublesome as [00:08:00] far as cleanliness and keeping bacteria out of it, that can be a problem, and that's one of the things that I really worry about with this trend of wood countertops is that you should use something that's.

[00:08:26] Eric Goranson: Because if you put food on it, guess what? It can end up in there. Especially if you're, you know, working with it where you've got maybe a, uh, knife or something like that. People end up cutting. Or working with things on it. So just make sure that you have something food grade. But the other issue is, is it around a sink?

[00:08:59] Eric Goranson: If you [00:09:00] get, uh, well, let's see, you're working on a chicken, getting ready to cook some chicken. You don't want it to be soaking into that material there. And that's the nice thing with either one of these three materials is that you've got something that you can easily sanitize and keep clean, and that is one of the disadvantages with Natural Stone.

[00:09:38] Eric Goranson: We wanna make sure that that is a healthy situation. Now we're gonna start out here with talking with Mario Romano. Mr. Walls, and you can find him at Mr. Walls dot mario romano.com. You can just search out Mario Romano Walls. It'll come up right there. He's [00:10:00] taking this product, Corian solid surface, and he's doing three dimensional.

[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: Walls dot mario romano.com and take a look at this beautiful stuff. There's nothing like it. In the world. Now let's start talking to Mario. Welcome to The Round the House Show. This is where we talk everything about your home, whether it's outside, inside, building that roof, or designing that interior.

[00:11:03] Mario Romano: Uh, I love being here.

[00:11:05] Eric Goranson: me, man. You have been doing so much with their products. Let's dive in, man, because I love some of the stuff you're creating.

[00:11:25] Mario Romano: Walls, right, is how do you go ahead and take that into a solution or a system and make it super user friendly, so, Architects and designers can either customize or go ahead and select and have something from like a standard line and really expanding the design language outside of what we normally see.

[00:11:59] Eric Goranson: How do you [00:12:00] create

[00:12:19] Mario Romano: Functional things that we need, which is, let's say, transitions, borders, inside corners, or how do you get to like a flat surface where you have some shower trim or something like that?

[00:12:36] Eric Goranson: It just has that beautiful flow to it. Well, we take a

[00:12:56] Mario Romano: Like how could you actually put that on your wall or on your surface or on the outside of your [00:13:00] house? Do you know what? Why not? And this is what technology enables

[00:13:11] Eric Goranson: There's some transparent stuff to this.

[00:13:33] Mario Romano: Um, we'll do branded walls, we'll do, um, outdoor water features. We've even done some backlight showers before. That's incredible. And someone wanted to do, let, let's say, um, um, a lotus flower, a giant lotus flower back lit in their shower. And you know what we said? Sure. No problem. Right?

[00:14:02] Eric Goranson: Art life in a place like a shower, for instance, where you'd never think of art being part of that. You know what, I look

[00:14:27] Mario Romano: Okay, these are our homes, whether we're looking at them from the inside or from the outside, or we're just driving through a city, right? We want the city to be as beautiful as possible. Um, we can't always just. The functionality of something or the practicality dictate back to the design. We want it. You know, it's that form and function.

[00:14:47] Eric Goranson: through it. Well, and then you've got a product like that that's so easy to take care of too. You think of art and you go, oh my gosh, it's gonna be gentle. Right. I gotta be careful with it. This is something that you can use every day and not worry about it with just simple care tips [00:15:00] too.

[00:15:03] Mario Romano: you can't be precious. In the architectural world, one of the key things of architecture is robustness and endurance. So that's why the materiality is so incredible because do you know what, not only is the core in like super repairable, it's so in, um, let's say, um, robust, right?

[00:15:30] Eric Goranson: architectural product. Yeah. It's beautiful and stunning. What do you see going now with that? I mean, you guys have done so much from when I first saw it a few years ago with you at the show here and now.

