How a Concrete Sink Energized the Kitchen and Bath Industry
New concrete sinks, made of a gorgeous and groundbreaking cement and jute fiber mixture called NativeStone®, spur the concrete trend in home design and excite the kitchen and bath industry. NativeStone has already helped our company enter into more than 50 new kitchen and bath showrooms across the United States.
The NativeStone line, which includes kitchen, bar/prep and lavatory sinks is an immediate and enormous hit with showrooms, interior designers, and homeowners. These sinks are impervious to staining and are cool and silky smooth, thanks to a cutting-edge nano sealer. Jute fiber exists throughout the concrete, resulting in a material that is highly resistant to cracking. NativeStone™ is also Native Trails’ most affordable kitchen and bath product line launched to date.
“Our customers are going to love NativeStone as much as we already do,” says Dion Wilson, Manager at Waterhouse Bath and Kitchen Studio in Perrysburg, Ohio, one of the 1,300 showrooms in the U.S. and Canada where the NativeStone products will be sold. “It is one of those tactile products where seeing is just not enough. Everyone loves to touch and feel it. These sinks are a real game-changer because they give our customers the option of concrete without the cost and challenges that come with a custom-made concrete product.”
NativeStone fully upholds Native Trails’ Eco-Social Positive™ commitment to only make and sell products that have a positive influence on our world, both socially and environmentally. By adding jute—a natural, renewable vegetable fiber—to the proprietary concrete blend, Native Trails has reinvented concrete. NativeStone concrete sinks are 40 percent lighter, much stronger, and far more sustainable than traditional cement sink. They make use of natural resources, generate less waste, and require less energy than ordinary concrete production. Less heft also makes them easier to install and less expensive to ship than traditional concrete.
“Concrete is an emerging home design trend that we see used far more often for countertops, floors, furniture, and even home exteriors,” says our CEO and Founder Naomi Neilson Howard. “NativeStone makes great use of concrete’s natural beauty and its natural color—gray—which is also a hot design trend right now, and avoids all of its previous downfalls. It is gorgeous and silky to the touch. For the first time, concrete communicates luxury just as powerfully as it does function.”
To develop this product, Naomi Howard and Native Trails President Tim Blair visited artisans in Vietnam. They spent weeks hiking to remote villages, exploring cities both ancient and modern, researching factories and workshops, and coming to appreciate the country’s strong handicraft tradition and deep-rooted artisan culture.
“We were looking for a material that could translate to both a kitchen and a bath sink,” says Blair. “It needed to be artisan-made, with our Eco-Social PositiveTM philosophy and story behind it. It also had to be sustainable to fit with our core beliefs and be viable for business. Not an easy thing in reality. Once we saw one of the NativeStone prototypes and felt the smooth, cool texture, we fell in love with it. If we love the product, it’s a pretty good bet that designers and homeowners will as well.”
The NativeStone designs were influenced by Native Trails’ most popular copper sinks and by the versatility of the concrete material. This granted enormous creative freedom. The result is a product line inspired by nature, modern life, and by concrete’s naturally industrial appeal.
Have questions? Read more about NativeStone here.