Donna Bourget calls it “the touchy-feely room.” It’s the Idea Center at Bourget Innovations, a design and remodeling firm in Norcross, where potential clients can get a hands-on experience with cabinets, countertops and other design elements.
There’s a huge island comprised of various granite styles and colors, all finished with different types of edges. “Our clients can come in and put their hands all over the granite,” Bourget says. “They can see and feel it before they make a decision on what they want to actually put in their kitchen.”

These days, consumers are finding that it’s a lot easier to make home improvement choices—whether about appliances or floor materials, countertops or light fixtures—when they visit one of the growing number of elaborate showrooms that let them see and try before they buy.
Some retailers, like Expo Design Center, offer dozens of detailed kitchen and bath vignettes, while others display hundreds of product samples from which shoppers can make personal selections. In a new growing trend, appliance vendors are setting up working kitchens allowing browsers to test out ranges, ovens, dishwashers and refrigerators before they hand over the credit card to make a commitment to buy.

Besides the granite counter with all the different styles and colors, the floor at Bourget Innovations has eight different selections of wood, all grouped in big triangles so customers can see what a swath of floor would look like more easily than they could by looking at a single narrow plank. The walls have huge squares of paint so shoppers can see what a color really looks like more easily than with standard paint strips and color wheel palettes. There are Velcro strips attached to the painted walls so customers can mix and match various cabinet doors to see how they look against the different colors.

Sometimes shopping can be even more of a hands-on experience. A feuding couple was at odds over which type of stove to buy. She wanted a ceramic cooktop. He wanted gas. Armed with sauté pans and mushrooms, they headed to Insperience Studio for a cook-off.
The Buckhead showroom is one of the newest crops of “experience centers” popping up nationwide where shoppers can not only see and touch new appliances, but they can also take them for a test drive. No more wondering if your soufflé will fall in that new oven or if the dishwasher really cleans caked-on pasta sauce. These try-before-you-buy showrooms take the guesswork out of appliance shopping.
At Insperience, which showcases Whirlpool and KitchenAid appliances, there are seven fully functioning kitchens set up for consumers to explore. All the appliances—from the ovens and ranges to the dishwashers and refrigerators—work and are offered for explorations by appointment. One woman went in and actually baked a pound cake in order to make a final decision on the perfect stove.

The typical visit lasts two hours, says Insperience director Jan Walters, but demand has been so high that the time limit might eventually be shortened. Although shoppers are eager to visit, they can’t actually spend much money there. Except for a small retail store at the front of the studio that sells small appliances such as mixers and toaster ovens, the studio is not a major retail outlet. If consumers find something they like, they’re given the name of a dealer or distributor that sells that particular product.

“Our intent is not to sell, but to assist and aid the consumer directly. And from that we learn [what they want],” Walters says. In addition to the kitchen set-ups, there’s also a combination laundry and home office area called the Family Studio. Several people have stopped by—dirty laundry in hand—to take those washers and dryers for a spin.
Although their set-ups are not as elaborate, kitchen-themed centers such as Buckhead’s Dacor Atlanta Training Center and Showroom, and Viking Culinary Arts Center in midtown allow would-be consumers to take cooking classes and watch culinary demonstrations using the company’s products.

At HADCO’s appliance showroom in Suwanee, several working kitchens are set up to showcase the distributor’s line of products including Thermador, Bosch and Gaggenau. Customers have brought in sauce to test out how well a cooktop’s low simmer really works, and all the fixings for quesadillas to check out an oven’s griddle. Of the 150-plus appliances on display, more than one-third of them are plugged in and ready to go for consumers who want a hands-on shopping experience, says HADCO’s Sherri Derflinger.

“A lot of customers want to be able to come in and put their hands on something,” she says. “They want to see it, touch it and turn it on before they buy it.”
Don’t let the name fool you, but Buckhead Midtown Vacuum also has a working appliance showroom featuring everything from dishwashers to wine coolers. Its manufacturers include Miele, Asco, Wolf and Sub-Zero, among others.

One of the newest showrooms on the Atlanta scene is the Westye Group’s Sub-Zero/Wolf Showroom and Wolf Culinary Center. The 14,000-square- foot showroom features a live demonstration kitchen, wine storage gallery, laundry room, billiard room and an outdoor barbeque area. In addition, eight customized kitchen vignettes feature Sub-Zero built-in refrigeration and wine storage, Wolf cooking appliances, Asko dishwashers and laundry appliances, and Independent and Best range hoods.

Kitchen and bath vignettes—whether plugged in or not—make it easy for customers to see how products look in a real room. Although the company sells only cabinetry and countertops, Schuon Kitchen & Bath has 10 mock kitchens set up in its Roswell showroom. Even the offices that surround the displays showcase the company’s lines of cabinets (including Plain & Fancy, Mouser and Artcraft) and countertops (ranging from granite and marble to Corian and Silestone) are part of the company’s showroom.

Similarly, CSI Kitchen & Bath Studio—which sells cabinetry, appliances and countertops—devotes some 7,000 square feet of its Norcross showroom to primarily kitchen and some bath displays. The company carries Leicht, Jay Rambo and Schrock cabinetry, as well as appliances from manufacturers such as Bosch, Thermador and Miele, with a strong emphasis on contemporary products.

Three kitchens and three bathrooms are on display at the Home Rebuilders showroom in midtown, showcasing cabinetry, countertops, plumbing, lighting and dozens of lines of cabinet hardware from manufacturers like Soko, Pullware and Top Knobs.
For those who don’t want to meander through mazes of mini-kitchens and baths, there are plenty of area showrooms devoted to just one type of product. In sheer numbers, the showroom at G&L Marble in Buckhead has somewhere between 600 and 800 different products on display, including 140 colors of granite and 120 styles and colors of marble. There are a few installed presentations, such as the reception desk and a kitchenette, but the bulk of the showroom is a rainbow of natural stone samples, including granite, marble, slate, limestone and onyx, intended for everything from backsplashes to counters to flooring.

For those who want to see how everything pulls together, there’s the decorated Designer Dream Home inside the Carpets of Dalton campus in Dalton. The full-scale brick house—complete with landscaping and an outdoor putting green—is actually inside the company’s massive 400,000-square-foot main showroom. Everything in the home is labeled, so if shoppers like a carpet style, tile pattern or kitchen table, they can immediately find out what it is and where to buy it.
The Dream Home takes up just part of the showroom, which in itself is only one of several buildings that make up the Dalton campus. There’s one massive showroom filled with everything for floors—tile, hardwood, carpet, rugs and laminate—and one devoted strictly to outdoor living with patio furniture, fountains and outdoor kitchens.
Similarly, at RLS Construction’s new showroom, which opened in September, the goal was to put everything under one roof for the consumer’s convenience. There’s a fully functioning kitchen, bath and home theater, as well as a security system with cameras and high-tech gadgets such as an under-counter flat-panel TV and wireless keyboard. There are samples of everything from trim and windows to doors and tiles.

“We wanted to make it very simple for the homeowner,” says principal designer Jan Studdard, ASID. “We found we were sending people all over town to look at this, and it was too complicated. The traffic is a mess and people get frustrated. Our goal was to have all major decisions made in one appointment.”
And so, the success of showrooms has increased tremendously. The hands-on experience, ease of shopping and seemingly limitless choices all under one roof have made the showroom a welcome convenience for Atlanta’s homeowners.