Remodel Memphis

One day, you might take a look around your house and realize that what you have isn’t quite right for your current lifestyle. When something needs to be changed, a number of highly qualified remodeling professionals are eager to help out with your next project. In the winter 2019 edition of REmodel Memphis, we take a look at some major kitchen renovations in East Memphis and a total farmhouse transformation in Arlington.

— Samuel X. Cicci

Chairman’s Message

By Hans Bauer

Chairman, Remodelers Council of West Tennessee Home Builders Association

Thank you for taking time to read this edition of Remodel Memphis; we hope you find this section to be interesting and informative.

Remodeling in America is a billion-dollar industry that not only creates thousands of good jobs across the country, but also allows families to stay in their homes even if their housing needs change. For example, after the kids have grown and left the nest and the parents are considering retirement, it may be that a large house with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms is no longer suitable. In these cases, it may be more convenient to convert a spare bedroom into a “man cave” or exercise room.

Often, as homeowners age, some may experience mobility issues which require changes to the design of the home.

While some homeowners might dream of retiring to a private tropical island, more and more are choosing to “age in place” and live independently, comfortably, and safely in their own home, regardless of age or ability. While that tropical island may be alluring initially, familiarity is important to many homeowners. All of the reasons they bought a home in the first place (things like proximity to doctors, shopping, and friends) don’t change.

As the baby boomer generation embraces this stage of life, many are searching for builders and remodelers who can help turn their home into a safer, more convenient place to live as they age.

Our local association, along with the National Association of Home Builders, has spent a considerable amount of time and effort training construction professionals in a program called Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS).

Remodeling professionals are helping people throughout our area find solutions that fit their specific needs and budget. Remodelers and builders are trained to accommodate the unique needs of aging adults without sacrificing the aesthetic value of the home.

While there are countless ways remodelers can help make your home work for you, some of the most common renovations include:

• Adding or enlarging rooms such as kitchens and baths

• Changing rooms that no longer serve their initial intended purpose
• Widening doorways and hallways
• Installing brighter lighting
• Adding railings or grab bars to prevent falls
• Changing floor coverings to add traction
• Installing ease-of-reach systems

Remodeling professionals also commit to attending continuing education programs, so they are always up-to-date on the latest aging-in-place technologies and strategies. Our association offers several new technology and product seminars throughout the year.

If you’re working with members of the WestTNHBA Remodeler’s Council, you can be confident that you’re getting the best quality service from a professional with integrity and expertise. If you’re planning to have work done on your home, we can provide helpful advice on the process, including pitfalls to avoid in the contract phase.

I invite you to visit us online at yourhomebuilders.org or contact our office at 901-756-4500 for a list of remodeling professionals.

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President’s Message

By Dave Tucker

President, West Tennessee Home Builders Association

We are grateful to Contemporary Media for producing this edition of Remodel Memphis. This special section in Memphis magazine was started last year as a way to show consumers that remodeling projects — large and small — can really change the appearance as well as the functionality of your home.

Remodeling has really become popular recently, especially with the increase in reality TV shows. I often hear coffee-shop chatter on the latest episode of Fixer Upper or Property Brothers.

It’s fun and inspiring to watch TV shows about home design and remodeling — everything from the latest looks in countertops to whole-house remodels. And YouTube and other online video sites are chock-full of helpful how-tos and demos to assist homeowners through countless do-it-yourself projects.

There are relatively simple home projects that can be completed by DIYers, such as hanging pictures, interior painting, caulking, and changing door knobs and cabinet pulls. Homeowners with the correct tools and a higher skill level should be able to tackle some aesthetic work such as installing crown molding.

It’s also important to know when to stop and hire a professional.

Remodelers can tell you lots of funny stories about siding installed upside down — and sometimes scary stories involving do-it-yourself electrical wiring gone awry. So before you buy the latest or trendiest gizmo for your home, ask yourself a few questions.

How much do you know?  Replacing the exhaust fan over your oven with a built-in microwave looks like a reasonably simple swap. But if you notice your kitchen lights are dimming when you zap your popcorn, you’ve probably forgotten that the microwave, unlike the exhaust fan, uses a lot more energy and likely needs a dedicated circuit. A remodeling professional knows that.

What if it doesn’t work? That YouTube do-it-yourself video may make a tilework project look doable, but will YouTube give you your money back if you don’t lay it straight? Professional remodelers may not know everything, but they do take responsibility for everything they do.

Are there any unintended consequences? In today’s increasingly efficient and more air-tight homes, it’s more and more important to look at the house as a system. Your new windows are keeping out drafts, but how are they affecting your home’s air quality once the “natural ventilation” of the leaky old ones is gone? Do you need to look at mechanical ventilation systems? If so, how big? A professional can tell you.

How do you know if it’s right for your home? A professional remodeler can advise you on products, finishes, and appliances that match your lifestyle, location, house size, and budget, and help you avoid spending money without a reasonable payback on either resource expense (energy and water, for example) or the sale of your home when you are ready to upsize or downsize.

