Recap of My Cali Trip With Zephyr

Our #nwdprojectsevenvotes with a Zephyr hood insert

Last fall I was invited by Zephyr, a leading maker of kitchen ventilation hoods and wine refrigerators, to spend a few days in San Francisco to visit their showroom and learn about their products. 

Oh there was more. We would stay at the beautiful Proper Hotel, designed by Kelly Wearstler aka design maven, tour select showrooms in the design district, attend the renown antique fair and spend a day touring a few wineries in Napa. Ummm yes freaking please! With that, I over-packed - because a girl needs options - and jetted my way to San Fran.

While I knew of a few of the other invited designers/bloggers from social media, we’d never met, so this would also be a time to connect with other creatives in real life, real time! No damn DMs.

After devouring every inch of Proper’s design details - Jesus it was sooo damn good! We all met for cocktails on the hotels rooftop restaurant..

So good to connect with these ladies. 

We then shuttled over in a party bus to have dinner at Ayesha Curry’s restaurant - International Smoke. 

Oh, the things you share with strangers when you have a cocktail or two!

Let’s just say, we shared a lot - makeup remover techniques, Doodle dogs, online dating and so much more...

The next day it was time to learn all things Zephyr and man the renovation geek in me soaked up all the details.

We learned what’s new: Black stainless steel hoods are here to stay. Oversized hoods like their new Titan With Power Wave, for a commercial look continue to be on trend. There are hoods for outdoor ventilation and that there's a new app to control the functions of their hoods including a reminder to clean your filters.

The innovator of cement countertops and so much more, Fu-Tung Cheng of Cheng Designs. He also designed a few range hoods for Zephyr. Yes that's my messy hair atop this leather chair. 

Love this seamless ceiling venting option for clients who want an unobstructed views!

But my most exciting offering from Zephyr is there expansion to wine and beverage coolers, the Presrv Collection.. This was especially thrilling for a wine head like moi with loads of clients now requesting dedicated wine rooms.

All the smiles because we all love wine!

The beauty of this trip was zephyrs commitment to introducing us to other local brands, all run by entrepreneurs like ourselves, who’d dared to dream and take a risk. We toured other showrooms including Nido Living, Coup D'Etat and Fire Clay. Since they’re now in the wine cooler game, we also visited two wineries in Napa Jospeh Phelps and Rutherford Wineries where we sampled amazing wine and learned a ton - including what type of glassware to use for whites versus reds.

As designers running small businesses, we spend so much time alone, honing our own craft that it can be lonely as hell. 

These sponsored events are an amazing blessing to shift us out of solitude for a few days, learn more about a product we already use to better serve our clients, and to meet and share new ideas with other creatives. Kudos again to Zephyr for bringing us all together to learn the details of a product we all use for our clients.