[00:15:55] Mario Romano: Well, hand carved wood, I'll take it. Do you know what? And then, but also wood, [00:16:00] what's limiting about wood is wood needs to be finished.

[00:16:22] Mario Romano: Yeah. And, uh, that's with the large scale and non-repetitive design intent. That's what's, uh, striking and refreshing. And we're seeing

[00:16:42] Eric Goranson: You could just create this whole wooden feel in a shower that you could not do with any other product.

[00:16:58] Mario Romano: Yeah. Right. Because you got these big [00:17:00] ideas. Okay, I have a big idea. But then how do you get it functional? How do you get it to endure? How do you get, and people worry about maintenance. Yeah. You know what, all these things, you know, we've solved that. Great. Now what's the next chapter? Back to that design, back to those experiences.

[00:17:16] Eric Goranson: experiences. Yeah. It is stunning, man. I appreciate what you're doing. How do people find you out there? What's the, you know, People are home driving in the car right now, whatever they're, how would they track you down out there to see what we're talking about? It's very

[00:17:29] Mario Romano: Walls into the internet, you'll find us. Yeah. Okay. You can say, um, Mario Romano Instagram is a great way. Mario Romano ca. Um, all the social media platforms we're really good at marketing. Um, and you'll see these gorgeous backlight walls using Corian. And, uh, anybody that's welcome, you can reach out to me directly or we have any one of our designers here.

[00:17:49] Eric Goranson: you, Mario Romano. Thanks for coming on around the house today, man. It's been a pleasure and an honor, and keep doing what you do man, cuz you're just absolutely changing spaces with a product that's been around for a while. Right on. [00:18:00] Thank you for having. You know, as far as design goes, that was definitely one of my highlights of the show, just seeing what they had done on the wall.

[00:18:29] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to Around the House. It's like our annual vet, right? That's

[00:18:35] Eric Goranson: Thanks. We, you know, you guys did such a great job with the materials going into my house and such great partners on that project using that absolutely beautiful Corian Endura product. And it's in my kitchen, my bathroom, my out bar, outside at the kitchen.

[00:18:56] Maggie Ellis: care of. Oh, great. Well, thanks. Yeah, it's, it's, it's [00:19:00] almost indestructible material. It it. It stands up to heat and scratch and stains and it's great out outdoors as well. You know, it's not, it's UV resistant.

[00:19:14] Eric Goranson: I mean, if I look at what, what that piece takes outside and it's a dark color. It gets anywhere, it's been down to zero degrees. It's been up to about 116 degrees. Wow. It gets tree sap, it gets pine cones falling. It gets rain, it gets all of it, and it looks just like the day we install it.

[00:19:33] Maggie Ellis: glad to

[00:19:53] Eric Goranson: But I tell you, From experience working with the, and the installers that worked on my product, they loved it. [00:20:00] It is easy to work with. Yeah, and that was the easiest product they worked with. And I tell you what, you guys have all the countertop solutions. Mm-hmm. , but man, if you want something that you're gonna, you're gonna use it and cook with it or use it outside, there's not a better product.

[00:20:14] Maggie Ellis: no, I appreciate that. Yeah. It's ELA I think has had a, a bit of a reputation for being tough to cut. And that was one of the things when we launched Corine Endura, we really wanted to make sure we were offering a material. Easy to cut and the fabricators would like. And so I have to say that, that, you know, the feedback has been really good.

[00:20:39] Eric Goranson: that's a huge compliment. Mm-hmm. , you know, because, you know, of course Quartz has been such a huge part of the industry out there for countertops. Right, right. And for, for a, for a fabricator to go, Hey, this cuts just like, That's perfect.

[00:21:09] Eric Goranson: It could feel like I'm outside. Yes. Now in my shower.

[00:21:32] Maggie Ellis: Ugh. And, uh, they're just beautiful colors. But again, they have the performance of solid surface. You don't have to worry about the, you know, the, the moisture getting in and, uh, you can thermoform it. And then if you have a chance to take a look at the Mr. Wall here, , you'll see, um, he's carved into both of those colors.

