Things we're loving: May Edition!
Here are a few things we’re listening to, sipping on, reading, and watching this month!
To Read
Full disclosure, we haven’t read this book yet but it’s on our list! Between Two Kingdoms is a memoir of a life interrupted by an unexpected illness. This book was a New York Times best seller and in their words it’s “A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman's journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into "normal" life” - The New York Times
Now that all know a little something about life interrupted, this seems like the perfect read!
To listen
We love a good podcast and after listening to almost every episode of Crime Junkie, In the Dark came highly recommended! (Quick note this podcast covers the abduction and murder of a young boy and is not suitable for sensitive ears!). I started this podcast and within 24 hours was almost finished with season 1. It is absolutely riveting. If you’re into true crime, this is a must listen.
“The investigation into the abduction of Jacob Wetterling yielded no answers for 27 years. We investigate how law enforcement mishandled one of the most notorious child abductions in the country and how those failures fueled national anxiety about stranger danger and led to the nation's sex-offender registries.” -APM
To Watch
Okay I binged Shadow and Bone so fact that it’s embarrassing. This show is incredible and just flat out cool. If you were into Game of Thrones or fantasy in general, this show will be right up your alley!
“Dark forces conspire against orphan mapmaker Alina Starkov when she unleashes an extraordinary power that could change the fate of her war-torn world.” -Netflix description
To sip
Image via town and country magazine
Now that the weather is warmer (even in the mountains!) it’s iced coffee season! When we saw a cocktail that combined iced-coffee and whiskey, we knew we had to try it! Here’s the recipe for Town & Country’s Irish Iced Coffee!
2 oz Tullamore D.E.W. Original
1 tsp ground espresso
2 tsp demerara sugar
2 tsp hot water
3 oz cold brew coffee
Fresh cream
Combine whiskey and espresso in a small bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. Strain through coffee filter into a cocktail shaker. Meanwhile stir sugar and hot water until dissolved then add to shaker with cold brew and ice. Shake and the strain and serve up in a Collins glass. Top with cream.
Recipe By Tim Herlihy
Custom Kitchen Island Install!
Now that we have the shop up and running in North Carolina, things are picking up! This past week we went down to Florida to install a kitchen island, fireplace feature, and a farmhouse sink! It was busy but so rewarding to see the pieces make it to their new homes. We loved each piece from this round of installs and wanted to highlight the kitchen island!
For the island, our client wanted a mix of terrazzo and some special seashells they provided! We always love when a piece can be infused with something personal, so this was right up our alley! We got to work designing, templating, and placing the shells and terrazzo thoughtfully. Take a look at the process and the finished product below!
It was so much fun getting to create something totally custom and unique for our client, and we love how the piece turned out! What do you think?
Spring Sipping: Elderflower Old Fashioned
Spring is in the air! It’s once again time for outdoor hangs, and springy cocktails! As you know, we love bourbon almost as much as we love concrete. That’s why we wanted to feature this twist on an old classic. This Elderflower Old Fashioned has that classic taste you already know and love but with a nice floral twist making it the perfect drink to sip all spring long.
This recipe is super easy and only takes a few ingredients.
1 ounce elderflower liqueur (I use St. Germain's)
2 dashes angostura bitters
2 ounces rye or bourbon
Orange twist
Serve over ice, garnish, and enjoy!
5 Floating Vanities We Love
Floating vanities are becoming a staple of modern design and we are here for it! We searched the internet to find our favorite floating vanities!
Photo and vanity by Blanchard Design Store
This vanity is awesome! We love the depth of color, the texture, and even though it’s small it was designed with functionality in mind. There’s space enough for the essentials!
Photo by Stone Forest
The color combination of this one is awesome. The rich grey with the gold makes a bold statement and gives a totally modern look.
photo and sink by cement elegance
This sink is classy and thoughtful with tons of counter space. It’s modern but still has a bit of a farm house style to it.
Image via Perigold
This one is simple and understated but combination with the natural wood really ties the space together!
photo and sink by us!
Of course we have to throw our hats into this ring! This raw edge floating vessel was one of our favorite pieces of this past year. We love the contrasting textures, and how it elevates the space.
What do you think? Which sink is you favorite?
Local Edit: Canton Edition
As some of you know, we moved our family to Canton, NC back in September and recently finished moving our studio as well. Lauren grew up in Canton and I’ve gotten to know this special town quite well over the years! Although Canton is a small town, local businesses have been popping up all over the place, making it a truly special community with lot’s to see and do! Here are a few of our favorite local spots:
Papertown Coffee
For a great cup of coffee, nothing beats Papertown! Papertown opened in 2019 and quickly became a local favorite. Their coffee is roasted locally and always delicious.
2. Willow Hill soap company
Willow Hill is family-founded, small batch, ethically-minded, safe-ingredient, natural skin care and candles! Trust us when we say nothing smells better that Willow Hill! With a wide variety of products, there’s something for everyone!
3. The Southern porch
The Southern Porch is another great family-owned business! They serve wonderful food and drinks, and you're pretty much guaranteed to see someone you know, making it the perfect spot to gather and enjoy the charm of the small-town life.
4. Bearwaters Brewing Company
Located right on Pigeon River, Bearwaters is the perfect spot to enjoy a local brew! They have tons of great beers on tap, and lot’s of delicious food. We’ve pretty much already designated Bearwaters as our spot for the upcoming summer!
We hope you enjoyed this little taste of what our new home has to offer! It’s a great spot and we’re so excited for the future of Lawson Design!
