Luxury Living with Debrae Little

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NB studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The

Debrae Little 0:23
you Dave, welcome to lecture living with Dave Ray, the Podcast where we explore the finest and design, craftsmanship and lifestyle. I'm your host, Dave Bray little, and today we are diving into the world of Luxe layer inside the world of high end services, we're joined today with Dave Dasco, founder of ESG gallery, who offers decorative services that include man made materials, glass, stone and natural alternatives. Whether you're an interior designer, a homeowner or just a lover of beautiful spaces. Let's get started. Thanks David for joining us today. Thank you for having me. I'm so thrilled. I can't wait to hear all your insights and thoughts on this industry. It's such an amazing industry that's ever changing, that keeps designers interested and definitely always piques my curiosity when I travel into your showroom and see all the things that you have found across the world, actually, can you start by telling us a little bit about how you got into the luxury tile and slab business and what what inspired you to focus on high end materials.

Dave Daskal 1:58
So I moved out here in the end of 2007 and my background from Chicago was working with a mosaics company, and mosaics were relatively in their infancy, so I came out Here with the idea of designing, creating and producing overseas mosaics and then distributing them. And that plan quickly fell apart with the financial crisis that we went into. And eventually, when we got back on our feet like the rest of us in the construction industry, about 2014 we had morphed into becoming a, at that point, a broker of materials. And from that point, you know, we grew and we became an importer, distributor. And as far as the high end was concerned, for me, it was pretty much the part of the market that wasn't dominated by the majors, because there was no way I was competing against national companies who you know are well heeled, have incredible distribution channels and manufacturing channels. So we took the 20% we left them the 80%

Debrae Little 3:24
smart, smart. It's just a really specialized market, but I think that's probably the most exciting market personally. I think, I think it is, at least that's where I feel like I shine in terms of finding the right finishes for a client's home, you know, that are extraordinary, that are one of a kind, you know, that really appeals to me, and I think it appeals to a lot of designers like myself, as well as ultimately, to homeowners. Luxury Homes often feature stunning details. What role do premium tiles and status play in creating those Wow factors?

Dave Daskal 3:59
Well, I think you mentioned it to a minute ago, the uniqueness. So I'm constantly searching for what hasn't been shown, what's brand new, and as an independent I can get it into the marketplace much quicker than some of the Nationals can, because of all the layers they have to go through. So I can have product. If I have just like, completed a project with you, and you're bringing in your next project to us. Instead of being repetitious with you, I can say, hey, look what we just received. It keeps us, keeps the stimulus going, it keeps the interest peaked. And you know, for the client market that we serve and that you represent, they're they're very interested and very excited about having something nobody else has,

Debrae Little 4:57
right, truly, I think that. I think you touched on something that's really important. I think, as an interior design professional, I seek to bring the newest, the most exciting, tiles and everything, to the projects that I design, because I too, want to be stimulated. I like the pretty stuff as well, but I'm also looking for durability. I'm looking for everything that would make this, this project, be great. And those are the two elements that I think that come into it. Is it being something that's really unique, and it's something that's that is fascinating, that you look at it with pride, because, you know, I'm the only one on the block that has that, until you tell your neighbors, and at the same time being durable and be responsible. You know, we really want to have a homeowner be educated, at least. That's what I feel. That's my important task is to educate homeowners on the things like, recently, I remember being in your showroom, and we went through, and you actually shared with me it was a, there was a porcelain plank tile that was, you know, and you talked about the fact that it could be in the family room, and then we could take it straight outside, which meant that it was durable and that it was fine in inclement weather and and different things like that. And that's exciting to me, because, you know,

Dave Daskal 6:27
and that's simply, it's very simple, because the manufacturers of the materials are it's broken down into three categories of finish, r9 which is pretty much indoors, R 10, which is indoor, outdoor, and our 11, which is outdoor, and very suitable for use around the pool. And even though an R 10 can go inside outside, anything you would read on, it says you really want to put an R 11 around the pool. So used to be used to take product A, inside, Product B, outside. Product B didn't look anything like product A, and now today, it's just you can flow the whole house. So

Debrae Little 7:05
it becomes very seamless. Yes, very seamless. And I think that most clients on high end, they want that sophistication, want, they want that they don't want it all so broken up and that. And I think that makes things flow, for sure,

Dave Daskal 7:19
especially in a market where you're indoor outdoor living, it's as important for the outdoor for the months, the nine months of the year where you can live outdoors in the three months of the year where you can't. But yeah, and especially the way some of these custom home builders and architects are coming up with these beautiful creations with big windows and everything flows. It's very, very critical that you can run the materials, both indoors and outdoors. Yeah,

Debrae Little 7:51
so I have a, I mean, I've got something else that's on my mind, but this is a question that was just raised by what you said. So in terms of the outdoor materials, and I know that they can run outside, but what does that actually mean? Does that mean that they're not subject to being discolored by the sun? Does it mean, you know, they're rain proof or moisture? What does that actually mean?