[00:21:50] Eric Goranson: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh, , I, it's stunning. I walked around, I'm. Is this what I think it is? Yeah. Right, right, right. first impression was amazing. And it's like when you, when you take a product like that [00:22:00] and use it for what traditionally you wouldn't think of it being used at, but with that wood grain, I mean, you guys just blew it outta the park this

[00:22:08] Maggie Ellis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny, Mario has created a shower, kind of a mockup shower with that wood grain look. And he posted on social media a while back and he got all, he got a number of people writing back. I'm not gonna shower in a wood shower like that doesn't make any sense. , you know, so again, he had, he had to write back and say, no, no,

[00:22:26] Eric Goranson: I mean, it looks like you're in a mahogany shower, but Right, right. Oh, talk about just a calm, a person that likes wood. It's just one of those things that would be so calming to build. Mm-hmm. . I mean, it's really cool. And the maintenance, right? There's like zero maintenance, you see? Right. If you can keep glass clean, you can keep this clean.

[00:22:46] Maggie Ellis: as well. We do. Um, and actually before I jump there, I was just gonna tell you we have a few more solid surface colors. Oh, that's actually solid surface colors that are new. And, um, the, the exciting thing about those is that they have recycled content.

[00:23:20] Maggie Ellis: We , we we want those back. And so we brought 'em back. Except this time they're better because now they've recycled content and we have some new ones

[00:23:35] Eric Goranson: Except I wish it was just maybe a little wider or a little more Right. You have taken some of the same designs and made 'em friendly to work in different projects because mm-hmm. , you take something that's maybe a natural marble that's got a little cream, but you put it up against the white cabinet and you're going, wow, that just made that yellow.

[00:24:06] Eric Goranson: Right, right. Thank you. And that's cool. But uh, and then on the court side, court side, geez, , I mean, you guys just keep again, coming out with stuff because. You got stuff over there that when you walk up you're like, oh my gosh, that is a beautiful stone right

[00:24:24] Maggie Ellis: Mm-hmm. in teed mines and, uh, really, you know, proud to be able to, to make materials here in North America. And yeah, our latest new color is London Royal. It's one of my favorites. And, uh, it's, it's just a beautiful, uh, kind of a white background with some touches of gray and some swirls of gray and black mm-hmm.

[00:24:59] Maggie Ellis: We [00:25:00] also have London Abbey, which is a little bit cleaner background, but, um, within the same family. And then London Sky, which is kind of in between the two. So excited about those. And then we also have some, um, ironstone and soapstone looks. Oh, which again, this is with the performance of Quartz, but with the look of soapstone, and so it's not, you don't have to worry about it being

[00:25:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, soapstone acts so much like wood. It was fun to work with, but on the maintenance side you're oiling it. Mm-hmm. , you're, you're really having to care for it cuz it's kind of got that living finish whether you'll like that or not. Right. Right. This feels just, it has that soft texture to it.

[00:25:56] Eric Goranson: Oh, we gotta put a seam in the island. We're in trouble . [00:26:00] Exactly. Because this is what came outta the ground and I can't get those to not look like they're not supposed to play together. Exactly. Exactly. And this, you can get that really, you know, very inconspicuous seam from a good fabricator. Right. And then it looks like it was meant to be there.

[00:26:25] Maggie Ellis: absolutely. It's, you know, it's interesting too, uh, one thing I'll mention, A trend that we're seeing is, , uh, we're, we're hearing a lot of designers are putting quartz in their islands.

[00:26:49] Maggie Ellis: And then it integrates right into the sink and it coordinates with the island. So it's a nice way to kind of maximize. You know, functionality and

[00:27:14] Eric Goranson: Right. I don't, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Just the natural life stuff. , it's not that it's like some padded thing, but it's just is a little more forgiving in that. Right. When you knock something over or damage something, you know, when you do that, it just seems to be just a little more forgiving.

