YORK, PA — From February 26-29th over 90 members of the Design Influencer Network, Designhounds, attended the Designhounds Changemakers Conference to kick off their visit to KBIS and Design + Construction Week a day early. The day was filled with creative inspiration and thought leadership sessions with peers and select sponsors, all focused on the theme: Dare.to.Design.

The conference started with a roundtable discussion between Designhounds founder, Veronika Miller, and sponsor executives:

●    Donille Perrone - Senior Brand Manager at Signature Kitchen Suite
●    Sarah Lograsso - Director, Marketing and Product Management at Westlake Royal Building Products, Stone and Roofing,
●    Martha Orellana - VP of Marketing and Sales at MrSteam
●    Jean-Jacques L’Henaff - VP for Design at Lixil Water Technology America

The discussion began with a surprise announcement: the sponsors had spontaneously pledged $2,500 each to Designhounds community member, Alyce Lopez, who had recently faced severe flood damage at her newly opened interior design showroom in San Diego, California. From record-breaking rainfall, the damage was not covered by Alyce’s insurance as it was considered “ground-up” water which would be potentially covered by flood insurance- something not generally required for the area.

“We soft-opened our shop in Coronado to the public on December 18th to celebrate the holidays and reopened in the new year while we wrapped up final touch-ups. On January 22nd, the unexpected storms in San Diego flooded our little shoppe,” said Alyce Lopez, owner of The True House Design. “Our small and mighty team rolled up our sleeves with Shop-Vacs, towels and a can-do attitude and cleaned up and packed up the shoppe. We were closed for 8 weeks while we ripped out our brand new floors, baseboards, drywall and door trims and molding. We spent a week running a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the space as quickly as possible. We are grateful for the community that rallied beside us with online orders and donations while we got back on our feet. We are currently wrapping up the final touches and hope to open in April.”

Below are the sponsoring companies who donated:

Westlake Royal Building Products
Interior & exterior products — Westlake offers a complete line of durable and low-maintenance exterior home products. Siding, roofing, stone, trim & moldings.

Mr. Steam
MrSteam manufactures state-of-the-art steam shower systems and steam shower accessories for residential and commercial steam bathing experiences.

Grohe
Grohe is a German plumbing fixtures manufacturer with luxury fittings for bathrooms and kitchens.

Signature Kitchen Suite (SKS)
Signature Kitchen Suite crafts built-in appliances, featuring leading-edge technology that provides more flexibility to prepare meals “True to Food.”

“I was made aware of Alyce’s situation and that her part of the country does not cover flood damage the day before the conference and spontaneously asked our sponsors for a commitment to support Alyce and all of them replied with an immediate ‘yes’” says Designhounds Founder, Veronika Miller. “In line with our “Dare.to.Design” theme and discussion on emotion/human-centric design, this was a serendipitous demonstration of when humanity supersedes corporate strategy. Sometimes business rationale gets set aside, and you just say yes- that’s where the real community is and I was proud to witness it.”