Dave Daskal 8:14
So, pretty much porcelain, which is the materials we're talking about, they're impervious to weather. They're impervious to sun. Fade for the most part. The the use of the outdoor goes back to the three factor rating that we had mentioned earlier, for you know, the tile and its ability to what's measuring up to what's called DC, O, F, slip, coefficient of friction. There's an American Standard. There's a European standard. Both standards are very close to each other. They're measured slightly different, but that is specifically what would separate an indoor tile from an outdoor tile,

Debrae Little 9:03
I see, is that particular rating. So one more point on that, does, what does that do in terms of, say, like fire? You know, if that was to use California recently, had all of those fires do, does it? Is it impervious to fall porcelain? Is it impervious to fire? It

Dave Daskal 9:19
is, yeah. I see, yeah, it's impervious to pretty much, and absorbing most all moisture. Definitely impervious to flame. It's got a great flame resistance. There's a whole bunch of testing statistics that are out that are printed for every from every manufacturer. But again, besides, you know, it gets too much into technical detail where the designer and the consumer are just really interested in the esthetics and are relying on their suppliers to know what's right and what's right for which area

Debrae Little 9:56
I agree. I think, too. I think I am. Working, and I'm hypnotized by those features again, you know, the way it looks, the way it feels, and the mood that it creates in the room I'm designing. And I think I spend less time thinking about the ratings, but I rely on people like yourself to inform me so that I can pass that information on to the client. I mean, I pride myself on trying to have the most current information and be up to date and know what they should be aware of to avoid any kind of pitfalls that they might find AND or OR experience once the house is designed. But what are some of the most exciting trends that you're seeing in luxury tile and slab designs right now? All

Dave Daskal 10:38
right, so I am local to this market I serve with one market that's Southern Nevada. It does take me into southern Utah and into little bit into California and Arizona, but for the most part, going back 345, years ago, when desert modern became the thing you were dealing with it the cool side of the color palette, and you were dealing with very monochromatic effect on the material. Now we're getting a little bit more back into the organic and the warm side of the palette, and some slight movements Biophilia. Biophilia would be, you know, the the melding of the individual to the environment, and that's where a lot of the trends are coming from, the Italians and the Spaniards and the Italians more so than Spaniards are coming up with some incredible designs on material these days.

Debrae Little 11:41
And you mentioned Italians. I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you why. I mean, are they the purveyors of porcelain, or they of marble, or they both, and tell, tell our listeners what porcelain actually

Dave Daskal 11:58
is. So Porcelain is all organic materials. It has no binders to it. It has no resins to it. It's green guard certified and totally recyclable if need be in it is very, very durable one, and that is really what most companies are offering to the marketplace now we we are very much skewed to Italian manufacturing, and at the same time, Spanish manufacturing, because they're the leaders in the EU, especially the Italians. There's material made from all over but without getting too technically involved here, the purity of the materials, where the raw materials come from, the machinery itself, and the continuing upgrade of the machinery, you put all those factors together, and you're finding them on the European continent, most, yeah. I mean, even outside of our industry, some of the best creative designs period are Italian, and that's why we gravitate to them, as do a lot of people, as do the consumer, as do the designer?

Debrae Little 13:26
We do, absolutely right. I was just, I'm glad you made it clear, because I kept thinking, Why? Why there? But now, how is that affecting you? Said the EU with this proposed tariffs, how is that going to affect the business, your business, or my business,

Dave Daskal 13:43
they, if they stay settled where they're at, not too much. I mean, the the duties are the duty, and that is on the specific product itself. And then the tariffs are just, you know, 15% right now on European there's still a little bit of confusion. If there's tariffs and duties assignable to a single product, or it's all been combined. Even my freight forwarders are confused with those kind of things. But you know, basically those are on cost, not on a cell. So, you know, somebody's adding what they're supposed to be adding just to cover the tariffs. It won't be bad, won't be bad at all. Okay.

Debrae Little 14:31
Well, that's reassuring. That's comforting. Because I thought it was just going to be sky high. And, you know, because you know, as you know, those costs are passed on to my clients. You know, if you have to deal with that, plus you're also, I was also thinking maybe things would be delayed. You know, if those who have maybe signed an agreement, or those countries that haven't, you know, are there, you know, products moving a little slower because they're waiting to see what's going to happen with the tariff. Or the percentage, or whatever it is. But I mean, that's like I said, That's reassuring to know that hopefully won't be a hold up like you can recall a few years back when we were experiencing covid and the supply chains kind of just dried up, and it was awful. So if we're not going to hear something, I look forward to something like that, I'll be extremely happy not to have that. Now, you were talked about there was a change in terms of being more organic or biophilic, and that kind of thing that's happening now. So are there any particular colors and textures that you're seeing that really are, like, you know, really capturing people? Stay with biophilic design. Green became very popular. I noticed in tiles and metallics and just about everything, is that still moving in that direction? Or are people buying less glass tiles? I mean, at one time it was, you know, glass was a biggie, you know. And then for a while, I think they even went to, well, wood, tile is still a biggie, right?