[00:27:28] Maggie Ellis: We'll have to

[00:27:43] Maggie Ellis: Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, we're, you know, as always, there's, there's still a lot of interest in the whites, um, you know, the grays and the creams, but we are seeing a continued trend toward warm, uh, warm tones.

[00:28:12] Maggie Ellis: And, uh, I've seen some quartz, but that looks a lot like quartzite with pops of color. Yeah. Which are, is really kind of cool. So, um, looks a little bit more natural, but with a little bit of bling in it. Yeah.

[00:28:33] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. Yeah. Where you had that honeycomb material behind it. I think this is, we're talking about that stuff was really

[00:28:48] Maggie Ellis: Yeah. And, uh, you know, people that want the look of. Stone, but they don't want the weight. Porcelain is a great option. Mm-hmm. and, uh, corn Endura comes in six millimeter and if you lift it up, we have a sample here you can lift up. It just, [00:29:00] it feels so nice and lightweight and we have a, a piece of granite just as a comparison point.

[00:29:23] Maggie Ellis: So, you know, you can create a coffee table, which we have over there, um, without any underlying support. You can stand on it and, uh, you know, it's super

[00:29:40] Eric Goranson: Right, right. That would be 110 pound coffee table probably. Right, right, right. Can you pick this up and. Oh, weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. , I mean, it's cool. It's crazy that way. And then, you know, that's, I think the, the cool part with this is you guys have really been partnering with people to reimagine mm-hmm. , how you use these products.

[00:30:19] Eric Goranson: Flawlessly. Yeah. Yeah. In there. And it still looks great.

[00:30:25] Eric Goranson: Oh my gosh. Well, you know, I'm, I, I like healthy home stuff, right? And that kind of stuff, and I was like, okay, I'm in the Pacific Northwest where we have high humidity in the wintertime. I didn't want to have this.

[00:30:44] Maggie Ellis: Yeah, and I think the other benefit of it is you don't have a lot of grout like you would with traditional tile.

[00:30:57] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I mean, I have, I have a five foot shower, [00:31:00] and I've got the back wall in walls and the ceiling on it too.

[00:31:06] Maggie Ellis: Make sure you use mechanical attachments, .

[00:31:26] Eric Goranson: Okay, got it. Got it. So, so it's laying on top of the three walls. Yeah. It's not going

[00:31:41] Eric Goranson: attachments.

[00:31:47] That's

[00:31:48] Eric Goranson: beautiful. It's beautiful, yeah. And it's looked out great. And I, you know, it's just one of those things that I think. Just to be able to care for that. And I would be struggling with grout in that situation.

[00:32:14] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. , but, uh, where do you see going forward, I mean, You know, the Endura product, the high performance porcelains, been out for a few years now. Mm-hmm. . But it seems like every year you guys are just coming out with new colors and new stuff.

[00:32:30] Maggie Ellis: Mm-hmm. , um, or a big focus for us. And so I think in the future we're gonna continue to see more, um, products come out that are made with recycled content. Yeah. Um, that continues to be really important for us. Um, we're also continuing to innovate how. Process and manufacture our products at our plants. And, uh, you know, we recycle all of our water currently and, um, uh, you know, we're zero landfill.

[00:33:00] Eric Goranson: coming up. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, something, uh, you've got a solution now for just about any situation, you know. The, the, the porcelain, you know, outdoor living is so important these days.

[00:33:26] Eric Goranson: Cuz I can use it like it's intended. Right. And not worry about, Ooh. A stainless steel counter is hard. Mm-hmm. to maintain. Mm-hmm. , you see people use those out there all the time. I would talk anybody away from those? Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, here's what happens with those is you get the sun on 'em. Mm-hmm. , and you might as well have a griddle now.

