Mikey’s Run
As saddened as we are by the recent Boston Marathon bombings, we’re equally inspired by Mikey, a 13 year old quadrilateral amputee, and his brothers who are aiming to raise one million dollars for the victims of this tragedy. We’ve donated $2,000 in the name of Pental customers; please join us in supporting this cause.
LA showroom
Our LA showroom kitchen is almost complete! We’re still waiting on the bar top and espresso machine but wanted to give a big thanks to Zamir Marble of Sun Valley, CA for doing such an incredible job on the install. More photos coming soon!
Calacatta Quarry
From Pental’s trip to the Calacatta quarry last week in Carrara, Italy
Owner Peter Pental hand selecting blocks of Calacatta Gold marble
Pental L.A. Now Open!!!
Showroom Hours
M-F 8am-5pm
Sat 10am-2pm
7050 Valjean Ave.
Van Nuys,CA 91406
p.818.787.7937 office
f.818.787.8967
NEW!!! Wood Essence
Wood Essence offers the look and feel of weathered wood planks in a 6.5×38″ glazed porcelain tile
NEW!!! Clayhaus ceramic
Clayhaus is produced locally in the Pacific Northwest, these hand-made ceramics bring elegant and playful design to your project.
NEW!!! Vulcano Porcelain
With its natural feel and timeless contemporary style, Vulcano is sure to complement your design.
NEW!!! Simplicity Porcelain
Add a fresh, clean, and unquestionably sophisticated and elegant look to any room with Simplicity our newest porcelain series.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM ALL OF US AT PENTAL
(From top to bottom: Seattle, Fife, Portland, and Los Angeles)
Thank You
We’d like to take a moment to thank you for your continued partnership. It is the relationships with our customers that make our jobs a pleasure and keep our company successful.
As we approach the turn of the New Year, we would like to show our appreciation by giving back to our community. This year we have made a financial contribution to the Hurricane Sandy relief effort and donated almost 5000 square feet of tile to Habitat for Humanity.
Happy Holidays!
Pental Granite & Marble
NEW!!! Geotech Porcelain
Announcing Geotech, our newest porcelain series. Geotech porcelain has the soft, sophisticated look of a high end limestone and is available in 4 colors and two textures in 12×24 size. Absolutely stunning!
NEW!!! Woodway Porcelain
Are you looking for the look of natural hardwood with the durability of porcelain? We have it!! Introducing Woodway-our newest porcelain series.
Slimline Slate
Visit our Facebook page and take a look at our new feature “The Perfect Touch”. This Week we are featuring Slimline Slate. click here to visit our Facebook fan page and while you are there don’t forget to leave a comment.
NEW!!! Advance Series
Advance is the latest addition to Pental’s porcelain collection. With its unique blend of natural feel and timeless contemporary style, Advance is sure to complement your design.
Pental Granite & Marble ‘Rocks’ Ahead in Pacific Northwest
By RICHARD SPRINGER
In the mid 1990s, two brothers, Parminder “Peter” Pental and Ravinder “Ravi” Pental, owned and operated two convenience stores in the Tacoma, Washington area, but they wanted to run a business that connected them more closely to India, so they launched Pental Granite & Marble in 1999.
After opening the first store in a 10,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood, their business has grown by leaps and bounds. The company now has three bustling locations in Washington and Oregon.. (more…)
Moda Vetro’s NEW colors & sizes
Our new Moda Vetro glass colors have arrived with more expected at the end of the month! Look for new sizes-1×2 matte and gloss solid bricks, 2×4 matte and gloss, new bubble blends, new bullet blends, and the ever so coveted 5/8×8 glass liner in matte or gloss! All stocked-or soon to be-stocked items! We’ve got some great new colors that will work with many palettes!
NEW!!! Piasentina porcelain tile
Piasentina, our newest porcelain series has arrived and is in stock.
Like Us on Facebook, Follow Us on Twitter !!!
Follow Us on Twitter and get the latest updates on the newest products at http://twitter.com/PentalGM and don’t forget to Like Us on Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/Pental-Granite-Marble/161838414379
Seattle Homes & Lifestyles Blog
NEW PENTAL TILE SHOWROOM
We got to tour and admire Pental Tile’s (713 South Fidalgo St., (206) 768-3200) new trade-only showroom, and we took pictures so you could too!
Entry
Working show kitchen
We loved this tile– it’s made to look like horn!
Seattle Homes & Lifestyles
FEATURED HOMES: WOODLAND DRAMA
The initial impression when one arrives at Kim and Dan Foster’s house in the Issaquah Highlands is that of a graceful, shed-roofed building deeply grounded in its expansive site on the edge of a forest reserve. Gelotte Hommas Architecture has achieved a reputation for being able to design in a number of different styles, from Palladian to postmodern; here, architect Curt Gelotte has created a contemporary Northwest classic while subtly evoking the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright.
“Wright created the concept of an open floor plan in residential architecture,” Gelotte notes. “This house offers a continuation of that idea, where the kitchen and dining and living room spaces all flow together.” The resulting light, airy wood-and-glass house is an appropriate response to this 2.2-acre site with its landscape of open foreground and forested background.
Closer inspection reveals more: The driveway, planted with grass, grounds the house in its site. The front door, positioned beneath a muscular, beam-supported entry canopy, is an intriguing composition, a collage of multiple types of wood—almost all of them harvested on site.
Just inside the front door is another site-inspired element: a screen made out of randomly sized pieces of wood harvested from trees on the property. The screen is a prelude and counterpoint to the house’s primary design drama: the soaring volume of the great room, with its back wall of 23-foot-tall windows. This glass wall provides a floor-to-ceiling view of the spacious back lawn, circled by patios, plantings, the mossy stumps of trees cut down to make room for the house, and a playhouse built for the children by Kim’s father. “There is this one fun, soaring volume, and everything works off of that,” Gelotte explains. To further enhance the connection between site and house, the wood from trees cut down on the site was used in construction—for details such as window and door trim, doors, cabinets, and the screen inside the front door.
