This happened more and more often so, in the late 1970s, Best Plumbing made its first foray into the showroom business — vignettes. These displays showed customers not only what Best had available in decorative plumbing fixtures, but how they would look in their homes. The showroom continued to evolve slowly over the years until 2001 when Kathy Lilleness and her husband, Bill Lilleness, bought the business from Kathy’s father, Spencer Bell.
“We took a good look at the showroom and saw that we were bringing in more decorative lines,” Kathy Lilleness says. “So we decided to take the plunge and really develop the showroom. We gutted it and took the next year to put it together. We brought in a retail professional to help design it, using her expertise for the floor plan for good traffic flow and how to attract the higher-end buyer.”