Joan started in the wallpaper and flooring industry in the late 70’s. Since then she has been in almost every aspect of the building and design industry. She has been on many build sites, both large and small, mainly in the residential sector.
In 2003 she started in the Plumbing industry with a large international corporation. She built and ran one of their showrooms. She discovered she loved the industry; there was so much to learn and it was so intricate. She enjoyed the challenge to learn as much as she could about plumbing and plumbing fixtures. She found it fascinating to troubleshoot for the plumbers and contractors who had issues with fixtures on their sites. She was dubbed the “plumbing fixture guru” by the plumbers who frequented her showroom and she benefitted from the expertise that she gained by solving their site problems.
There was one major shortcoming with the showroom she ran for the corporation. Like most showrooms in Vancouver, because of business alliances the corporation had developed, it was limited in the lines it could offer the homeowner. Therefore if the homeowner wanted, for example Toto toilets and Kohler sinks, they would have to visit two showrooms and the purchasing would have to be split between the showrooms. Often this lead to problems on the site, as no one person was in charge of the whole file, and there was no accountability for the product that was put on site.
Joan solved this problem by opening Just Add Water! in 2009. Just Add Water! is an independent showroom, offering the client and the contractors access to any line that is available in the Canadian Market. By doing so, the showroom is able to control the whole package on behalf of the homeowner, offering accountability and a much smaller chance of problems on the build site.
Just Add Water! is open to anyone in the market for plumbing fixtures; homeowners, contractors, designers, plumbers, architects. The staff also develop spec packages for projects. Most importantly, Joan still is thrilled to be challenged to solve site issues with regards to plumbing fixtures.