Dave Daskal 16:01
Glass is definitely decreased as part of my collections, as we're seeing less and less. I mean, glass would be a great backsplash at one point in time. It would be used as accents in bathrooms, but the most wide use of the area was pool liners, and now we're seeing porcelains, six pieces cut and easier to install. They have a better life expectancy than glass, which inherently because of the way they were mounted. Three, four years down the road, the pieces would start dislodging, you know, and then installers became frustrated because they would have to go back out and repair something on their dime that was typically not their responsibility, or they didn't cause it. So, you know, it's always hard to want to go back and do something for nothing when you're not the responsible party for what's going on, right?

Debrae Little 17:12
Tell me about and this is more product driven, because I'm going to use a product name. Tell me about decton. What is that? Actually

Dave Daskal 17:20
so decton is it's classified as a sintered stone. And decton and Neolith were the first two types of products to release to the market that used a new type of technology, and that technology in a very easy to understand version would be powders that would then be pressed, okay, and that pressure caused pressing, it caused a lot of pressure build up in the material. So, you know, but sintered stone is nothing more than porcelain fired at a different higher temperature, which is cause causes a molecular rearrangement, different than just porcelain tile. Okay, okay. And really, that's the difference. And now you've got everybody out there in the Italian, Italian producers, Spanish producers, USA producers, that are producing these 12 millimeter or six millimeter porcelain slabs, okay, under machinery that that's more advanced than Neolith and DEC time used at the beginning. They're seamless, so you have way less grout and water and grout are not friendly with each other, and that's where your maintenance would spike up years down the road is the acidity of the shower water, the acidity of the rain water would eat away at the cementation grouts now, yes, there are more advancements in grouts now. So the whole industry keeps getting more technically advanced and becomes an easier and easier and easier product to use in multiple locations.

Debrae Little 19:19
So then decton or knee lift. They're, they're still using a grout, but it's more of advanced. Is that what you're saying? Oh, well. Or is it just a complete slab? And there's end to end, you know? So

Dave Daskal 19:32
typically on a countertop 12 millimeter, and now there's 20 millimeter, which is three quarters of an inch, and half inch material. On the 12 millimeter, there's the area can be seamless. So in other words, no grout joints whatsoever. Okay, fabricated, installed. Boom, no grout joints. You know, on the showers, the panels at six millimeter are typically 40 to 48 inches in width. Yes, there are 60. Inch wide panels by 120 inches. But we're seeing a trend to 40 or 48 inches wide, 108 to 111 inches in length. So it's again, just a clean visual look, yeah,

Debrae Little 20:19
very contemporary, very, as you said, very seamless, very clean, correct? Yes, yeah. And I think that's the look that I find a lot of homeowners that have that modern esthetic they want, that they want everything to be same steam. I mean, seamless. It seems like these days, that's what I'm I'm hearing a lot from clients are asking for that. What are, what, what helps or what? What I say, well, well, how do clients typically decide on the right material for their projects? Are there particular features they should look for? What would be your advice

Dave Daskal 20:59
so that, for me, that is a two sided to a double edged sword. Almost 100% of our end user clientele are accompanied by designers in this town. And this town is amazing because you've got, you've got all the high end commercial firms out there designing public spaces for all over the world, and the talent is is incredible. And the same thing on the residential end is that a lot of the designers may have come from working for a commercial firm before they ventured out on their on their own. But you know, off the top of my head, we probably deal with a lot, and each individual designer, their reputations are stellar, their creativity is incredible, and their clients, almost 100% are relying on what the designer brings to the table on a storyboard for them. And pretty much it's okay, maybe I don't like this one piece of the puzzle, but when the designer puts the whole piece of the puzzle together, the work is absolutely incredible with what we see.

