Michael Moore, professor, brought his Interior Decorating & Visual Display class on a Field Trip. Here is their story …
So – I hauled myself out of my sick bed… ta da! And got myself to Montreal Lighting on Paré for our 9:30 start (cause they actually don’t open ’till then).
Elaine, the Showroom Manager, turned us over to Dany Salem – the WHIZ! He is a licensed lighting consultant along with being a professional electrician… he was AMAZING! They put on a show for us like no other… almost 2 hours of a showroom tour (fabulous showroom BTW – absolutely mind-boggling lighting – with a dedicated area just for bathroom lighting – ain’t never seen that anywhere before – PLUS an area devoted to all the different types of under-cabinet lighting… and each shelf flips up to show the innards and the connections for the lighting… and then finally, into the Inner Sanctum – a room/space devoted to Lutron + remote home energy systems! Amazing! All the students were awestruck! Moi? I was awestruck… there is no better resource in all of Montreal than what Montreal Lighting has to offer… contact Elaine Silva (elaine@montrealluminaire.com) to request a class visit.
It was then on to CeraColor, the Porcelanosa showroom in Montreal. Michael, the Manager, was ever gracious in welcoming us and showing us the unique and fabulous product line they carry.
We rushed from there to Centura Tile. Ana Rodriguez had set up a fabulous showroom tour, an hour long tech presentation by Brian their Tech Guru – lunch! Sandwiches, salads, etc and then demonstrations in their product testing labs… it was great! Isabelle Leveillé, the Showroom Manager, was with us every step of the way… almost two hours non-stop.
Next stop – IKEA… normally we time that for lunch… today we had lunch – so we did a class walk-through and reviewed furniture styles, furniture spatial planning/arrangements – kitchen designs, the ways that IKEA uses different flooring materials to denote different spaces… was all good. Plus, the obligatory quick stop to get ice cream near the cashier stations – all worth it.
In the pouring rain we ran to our vehicles and caravanned two blocks over to Olympia Tile where Sabrina had made her usual thorough preparations for the class. A sound grounding in and about ceramics, porcelains, natural stones, etc was followed by an in-depth tour of the showroom. At 3:30 we all quietly yelled, ‘UNCLE’ – we had had it… pretty much full up with a fuelled up non-stop day.
But, the class was great – attentive, inquisitive – awestruck at points… it was a great outing… we need to, and we will, do it again. There is no substitute to seeing the real thing – to touching, feeling and actually being, i m p r e s s e d! And the class was…