Beyond the backyard lie the endless acres of the forest preserve. Landscaped by a design team from The Berger Partnership, the backyard itself looks simultaneously cultivated and wild. The only interruption in the sweep of the window wall and its forest view is a skylit breakfast nook—with windows on three sides—pushed out into the backyard. A lamp positioned over the breakfast table adds a contemporary design accent.
What Makes It Green?
Homes in Issaquah Highlands’ Grand Ridge Drive neighborhood must meet four-star Built Green requirements. The architect, builder and owners achieved that with the following:
- Site-harvested wood was used for the cabinets and interior trim.
- To conserve energy, the house was designed so that natural light flows in from many angles. For much of the year, the Fosters don’t have to turn on the lights during daylight hours.
- Thanks to good job site management, most of the waste products from the construction process were recycled.
- During construction, the ground was shaped and positioned so that most of the site’s existing soil could be reused instead of being transported off the site.
- When retaining walls were needed during construction, fallen trees from the site were used (the wood will eventually decay and nourish the soil).
- An efficient underground heating system (called a ground loop hydronic system) uses the ground’s constant temperature as an exchange medium.
—Katie McVicker
Environmental Design & Construction
The Heathman Hotel’s 99 percent landfill-free remodeled restrooms.
Renovating a historic home inevitably unleashes a number of challenges from maintaining the integrity of the original design to coping with plumbing and electrical systems crafted for another age. Time, noise, dust and outright inconveniences are just a few of the additional costs associated with the price of renewing a historic property. Consider multiplying the costs by 155, and you may begin to fathom the formidable task that awaits a historic hotel embarking on a renovation program while remaining open to the public.
The Heathman Hotel, located in downtown Portland, Ore., is no stranger to renovations. The hotel has been through its share of updates to maintain its stature among the city’s leading luxury accommodations. Last year, it began a major effort to revamp all of its 155 guest bathrooms. If working within the constraints of a building dating from 1927 wasn’t daunting enough, the hotel sought to bring the remodel in line with its commitment to sustainability by using local resources, recycling when possible and ensuring energy efficiency. The result is a stunning 99 percent landfill-free remodel achieved without sacrificing elegance or comfort.
Thinking Locally
To reduce the overall carbon footprint of the remodel, the Heathman Hotel teamed up with local architecture firm Ankrom Moisan Associated Architects (AMAA) and selected area vendors with a commitment to green practices. Keeping vendors local mitigated the environmental costs of transporting and shipping materials. Local labor refurbished existing marble countertops and area craftsmen milled wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council for upgraded cabinets.
Reducing Waste through Recycling
With other renovations, a significant amount of waste is discarded into dumpsters headed for a landfill. Rather than follow the norm, the Heathman and AMAA took stock of existing materials and fixtures evaluating the potential for retouching costly elements to give them a new life. Marble countertops were repolished and cut to accommodate new sinks, while teak trim was refinished as needed. Mirrors were updated with new frames fashioned from recycled aluminum, and existing tubs were updated with sumptuous new curtains and modern curved rods.
The Heathman also retiled its new bathrooms with an innovative one-eighth inch tile overlay. The product, Kerlite, was sourced through a local provider and is made of 40 percent recycled materials. It lays over existing tile, eliminating the need to remove existing tile and send it to a landfill. In addition, this tactic significantly reduced the amount of noise, dust and time associated with bathroom remodels saving the hotel — and its guests — significant headaches and discomfort.
What couldn’t be incorporated into the new bathroom design was gently removed and sent to the ReBuilding Center, an organization that sells old fixtures and materials. In the Heathman’s case, the center accepted all of the hotel’s old plumbing fixtures. As a result, the 1 percent of the project’s waste directed to landfills included mostly mirrors broken during removal. Through its recycling efforts, the Heathman diverted 15 tons of debris from local landfills.
Pursuing Greater Energy Efficiency
The Heathman previously completed two significant energy saving initiatives: It introduced a new heating and cooling system and replaced existing lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs. Both energy efficiency efforts have paid for themselves within two years thanks to the costs savings realized through higher efficiency.
The Heathman was intent on bringing similar cost — and energy — savings to its bathroom remodel without inflicting any inconvenience to guests. New low-flow commodes are expected to save up to 50 percent on water by using only 1.5 gallons per flush rather than three. Savings from overall plumbing upgrades will result in 20 percent less energy use.
Energy efficient lighting continues the theme from throughout the rest of the hotel. Specially designed LED lighting behind mirrors and in custom pendants adds ambiance without requiring excess energy. Bringing fluorescent lighting into bathrooms also minimizes energy usage, while new doors with glass inserts allow more natural light to flow into the space.
Melding Sustainability with History
Historic buildings have a unique place in our communities, and given the advances in environmentally friendly materials and methods, it is possible to preserve these one-of-a-kind structures while bringing them up to modern, sustainable standards. For the Heathman, not only was the AMAA and local vendor team able to implement green design throughout all 155 guest baths, but they were able to do so in an expedited time frame with minimal disruption to hotel operations.
For the Heathman, sustainable efforts have proved to be wise investments. From a balance sheet standpoint, the improvements in efficiency have paid for themselves within a relatively short period of time. From a more personal perspective, the hotel is proud to take a proactive role in addressing today’s environmental concerns by implementing sound sustainable practices.
Photos courtesy of Kirsten Force, Ankrom Moisan Architects (AMAA).