We're all packed up!
So much change around here! This week we rented a few moving trucks and headed down to Orlando to pack up the old studio. We have so many wonderful memories from this shop and it was more of an emotional experience than we anticipated! We packed up our equipment and tools and loaded up the truck to start our new adventure in North Carolina. We’re looking forward to being able to settle into our new Lawson Design studio with the help of all our trusty tools.
We’re gonna miss this place so much!
Just like that we’re ready to hit the road! We’re looking forward to sharing the design process for our new studio space as it develops.
Mendicino Project + Video Tour!
We recently finished one of our biggest projects of year! The Mendicino house is a stunning vacation rental in Florida. The house features a movie theatre, a camping room, and so much more. It’s one of the coolest spaces we’ve had the opportunity to work on. We wanted to share some highlights from this incredible home.
We loved creating this little rough-hewn vessel sink and our client had the perfect wooden piece to serve as the base!
We love a good mudroom! For this space we did a simple farmhouse style sink and countertop
This island was huge and featured some interior open shelving. We absolutely love how this piece turned out! (even if it did break my toe in the process)
This bathroom ended up so awesome! We did two rough-hewn vanities and one of our signature tubs.
On the other side of this kitchen island, we created a corrugated concrete look and bar seating area.
The house also featured a custom wet bar
We didn’t do any concrete in this room but we had to show you their camping room! This house is just too cool.
We have so many more photos we could share. We also did an outdoor kitchen and a few other pieces but we’ll leave it here for now. Let us know which piece is your favorite in the comments!
Our New Studio Space!
Last week we shared some really big news about our move to North Carolina! We’ve been working out of a an incredible new studio space there but haven’t been able to share any photos of it until the move was officially announced. Now we can finally share in all the excitement of the new space!
We found the perfect space in downtown Canton and got to work setting up shop.
Our dreams for the shop include a cocktail bar, displays where we can sell some of our smaller products, and eventually an event space component!
Canton is a small paper mill town with a lot of heart! If you want to read a little more about what makes this small town so special, check out this article! https://www.ourstate.com/papertown-proud-in-canton/
We set up a new polishing area and are hoping to be really intentional about documenting the process of our pieces and sharing everything with you all!
We will definitely share more photos as it comes along! Thanks for being a part of our concrete community :)
We're Moving!
It’s finally time to share the big news!
After 8 incredible years of running the shop in Orlando, we’ve decided to make a big change…
We love our Orlando community so much, and Orlando will always have a special place in our hearts. This is where our family began, where our boys took their first steps, where we bought our first home, and where Price Concrete was born. We’ve loved every part of our journey here and are so full of gratitude for how this community shaped our little family. That’s why, when we first began feeling a tug in our hearts to move out of Orlando we thought, “do we really want to leave all of this?!” Through tears, we made the final decision to move our family to the mountains of North Carolina.
We planned to keep the Orlando shop open for a while while we made the transition, but the constant travel back and forth has been really challenging for our family. It became clear that it just wasn’t sustainable. I need to be in Canton with my boys and Lauren, and we realized that we needed to commit to our move fully. All that said, we’re moving the shop! I’ve found a studio in Canton and have been dreaming big about what I want it to look like and the kind of pieces I want to create. I’m excited to announce that Price Concrete is becoming Lawson Design, A high-end concrete studio for the discerning client. I purchased Price Concrete when I first got into the concrete business, and now it’s finally time to make my own mark on the concrete industry under my own family name.
We will still be taking on some work in Orlando, so if you’ve been dreaming of a concrete piece, you still have your chance. We will be taking on a much smaller roster of clients in the Orlando area to continue to explore our artistry and create luxury concrete while prioritizing family time and growing the North Carolina shop.
We’ll be answering questions and sharing more details about the transition over on Instagram this week so make sure you’re following us to get the full scoop!
We are so grateful for all our incredible Orlando clients and it’s been an honor to work for you and alongside you. Thank you for all the support you’ve shown to Price Concrete Studio, and we can’t wait to continue our relationship through Lawson Design.
Dreamy Outdoor Space In Melbourne Beach
We love when an install happens to be in a gorgeous location! We’ve been working on a huge project for a client in Melbourne beach, and we just finished up their install. We did over 15 pieces for this project and a lot of favorites came out of it, but overall, we loved the outdoor space the most!
We designed two lounge chairs and one fire feature and we’re obsessed with how it turned out.
You know we love our lounge chairs, and we truly jump at the chance to make them.
We loved making this fire feature, and could not imagine a better place for it.
We can definitely see spending every evening out there in front of that fire and that stunning ocean view! We hope our clients enjoy many nights full of blissful fireside hangs and ocean breezes.
Ultimate Concrete Class 2021
We were a little nervous about how this year’s class would go in light of Covid and travel restrictions but we were so blown away by this year’s group of future concrete artisans.
We had a smaller class size this year and took lots of safety measures, but we still didn’t know if people would be able to show up. Lucky for us, they did! This week was one of the best Ultimate Classes we’ve had to date!
Folks from all over came to hone in their concrete skills. We had Spain, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida and more all represented in our shop. Everyone was so dedicated, eager to learn, and invested in what we were teaching. We think we’re going to see incredible things coming from this group of graduates.
We can’t wait to do it again! If you’re interested in learning more about the Ultimate Class or Concrete Countertop Institute visit their website here. They also offer online courses and have tons of great resources!