Debrae Little 22:18
Yeah. Well, having said that, what would be well, we talked, we kind of answered that question a little bit about what designers should be paying attention to, or what they should direct the homeowner in terms of like quality. We touched on durability a little bit Can you walk us through some of the materials that that you offer? Yeah,

Dave Daskal 22:45
so getting back to that original business plan of mine where we didn't want to be the 80% we wanted to be the 20% I'm constantly searching when I go overseas, for unique materials, some that are just arriving in the United States, some that aren't even here, and like we, we just work the program out with an Italian company that does digital designs, and they do them on aluminum panels. Now these panels are 50 inches wide. They're 108 to 111 inches long. It takes one guy to handle this stuff, you know, not a team of four, not a team of three, one. And then, with this specific company, their MOQ, which stands for minimum order quantity, is a single panel. If your client comes to you and says, I want a portrait of my family, you know, on a panel, can you do that? The answer is simply Yes. If you come to me and you say, look, I want to create what for this wine cellar, something that gives me that seller ish appearance. But you know, working with like real stone is not feasible because A, where it's going and B, the weight of the material, these can be quite recreated on these panels in a high gloss finish, in a matte finish, or in a 3d effect finish.

Debrae Little 24:28
So can they look like stone as well? So it seems like, just to recap everything here, it seems like the you know, it's just whatever you can imagine, can't be produced these days. It's exactly right, yeah, what about water jet marbles and things like that? Is, are you seeing any of that still? Are people?

Dave Daskal 24:50
Yeah, we're we swung the pendulum really hard to the porcelain side for the last few years. Now we're seeing the pendulum swinging. Back to the natural man, to the natural materials, the marbles, granite, water jet mosaics, have a place. They've always had a place.

Debrae Little 25:13
Here we go, what's the what's the most rewarding part of this industry? And that you find maybe it's, this is a personal question. Is it seeing the project come together? It's perhaps the reaction you have with the clients. What brings you the greatest amount of enjoyment and what you do on a day to day and

Dave Daskal 25:32
satisfaction? It's the conversation with the designer afterwards, after I hear back from the client, gets back to the designer, and just is absolutely head over heels, over everything. I love hearing that. I mean, you know, I've been doing this quite a long time, and I'm still doing it because I'm very passionate about what I do. You know, you asked me personally, I said, I'm not really worried about the income anymore. You know, I'm, I do it because I love doing this, and I'm the type of individual who will never be able to retire or sit still. So I'm gonna have one foot in the store until they're, you know, until both of my feet aren't working

Debrae Little 26:20
to the wheels fall off, as they say. Well, that's good to know. I think that we've touched bases on a lot of things that I think my my listeners would like to know, sustainability is always key, and that's important, and we talked a little bit about that. But are there products like just, I'm just going to throw this out there. What about things like bamboo is that, is that something that's still around? Is that a product that that's still being used? I mean, I was always thought that bamboo was so sustainable, so I'm just bringing that up in terms of what

Dave Daskal 26:53
it is, and I'll plead the fifth, because I am totally the tile guy. Okay, I don't sell hardwoods, I don't sell carpet, I don't sell laminates. I stick with what I know.

Debrae Little 27:06
Okay, fair enough. I just thought that maybe that bamboo was trying to weave itself back into the marketplace somehow in the form of a tile.

Dave Daskal 27:13
That's a good use of words, bamboo and weave. I like that. Yeah.

Debrae Little 27:20
Okay, we'd like to know how to reach out to you, to know exactly where you are, and I want to inspire those folks who are getting ready to start their own luxury project.

Dave Daskal 27:32
So we're known in Vegas as ESG gallery. We have a 9000 foot showroom. So there's if you're the type of person who needs to feel it, see it and touch it. We've got a whole selection of samples for tile, for glass, for specialty products like seaches. Alex Turco, technographic, oh, which was the ones that I was just describing a moment ago. And you know, we're, we're wholesale to the trade, but that doesn't mean you don't, you can't come in. We will always welcome you in. And we're located on Saab Avenue, which is addresses 5011 Saab, which is basically just north of the 215 south, right off of Decatur.

Debrae Little 28:25
Okay, so we know where to find you, and we didn't talk much about slabs, though, but I know I will say that I know you have a host of materials, and I've purchased them for many bathrooms and walls and various things, and so I know you have an ample supply of slabs. Is there any particular vendor that you find, I think, is it sapien stone? Is that one

Dave Daskal 28:47
that's one of the four we're handling? So just to clarify that we are not an importer, distributor of natural stone material. These are all sintered stone slabs, and we have an inventory of anywhere above 1000 in stock slabs at any given time. But Sabian stone, Atlas plan,

Debrae Little 29:14
we could be I could be there for hours. I could be there for hours. Well, that wraps up our conversation with David, Dave Dasco, and I hope you're feeling inspired to elevate your next project. Remember choosing the right surface isn't just about esthetics, it's about quality, longevity and sometimes making a sustainable choice. Thank you for joining us. Day Four, luxury living with Debre at 91.5k, U, N v, stay tuned for more episodes of lecture living with Debre on K, u n v, 91.5 every third Sunday at 930 in the morning. Thank

Dave Daskal 29:52
you. Thank you for having me. This was a this was a pleasure. You.

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