Granville Stone & Hearth was thrilled to have been able to attend the North East Hardscape Expo in Providence, Rhode Island from March 13-14. This road trip helped us to gain some insight into new products for the upcoming year in patios and walkways. From current vendors to new and interesting products we may bring on in the coming year, this Expo had it all!
From the minute we walked in we were surrounded by new possibilities, as well as the vendors we already know and love. We loved seeing the Cambridge booth that showcased many of the new wall system colors as well as new paver sizes and colors, offering up lots of new options for your outdoor hardscapes.
We found our Granite supplier, talking about the Limestone products they will soon be offering to diversify the stone world, and caught up with Alliance who are also eager to share their products for the coming year. Including the G2 Supersand that has a rapid set time of only 15 minutes! A key player in the world of outdoor stone.
At this event we didn’t just get to see the products, we were able to watch a couple of portions of the Installer Championship! It was an intense event where 16 teams of installers went toe to toe in order to showcase their hardscaping skills. They competed first on the same patio design in heats of 4-6 teams, given an hour to complete a 12 x 12 patio with a sitting wall.
The winners who went on from these heats were able to compete with their own patio design to see who could produce the fastest, highest quality patio in under an hour and a half. I am not kidding when I say this was incredibly fast-paced and intense work! Truly an incredible event to watch.
We were also very happy to see some of our local landscape contractors attending the event! A couple that might be interested in competing in the challenge next year, maybe? Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Some of the products we saw beyond our vendor booths were fantastic water features, astounding outdoor speaker options, and tool vendors for hardscape, softscape, and rock work. Thanks to these incredible features of the Expo there are many new ideas in the works over here and we are looking forward to helping you incorporate them into the backyard of your dreams!
