AI For Kitchen And Bath Designers: A Recap
This past week, [ Thursday, June 18th, 2026 ] I gave a presentation to the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of The National Kitchen And Bath Association and the wider Houston design community on The 5 Pain Points AI Solves For Kitchen And Bath Designers.
Hosted by Hilltop Stones and Interiors, the attendees were treated to a beautiful lunch and, afterwards, a showroom tour of Hilltop’s magnificent warehouse, filled with exotic stones and marbles from Italy and Brazil.
What a treasure trove for any kitchen and bath or interior designer! Some of you reading this may not know this, but I was an interior designer for 16 years of my life, in Houston, prior to starting my current business 24 years ago, and if I was still designing, Hilltop would definitely be my go to resource!
Just look at some of these beautiful stones I saw when I toured their enormous and spotlessly clean warehouse after the presentation was over. It always amazes me what Mother Earth produces.
Hilltop friends: when you see this post: thank you so much for the warm hospitality and for hosting us all so beautifully.
This event was arranged by the volunteer President of the Houston chapter of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, Rima Nasr, who worked so hard with me behind the scenes to make this happen for her chapter’s members.
Rima: thank you for your incredible attention to detail on all of my requests. Your members owe you a BIG thank you for the amazing job you’ve done, and are doing, in leading this chapter.
This is Rima below, in the blue, with the team from Hilltop, including Victoria and Veronica and Chetan Surti, VP of International Sales, myself and Agha Mo, the volunteer communications director for this chapter of the NKBA.
Agha created this wonderful video, below, that captured the day. Agha: thank you so much. Agha’s full time job is with Floor and Decor’s Houston location. He is their very successful business development manager.
Agha is also part of The Founders Circle, those 19 designers + himself who are providing feedback before the launch this fall of the agentic AI app I’m collaborating on with SHURU.
More on that towards the end of this post.
What makes me happiest is knowing I can help the students who attend my AI presentations. I received this wonderful video testimonial from one of them who was at this presentation. Phyo is an international student at Houston Community College.
I’ve been attending KBIS [ the National Kitchen and Bath Show ] for many years now, and speaking at it, too, including on the NEXT stage, but I’ve never before been an INDUSTRY PARTNER member of the NKBA.
I’m happy to say that’s no longer the case, and I’m delighted to be officially part of the NKBA community.
Rima is the one who’s been encouraging me to become an industry partner member and she helped to connect me, and I am grateful.
Earlier this month, I wrote this post about my educational and product development work in AI specifically within the kitchen and bath industry, specifically, over the past 3 years, for anyone that would like to take a deeper dive.
Many of the attendees didn’t know me at all, and so I shared this slide with them in the beginning of my presentation along with a link to this post about my work in AI and virtual metaverse activations over the past two decades:
https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog//artificial-intelligence-and-metaverse-activations-a-summary
I spent a few weeks of sleepless nights preparing for this presentation on how 5 specific AI tools can solve the most common pain points for kitchen and bath designers.
I didn’t think I was going to have to do as much preparation as I did, as I had just been hired to present a similar talk on AI to San Antonio’s ASID chapter for their Business Side Of Design conference in March, and thought I would be able to reuse a lot of the slides I’d created for that presentation, but AI is changing so fast that I had to create an almost entirely new presentation.
However, it was 100% worth it as I received some wonderful feedback afterwards. Knowing that I’m helping people learn about AI and the tools they can use to make their lives easier is one of my greatest joys.
Having been an interior designer [ who also designed a fair number of kitchens and baths for my clients ] for 16 years of my life, I know how much time it takes to manage all the moving pieces of a busy design career, and being able to share with everyone the 5 AI tools that instantly makes their lives easier and frees their time to focus on what they LOVE to do vs. have to do…makes me so happy.
Quite a few of the attendees shared nice comments on Instagram afterwards, and tagged me. The image below was one of the nice Instagram posts I was tagged in from Countertops by Traditional Designs.
