Lewis Kitchen Reveal

I rarely share my design jobs on my blog. It’s one of those designer-client confidentiality things, I suppose. I don’t know why, but I feel like most of my work can be shared just fine with a few pictures on Facebook or Houzz.

At least once a year, I get to work with clients who end up becoming like family to me. More often than not, these are people I’ve never met before.

These are the special projects.. the ones I can’t just share pictures of.. because there’s a whole STORY behind the room.

Sometimes, there are surprising connections to my family or close friends that I never knew about. Like the fact that they are best friends with my mom’s cousin and his late wife {who devastatingly lost her battle with cancer last year}. The sweet soul who constantly mentioned to me multiple times about her nephew being president-elect of the NKBA.. and the one who brought me groceries when our two-year-old was born because he was so colicky that I could never leave the house.

So I get to meet one of her best friends, and I can see why they were close.

We spend hours together planning their project.  I take the time to get to know them, and we talk about what they want in their dream kitchen. {P.S. Let’s face it. The extra-special ones are always kitchen clients, somehow..}

We talk about how they use their space, and the special features that they would love to have.

After talking about the paper towel holder they wanted, I decided to give it a test-run in my own kitchen. Since it was the first time Big Valley Cabinets {and I} had ever done something like this, I wanted to make sure the towel holder would both fit and look nice. In this kitchen, we made a couple changes and the setup both looks and functions better for them.

Sometimes, there are unexpected changes to the design. We look at the empty space we had to leave above a hot water baseboard heat run.. and decide that “something” just has to be put there. So we re-vamp the design, and talk about what we can do, and we go back and forth until the perfect solution is reached:

When we’re all finished with the design, I send them the final rendering, we meet with the cabinet maker, and they say those 3 little words:

“Let’s do this.”

Then the real magic happens.

When the room is done and they see the final results after weeks, even MONTHS of waiting, we all breathe a sigh of relief. We smile, and just stare at the room for a while…. Then we talk about all the money and hard work it took to get there, and how it was totally worth it in the end.

Sigh.

Seriously.. I am so lucky.