TRENDS
A Passion for Porcelain
Heat Proof, Grout-Free, and Gorgeous
By Diane Alter
Sitting on a showroom wall at 395 State Road in Vineyard Haven, there’s a slab of stone that isn’t stone at all, and it’s been stopping foot traffic ever since it went up.
John Meade, the man behind Coastal Creations Kitchen and Bath, didn’t set out to become the Island’s unofficial porcelain evangelist. It happened almost by accident. “One of my countertop reps was visiting me, and she also reps porcelain,” he explains. “She suggested I do a display of slabs on one of my walls.”
He said yes, and it has been a magnet ever since.
“It’s a beautiful display, and it attracts the attention of people,” he says.
Customers wander in, ask what it is, and Meade launches into what has become something of a signature pitch: this is a material you can put in your shower, on your countertops, and should you be so bold, practically anywhere you’d normally reach for granite or quartz.
In just the past year, that pitch has turned into one full kitchen and four separate showers, on an Island where, by his own account, porcelain is still “a fairly new material” that “hasn’t been widely used” – yet.
So, what’s the draw? Start with the number 2,000.
That is roughly how many degrees Fahrenheit porcelain slabs are fired at during manufacturing, which means the material shrugs off heat that would damage lesser countertops. “You can take a pot right out of the oven and put it right onto the countertop,” Meade says. “You don’t need a trivet or anything like that.”
No hot pad, no flinching, no yelling across the kitchen to move that over-heated casserole dish! Then there’s the cleaning factor; a part of this story that will resonate with anyone who has ever gotten intimate with a grout line and a toothbrush.
Porcelain is non-absorbent, which makes it, in Meade’s words, “highly hygienic.” It won’t stain, won’t soak up wine or lemon juice or bath products, and in the shower, there’s a bonus most people don’t think about until they’ve lived without it: no grout lines. None.
For anyone who has spent a Saturday morning on their hands and knees scrubbing grime and mildew out of tile seams, that alone might be worth the upgrade.
It isn’t budget friendly, though.
“Quartz is still the most popular countertop material,” Meade admits, and porcelain costs more. But he is quick to note it’s environmentally friendly and recyclable – a detail that matters on an Island where sustainability isn’t just a buzzword, it’s practically a civic duty.
And the slabs themselves have a kind of quiet drama to them: veined, variegated patterns that Meade says, “look like exotic marble,” giving a kitchen the visual punch of natural stone without the porousness or the price tag of the real thing.
There’s also an engineering trick most homeowners never notice.
Porcelain slabs come a slim half-inch thick, versus quartz’s standard inch and a quarter, so fabricators miter the edges, essentially folding the material to simulate the thicker, more substantial look everyone expects from a countertop. It’s a bit of sleight of hand that lets Meade build countertops to whatever thickness a client dreams up.
Speaking of dreaming, Meade’s own fantasy kitchen would go all in: porcelain countertops, an extra- thick island edge, matching backsplash, and porcelain running up the shower walls. Ceilings? “We haven’t done it, but it’s possible,” he says. Floors are the one place he draws the line.
“It’s too slick underfoot.”
Helping him bring these visions to life these days is a new addition to the Coastal Creations team: Janeille Stora-Hall, a designer and salesperson who joined after a run as a top performer at Crane Appliance on the Island. She wasn’t part of the original leap into porcelain – that decision predates her – but she’s now very much part of guiding customers through it, one slab at a time.
If you’d like to learn more about Coastal Creations Kitchen and Bath, visit John’s website at: coastalcreationskb.com. Phone: (508) 338-710, E-mail: jdmeade62@gmail.com. The showroom is located in Vineyard Haven at 395 State Road.