We always say we are telling the story of home. A home that reflects your day to day life, your style and taste and one that will stand whatever life can throw at you. Have we ever got a story for you. For all of us. Because, for most of us, March 2020 brought some kind of change. Two months later and we are all starting to wonder if it is an irrevocable change. Will kids go back to school? Will we take vacations and daytrips and go out to eat on a Saturday night without a second thought? Will people ever realize that we know you are not wearing real pants during that Zoom meeting?

I joke but the way the world has changed is very real. Our current reality is that most people are staying close to home these days and that has affected most of our society. Companies are learning how to do business in ways they never expected, forcing creativity and ingenuity.  Now company owners have the choice: adapt or quit. After 40 years, we don’t quit. And, we have always been creative.  It’s kind of our thing. Running ads about how we are here for you no longer feel genuine, so we thought perhaps reality was a better route to go. Let’s talk real. Read on and we will tell you what it was like to design in 2020.

In February, we received a call from a local client, one we have worked with before. They had decided to redo their kitchen. There were rumblings about some sort of illness taking place over seas but to be honest, most of us are so used to random news popping up and are pretty sure it doesn’t affect us – if it is even a real thing.  An hour later, or maybe two as we really like the family and talk about all kinds of things besides kitchen remodels, such as what are they cooking and who is taking what vacation and what restaurants have they tried and oh! A NEW PUPPY!  Because, that is how we design. We know, design isn’t supposed to be about puppies and food but when you work with someone- in. their. home.- you have a relationship. So, we talked. And, let me tell you: this remodel was going to be GORGEOUS. The family had lived in the home for about two years, dealing with a kitchen that was not their taste nor did it meet their lifestyle. Two active boys, local businesses that are part of the community, pets, vacations, parties – they needed a kitchen that could meet their needs. Someplace to talk over crepes (their 12 year old son cooks! look out, ladies in the future! Crepes!) and homework (who knew how important that was about to be) and host parties to talk about how to grow our community. This family is fabulous and they needed a kitchen to match. See, I get excited when I talk about WHY we design.

ANYWAY! We met, we talked about what this space could be. We talked about colors and patterns and using the space better. And, off we were running. Now, when we do a design, whether it be a new living room design or a remodel or even a new build design, we have a process. We take time to pick put each and every detail. We make sure it is in stock , we line up our budget and we line up our team. There is usually a day where all of the crews come in and measure. We try to do this in a day or two because we do not want your home torn up or your life to be inconvinienced. Its crazy but we can’t tell you anything about realistic concept or budget until these guys come in. In early march, we had our day of measuring. We had four seperate crews in the house for electrical, tile, carpentry and countertops. Where were we at in the world outside of design? Toilet paper shortages and hand sanitizer is in full demand. In fact, as I said, this client is so much fun, they made a cake out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer for any one who needed some. Seriously, there was a pink ribbon around it. Every single contractor laughed (and I think one or two took them up on the offer.) However, all systems were still go and we had a plan in place.

 

Once we have all the needed info such as how much tile to order and the exact granite needed, we place the orders.

Challenge#1 . Our first hiccup happened. The backsplash tile was no longer available. This beautiful tile that was a geometric pattern and multi-toned was out of stock. When we showed it to the client a few weeks prior, all was fine. Plenty was available. And then, it wasn’t. And, this happens. It is horrible and no fun to tell the client but it has happened before, it will happen again. It is our job to bring solutions to the table. We brought 4. Those four were after pounding the pavement for hours, calling all of our tile experts and sourcing through a lot of manufacturers. But, that one of the biggest reasons we are on the team – it is our opportunity to solve the problem and all you have to do is decide from the new (and pretty close ) options that we bring to you. Crisis #1 averted.

We are back on track.

Until we were not.

 

Challenge #2. Our carpenter, who is fabulously talented, has to reschedule due to a health concern with the contagiousness and possible ramifications for someone in his immediate family. As he is a longtime member of our team, of course family comes first. But, Argh! Remember, when you remodel anything, every piece has to be lined up. If something is backordered or one person is unable to make it, everything goes sideways. Quite often, that is what happens when a remodeling job takes longer or costs more than you expected. It is one. little. thing. So every other part of the job had to be realigned. Fortunately, we have a great team and while we yelled, “Time Out!” for a minute, it was more of a pause. Our client understood and once again trusted us to keep things on track . Fortunately, the small amount of carpentry that was needed could be done by another builder on our team and we were back in the game.

