Ames Tile and Stone: Luxury on the Trade Show Floor

Ames Tile and Stone’s custom-built 20×20 display is one for the books and is one of our favourite projects to date. The top-notch quality of the finish really classed up the place, and the fact that it was their own tile was the giant cherry on top.

This display presented us with a few unique and weighty challenges. Ames wanted a 20ft wide by 12ft high back wall covered in their beautiful, albeit heavy, tile—7,000lbs worth of tile, to be exact. We achieved this by building the back wall structure of baltic birch, which we intended to be reused, and there were two significant tower structures on each end. Those in conjunction with a hidden foot kept the massively heavy wall in place. Next, we figured out how to lay another 10,000lbs of tile onto the raised subfloor without having it crack throughout the show. No small feat! We then finished it with an aluminum angle trim to give it a polished and permanent look. The corner walls were brought in from another job and repurposed, keeping them out of the landfill and saving the client a few bucks in the process.

Because the show was in Vancouver and we dwell here in Calgary, we needed to build part of the display and then ship it to Vancouver, where we finished building the structure on-site. We hurried our build so that the tile setters had the most amount of time possible to get their work done before the show opened.

Ames wanted to re-create the look of their storefront entrance while creating a modern living room feel inside the booth. They wanted an area for sitting, sections to showcase their specialty tile and stone, a space to highlight images on stand-offs, 3D lettering, and a custom hanging light piece.

With many high-end displays at this particular show, Ames Tile and Stone kept up with, if not surpassing their fancy competitors, and the show was an absolute success.