I’m in the midst of a Photoshop reinstall today, along with some other computer maintenance on my main editing computer, so I can’t share any portrait session sneak peeks in this blog post. And in the absence of a photography related post, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share our new kitchen, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. It was finished in late May of 2009 … it’s taken me this long to get around to posting some photographs on the blog!
It’s not that I think everyone out there is dying to know what my kitchen looks like, new or old. It’s just that our kitchen renovation was such an awesome experience, and we think the world of our builder, so I wanted to give him a little promotion for any of my clients and readers who might be in search of a builder. His name is Austin, and he is the genius behind New River Builders.
Our home was built in the early 1980′s, by my parents as a matter of fact. Yes, I grew up here. When my mother passed away about 7 years ago, my husband and I decided to renovate and move in. I’m very sentimental about my childhood home and I couldn’t stand the thought of giving it up. We loved the house, loved the neighborhood, loved Alpharetta … it just made sense to raise our family here. Of all the major renovations we did that year, the kitchen was not one of them … partly because we couldn’t decide what we wanted to do with it, and partly because we ran out of money.
Our kitchen was our least favorite part of the house in many ways. For the most part, it was just plain ugly. It had this beautiful but pain-in-the-you-know-what brick floor that was impossible to clean. It had old plywood cabinets and formica countertops. The layout, with the fridge sticking out in the middle of the room, was absurd. And like everything else in room, the appliances were 30 years old … it took 3 minutes to heat a can of soup in the microwave. At last in 2009, we came up with a plan for our kitchen that had us super excited. We interviewed and collected bids from 6 builders, and Austin was our choice.
Our plan would strip our kitchen down to bare sheet rock, down to the subfloor, and even down to the studs in some areas. We’d be moving plumbing and gas lines, widening doorways, tearing down the sheetrock ceiling. This was no small project. We had many friends warn us of the nightmare of a kitchen remodel. We would be without a stove, a sink, and all the other little conveniences for a matter of weeks. We set up a makeshift kitchen in our dining room, with a borrowed microwave and a toaster as our only appliances. Our spare fridge in the garage held our food. We killed many trees in those weeks, living off paper plates and paper towels. We ate more pizza than any human should.
But even with all that, it wasn’t a nightmare in the least. Austin was just fantastic to work with. He listened to all our ideas, and came up with many creative ones of his own, yet still in keeping with our vision for the space. We hit a few hiccups along the way … that is bound to happen in a 30 year old home … and Austin was right there with realistic answers and solutions. He had amazing attention to detail, and knew how to give us the best possible quality within our budget. Seeing our new space emerge day by day was so much fun.
Our old kitchen had no pantry, and no food storage whatsoever. Austin and his cabinet makers built us this custom 7+ foot armoire which now serves perfectly as our pantry.
It’s been 9 months since we ate our first meal in our new kitchen, and we love it even more today. It’s helped me even fall in love with my home all over again. I love sitting at our island with my morning coffee. I love watching my children do their homework at the kitchen table, and I love cooking dinner with my husband. (I even love our stainless steel appliances, now that I learned the secret to keeping them clean!! … baby oil!) The kitchen is truly the heart of a home, and I look at our kitchen as the backdrop of our everyday life. It’s just the backdrop I’d choose for these memories.
If you are in the Atlanta area and looking for a builder for your home renovation project, I hope you’ll give Austin a shout! He’s the best!
by Shannon Holden {Alpharetta Baby and Child Photographer}
1 comment
Erin - Love the new kitchen! It’s beautiful! Good choice keeping the gas range…i miss mine.