[00:34:00] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And that's been

[00:34:01] Maggie Ellis: cool. Yeah, no, and I'm glad you mentioned outdoors. I mean, the other thing is we've, we've seen a lot of folks use corn endura for fire surrounds, ah, including fire pits, um, including indoors, you know, fire surrounds. But, um, then you have a material you don't have to worry about.

[00:34:21] Eric Goranson: Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, we did the seam in the right spot. I did the seam undercover just because I knew that if I did get any sun on it, you know, the material is so strong and handles uv.

[00:34:45] Eric Goranson: sometimes it doesn't go so well. That's why the, the Endura works so good outside. Right, exactly.

[00:34:50] Eric Goranson: good tip. Yeah, it's, and you know, something, being non porous, I can spill wine on it, , I can have the weather on it. It's just super durable. Yeah.

[00:35:01] Eric Goranson: Yeah, we actually are high.

[00:35:09] Maggie Ellis: kidding? 119 In Seattle? Yeah, in Portland.

[00:35:24] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah, that's, I walked out there and there's, we had freezing rain, so I should have got a picture of it. It had a half inch of ice on top if it was all unc crusted. No way. Next time I'm gonna do some pictures. I'll do some social media on it. Definitely. And I'll take like a little torch or something and just kind of break the ice away.

[00:35:42] Maggie Ellis: You know, I feel like we've covered almost everything. Yeah. Um, you know, what are you seeing? I'm curious here. You

[00:35:58] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And now you're [00:36:00] seeing, you know, the wood tones and everything's coming back. You know that, that that bright white kitchen is kind of not what it has been. Mm. They're still out there. They'll always be bright white kitchens, but you know, I think the chip and Joanna Gaines effect really kind of took over for a few years.

[00:36:33] Eric Goranson: love you gold. That gold, you could play off with the gold and you could really make the countertop match the fixtures. Mm-hmm. . I mean, I was over at another place. They had, uh, gold and rose gold handles on their appliances. Oh, wow. Yeah. So now you can match your appliance, handles your countertop. Your faucets, even your sink.

[00:36:55] Maggie Ellis: Yeah. And you know, another, I guess, um, thing that we've, we've seen a lot of interest in [00:37:00] is, is using technology to help kind of visualize Oh my gosh. Um, you know, it's so hard for a lot of people to be able to visualize what their space could look like.

[00:37:24] Maggie Ellis: See what looks right for you. Um, so that's something that I think has been really

[00:37:43] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm. . And they're going, is that what I hope it was? Yeah. . Now you can visualize it a lot easier. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a little easier in the installers too, cuz they're not going, what do you mean you don't like it? Right, exactly. .

[00:37:55] Eric Goranson: Because the public really, you know, unless you do this every day, [00:38:00] visualization is something that's very hard.

[00:38:17] Eric Goranson: I just gotta go. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , I gotta do something else. Right, right. So, which is cool. So where do people go to find the stuff? So if they want to go over and use that selector, if they want to go over, I think even my kitchen's up in there, in the video up there on the website still. Yeah,

[00:38:32] Maggie Ellis: Yeah. So if they go to our website, um, corian.com, corian cords.com, or Corian Endura. Um, They can go to find a retailer. Mm-hmm. . And, um, they can select the retailer in their market. Or if you're a fabricator, um, you can find, go to the find a distributor page. And we also have some new distributors that we just announced for.

[00:39:14] Maggie Ellis: Um, Let's see, Virginia, west, Virginia, Maryland, DC and then Hallmark is gonna be taking over. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Hopefully I've covered all the states. Right? Yeah. But yeah, so that, that's a big change in the Eastern markets and, uh, we're really, I mean, those are longstanding partners Yeah.

[00:39:34] Eric Goranson: job. Yeah. If you're a. Whether you're a homeowner, fabricator, contractor out there, if you're not taking a look at this stuff, I'll give you my personal endorsement. This is the stuff you should be looking at out there. Yeah. . Thanks Maggie for coming on today.