The lab’s education facility is equpped with six dental chairs used during live patient courses.

Lecture and live patient courses are held at the laboratory’s Center for Exceptional Practices.

This set of entrance doors is also one of the lab’s vintage finds.

The lab’s interior features high ceilings, a cheerful color palette and an eclectic mix of artwork.

The employee lunchroom.

The lab’s front entrance.

Some of the laboratory’s employees pose on the stairs on the main production floor.

The sign hanging in the conference room was the exterior sign from the laboratory’s former facility in Garfield Heights, OH.

Lavicka (center) chats with Dr. Gregory Shelhouse (left) and Dr. Drew Shulman, attendees at a Clinical Excellence course presented this summer in partnership with The Paragon Program, a practice management company. The door behind them is another vintage f ind and the photograph on the wall is a close-up of Lavicka’s hands working on a bridge.

The rotunda area of The Center for Exceptional Practices is the perfect spot to hold dinners and other receptions during CE courses. The art on the wall—painted by Lavicka’s neighbor—depicts one of the many bridges in Prague and is of special significance since Lavicka’s parents were both born in the former Czechoslovakia.

This hallway leads to the lab’s production floor and shows two of the many vintage doors—found at an antique barn in New York—used throughout the laboratory to add interest and character.

The Center for Exceptional Practices, the lab’s education facility, has a 100-person lecture room and its own separate entrance.

The model and die area.

A brightly lit waiting room welcomes visitors, including patients who come in for custom shades.

John Lavicka and his son Drew’s dogs are also frequent visitors at the lab.

John Lavicka at his usual spot on the production floor where he spends a great deal of his time speaking with clients on the phone or working side by side with technicians. That’s Sweetie Pie, his Senegal Parrot, on his shoulder.

The main production area is designed to be open and airy with lots of natural light. The benches, which were custom-made by a cabinetmaker for the lab’s former facility, worked well in the new space with one exception: Lavicka had the top shelving cut off so as not to obstruct views out the windows.

Built in 2008, Dental Ceramics, Inc.’s full service facility is set on 10 acres. The lab was founded in 1963 by John Lavicka’s father, Charles; John took over as President in 1988 and his son, Drew, joined him as a partner in 2000.