I have to give my collegues and myself a good pat on the back. It's been a busy year for us at Henrybuilt and it's all starting to pan out:
First, the much anticipated launch of our new company Viola Park, which offers a kitchen system that shares much of the same sensibilities of Henrybuilt's at a mid-ranged price level. It's goal is to give all of us aspiring to Henrybuilt an option for a well-designed cabinetry system. At it's core is a fully standardized system that's versatile enough to fit most spaces and fit any look from traditional to modern minimalist with an equal level of functionality and refinement. Just like Henrybuilt, the quality is top notch, differing from Henrybuilt in material options and hardware finishes. However, it shares many of the same construction techniques and functional hardware. We're able to offer the system at a lower price by consolidating design assistance into an online interface that takes you through a few simple levels of questions to present a set of design options to fit your situation.
I personally had a hand in helping develop the cabinetry options, the website's design tools, and the aluminum pulls/handles that are Viola Park exclusives. So exciting to see it all come together after months of preparation! Expect to see much more for Viola Park!
The second bit of exciting news: Henrybuilt is featured in I.D. magazine's New and Notable edition! This is for a project I also had a role in ushering to reality: the Workspace Component Group. It's an integrated set of tools (cutting board, colander, and knife block) designed to integrate with our backsplash system and interface with the workzone around the sink. Hooray! This system was also recently nominated in the Interior Design Magazine products of the year, which has yet to reveal the finalists. Fingers crossed!
Several years ago I got pretty deep into collecting vintage audio equipment...it got pretty serious: stacks of classic receivers, turntables, and reel to reel tape decks. I have to say, there is a permanent soft-spot in my heart for sexy audio equipment. The past couple years I've kept my consumptive hi-fi habits at bay and purged a good deal of my stuff... clean and sober for a good 2 years I think.
At long last we get to our wrap up post on the latest greatest Brite event: Eat My Story.
Let me just start by saying this without a doubt this was most the delicious 
The results were amazingly beautiful and delicious as well as accurate at telling their corresponding stories. Here's the play-by-play of the day: 
It was a perfect pizza day at lovely Georgetown (south Seattle). Via Tribunali was the perfect spot for the event with lots of rustic charm and "little slice of Italy" feel. The space was perfect: a long communal table and plenty of room to make some mess.
As people began too arrive, the ingredients table turned into a cornucopia of amazing ingredients. Everything from heirloom tomatoes to grapes to pork belly to chocolate and everything in between.
Tricia handmade and illustrated these amazing peels for every pizza including cute drawings of each ingredient and the story of the pizza.
Once we were situated, Via Trib brought out the wine and a parade of their signature pies and anti-pasti plates. Leonardo, their GM (and a real Italian of course) introduced us to the history of the resturant, telling the colorful story only as a true Italian can with great expressive hand gestures. We learned how pizza began, it's importance to Italian culture, and how Via Trib's owners had a dream of bringing that to Seattle, decided to buy a defunct pizzeria in Naples, shipped it here, and started their very own Napolian pizzeria right here in Seattle. 
Everyone set out to work preparing their incredients and working out the details of their interpretations. There was a healthy buzz around the room as people shared their stories as well as their ingredients and offered eachother ideas and support. Go team! You could see the creative concoctions taking shape: 
Leonardo and his staff carefully showed us how work dough into a thin-crusted pie letting us try and succeed in some way, shape, or form in making our own vessels for our stories. 3 at a time we went to the dough station to try our hand at it and artfully arranging our ingredients.
Roughly 2 minutes after plunging each pizza into the via tribunali inferno, the group was blessed with steaming hot pizza...charred perfectly around the edges.
Triumphantly, the pizza makers would reenter the dining hall proudly presenting their creations. After a photo op, each pizza had it's story read aloud to the group then we dug in. 
It was amazing just how much more each story resonated after tasting the pizza and going through the whole ritual Tricia had orchestrated.
I've never tasted so many different types of pizzas in my life! I think everyone went home and took a pizza nap after the event, and some leftovers, too. 
Next post will have all the stories and the individual pizzas! 
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