At the end of my talks, I always encourage people to share any takeaways or images from my talks, so I can reshare them. I invite you to follow Traditional Designs here: https://www.instagram.com/countertopsbytdhouston/
or check them out on Facebook, here:
https://www.facebook.com/traditionaldesigns . Thank you, Traditional Designs!
A few other attendees created reels from my talk, and I was so appreciative of the time they took to do that.
See the reel below by Emine Canak, founder of EPlusInteriors in Houston:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZvPSaSx7sq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
and follow her here: https://www.instagram.com/eplusinteriors
See this reel by Veronica, who works at Hilltop:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZvcB06xKUd/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
and follow her here: https://www.instagram.com/vronica.veronica
Thank you both!
Having my very close friend, Peggy McGowen, CMKBD there - the founder of the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the NKBA and the former President of the National NBKA - was a real highlight for me.
Peggy’s daughter, Micqui, standing next to her in the black shirt, now owns the company Peggy founded, Kitchen and Bath Concepts. Micqui brought her whole team and I was so happy to have them all there.
Seeing one of my past clients at the presentation, interior designer Christina Rodriguez, who also lives in the small coastal town I do, League City, was wonderful. We hadn’t seen each other in quite a while. Christina owns Diva By Design Interiors and you can follow here on Instagram, here.
Christina had the brilliant idea [ I hope others copy it ] to leave a Google review for the sponsor, Hilltop Stones and Interiors.
As always, I also get to meet new people, and this time one of the people I met, Rachelle Mostofi, is the co-owner of a gorgeous showroom in the Decorative Center of Houston: AMODO European Collection, which I wasn’t familiar with before.
Rachelle and I had a big laugh in the bathroom before my presentation and, afterwards, she and a designer who works for her, Oudie [ please correct my spelling! ] shared this testimonial with Agha about my talk on AI.
Follow AMODO on Instagram here and check out their gorgeous!! offerings, including closet systems.
As everyone attending my presentation on AI found out, I’m collaborating with agentic AI app development company, SHURU, to develop an agentic AI app that will manage the entire back end operational workflow for kitchen and bath and interior designers.
We anticipate launching later this summer, with a major presentation launch event at Fall #HPMKT on Monday, Oct.19th from 8 am - 9:30 am in Celebration Hall, downstairs, at the American Home Furnishings Hall Of Fame at 311 S. Hamilton.
I’m very excited to have 19 well known designers, members of The Founders Circle, working with SHURU on providing feedback prior to the launch of the app so it will be useful as possible for all designers.
Our beta tester is kitchen and bath designer, Shea Pumarejo, who won the NKBA’s award at #KBIS2026 this year for *Best Overall Bath.” Below is an image of her bath that graced the March cover of KBB Magazine.
Below are the 19 designers and Agha, who are members of The Founders Circle. These 19 designers have signed a legal Letter Of Intent to subscribe to the app at launch, after viewing our preview presentation of the app at Spring High Point Market.
If you’re in Houston, ask Agha any questions you may have, if you know him, or email me directly at leslie@savourpartnership.com.
If you’re in another city reading this, please ask anyone you know, that you recognize in these images.
If you’re a Houston area designer, or a brand that wants to work with kitchen and bath designers, I encourage you to join or sponsor the Texas Gulf Coast chapter of the National Kitchen and Bath Association.
Find out more on their website here: https://texasgulfcoast-nkba.org/about.php and follow them on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/nkbatgcc .
Again: thank you to all of you. I am so appreciative. Your kind words re: what you learned meant the world to me.
Lastly, if any of you reading this would like to hire me to come to your event or tradeshow and speak about AI?
Please reach out to me at leslie@savourpartnership.com.
If you would like to be notified when we launch our agentic AI app? Please send me an email with LAUNCH in the subject line to leslie@savourpartnership.com.
With Gratitude
Leslie Carothers
Principal, Savour Partnership
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