 

Challenge #3. We are back at the tile. Oh.My. Goodness. Companies are shutting down because of the virus. Our tile rep was fast to react and get the order in asap after helping us find a great alternative (remember challenge 1?) and then….radio silence. I get the call. Our rep says the order may or may not have gone through to the manufacturer but there is no way to know. It appears that we made it under the wire and the tile should be on a truck on the way to Charlotte. However, while this is VERY unlikely to happen in a renovation project: there is no way to know. No one to speak with. It is literally a wait and see. This may or may not have been when a few bad words came out of my mouth. I may or may not have hidden in my studio with one or two pints of ice cream. I am not telling anyone for sure. (Rocky road and mint chocolate chip.) Then, full of sugar and chocolate, we had the conversation with the homeowner. Again. And….

We are ready to roll. After the hard talk about our options and recommendations with our clients, they understand that their kitchen back splash may not be here immediately but thanks to our crew, they will have everything but. Since everything else is ready to go and since they are not allowed to have a house full of people to see it anyway, we are going to move forward with the demo and install everything else. They will have drywall as a backsplash for a bit until the tile comes in. They know it will be correct in the end.

And, guess what? The tile makes it. It had made the truck on time and thank goodness the companies we order from are reputable and filled every order before they shut down. Every single order  made, packed and shipped working around the clock to keep their promises. So we could keep ours.

 

Challenge #4. The microwave stops working. This is not too horrible to solve. We task the client with buying a new one and he becomes the first curbside pick up at our local appliance store. Problem solved.

Challenge #5 . Hurry up and stop. The entire country comes to a halt on a Friday afternoon. North Carolina, Charlotte. Everywhere. There is uncertainty. There are kids home from school. There is fear. There is a need to do the right thing as companies and families and neighbors. But, what is that right thing? We have a demo day scheduled on monday. Followed by a heavy install week. Which means a lot of people in and out that while we know they are an amazing team, as I said, there is a lot of uncertainty. Monday morning comes around though and the decision is made to wait it out a bit. Since we do things in a ripple affect and we have not started demo yet, we decide to hit that pause button until everyone is more at ease and we have more information.

Now, you have to remember, a lot of our team is made of men and women who are counting on these jobs to take care of their families. So we paid them. It wasn’t a hard choice. They take care of us, we take care of them. (spoiler alert: when the time came, every single person was there and did a fantastic job creating a new kitchen for this family . We never doubted that they would.)

Challenge #6. Because, why not. Demo day. We tear all the old out. It goes smoothly. We make sure everything is clean and ready to roll for the next few days. When we demo, it is because we are ready to install. It is loud, it is fast, it is complete. Because the idea of being without my kitchen, living in chaos for 6 weeks, is not an option so why would we expect our clients to live like that?

Usually we are about 7-10 days of hard long days that are a result of weeks of planning . We had a few happy surprises, a big one being that the island was much easier to renovate then we expected and the floors underneath were immaculate! We will call that good karma. The granite goes in. And then- yep, you guessed it. We hit a snag. Because, like I said, why not? So we meet with the stone company, the carpenter and the tile company. After figuring out what the challenge was, these guys do a genius collaboration and in a few hours, it is now perfect. You cannot see everything that  is behind the wall or under the floor until you are in it. Anyone that tells you differently has never remodeled a home.  (Read: This is a normal for a remodel- you are retrofiting an existing house. You just need a strong player on your side to keep things moving forward correctly. We are lucky to have the best working with us. )

Challenge #7 Because we had to pivot on the granite, this pushed us back a bit on the backsplash. That backsplash has given us fits throughout! The honest truth is we were able to react within 3 days. We were 1 week behind schedule, we were on budget and we created something that gave a family a new space to spend their time. In the middle of a pandemic, a new kitchen was born.

 

The fact of this is that when you create a custom space, the unexpected happens. You can do your best to foresee it and use experience to overcome it. But, no one saw this challenge coming. The other fact is that it is not what someone does when everything is going right that tells you who they are. It is how they handle the unexpected, the challenges. Anyone can do easy. We are proud to be partners in a company that overcomes the hard. We are confident that we stand next to companies that do the hard stuff, well. And, this client and their kitchen will definitely hold a special place for us as we were able to give our clients an outstanding experience and the sense of a safe and beautiful home when the world is full of uncertainty.