And how do you find a professional remodeler? There’s a question with an easy answer. Contact the West Tennessee Home Builders Association at yourhomebuilders.org or by phone at 901-756-4500. You can also search the National Association of Home Builders’ Directory of Professional Remodelers, nahb.org/remodeler-directory, to find a remodeler with the experience, educational qualifications, and knowledge to do the job right — the first time.

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East Memphis Kitchen Project

by Samuel X. Cicci

What’s the most important part of the home? Some might point to the fulcrum of a house as the kitchen, a centrally located space where creativity and socialization flourish. For Amy Lawrence and Justin Fox Burks, the kitchen holds even more significance.

Lawrence and Burks, who co-authored the cookbooks The Chubby Vegetarian: 100 Inspired Recipes for the Modern Table and The Southern Vegetarian: 100 Down-Home Recipes for the Modern Table,spend a lot of time in the kitchen perfecting their recipes, creating content for The Chubby Vegetarian blog, and entertaining guests.

“We cook even more at home now, and we like sharing that with friends,” says Lawrence. “One of the biggest honors of being cookbook authors was when designer and gardening and lifestyle expert P. Allen Smith visited our home and cooked with us for his TV shows; having the space to do things like this has been a wonderful thing.”

This month marks 16 years living in the Colonial Acres neighborhood in East Memphis, and the couple decided they needed to put their own stamp on the property. “Our house was cute but a little plain when we purchased it in the early 2000s,” says Lawrence. “While it had promise, it didn’t function the way we needed it to.”

To lead the project, Burks turned to longtime associates Walker and George Uhlhorn. The brothers have been in business together since 2005 and come from a long line of homebuilders. “Justin and I are actually old family friends, and we somewhat grew up with one another,” says Walker Uhlhorn. “He had this idea that he wanted to do a kitchen project and outdoor kitchen, and we said we’d love to make his idea become a reality.”

Throughout the process, the brothers constantly brought new ideas to the table and were able to be flexible with Lawrence and Burks’ original vision for the project. “The overall experience with Walker, George, and their crew couldn’t have been better,” says Lawrence. “We all love getting to work together, and I know for a fact that the Uhlhorns treat everyone like friends. They are so creative and unfazed by anything that comes up during the process. They have a keen eye for design, and they make our ideas even better than we could have dreamed they would be.”

When it came to budgeting the project, Lawrence and Burks laid out all of their ideas ahead of time and adjusted accordingly. “First, we dream big,” says Lawrence. “Then we scale down but keep what we think is most important. We set a budget at the beginning but also allow some leeway for anything that may come up. Sometimes, we ask for budget ‘reality checks’ along the way so that we can plan.”

With the financial aspect clearly laid out, Lawrence and Burks bounced ideas off the Uhlhorn brothers and accumulated styles on Pinterest for their project. “We are both very visual in our thinking,” says Lawrence, “and even though there are some trends we like that we think will be classics, we also start out with a specific effect in mind for each room.”

For their part, the Uhlhorns say they always enjoy working with the couple. “We both have the same tastes and style, if you will,” says Uhlhorn. Whenever we’re doing these projects together, things just seem to click. We’re good at bouncing ideas off one another, and we brainstormed and came up with design ideas together on-site.”

For the dining room, the couple wanted a rustic, modern lodge-like feel. In the living room, they went with rafters to give “an airiness to the space with lots of light neutrals and open space.” The interior of the house, which is about 1,750 square feet, is accentuated with finishes and spaces Lawrence calls “unexpected.”

One unique touch came from carpenter Josh Wyatt. At Lawrence and Burks’ request, he converted an old table into a vent hood cover, built a rustic cabinet from scrap wood, and wrapped the laminated beam in red oak with the bark still attached. “It was wood from trees that grew on our family’s property in north Mississippi,” says Lawrence.

Throughout the house, the couple looked for interesting things to do with the ceiling. The kitchen has random-length 2x boards stained haint blue, the living room contains whitewashed rafters, while the dining room has silver wallpaper in an effort to imitate a tin ceiling. Meanwhile, one of their offices is even popcorn-textured and covered in naturally stained wood.

Despite the many renovations, the kitchen still stands out as the main feature of the project, with both indoor and outdoor components. “Before, it was your standard old galley kitchen,” says Uhlhorn. “We decided to open up the floorplan in order to make it into more of a break room area. He had an open concept that he wanted done, so that’s what we did on the inside.”

On the outdoor portion, the Uhlhorns cleared out the backyard and inserted a covered structure, seating, and a pizza oven. For Lawrence and Burks, who love to entertain guests, the dual kitchen aspect of the home is perfect for their lifestyle. “The outdoor kitchen is my favorite part of the project,” says Uhlhorn. “The thing I like best is that you could be sitting there at the countertop outside and watch him cook pizzas in the oven, and it’s just a great atmosphere.”

The indoor and outdoor remodels of the kitchen spaces each took several months. During the process, the couple continued to live at home and sought creative solutions to dining without use of a conventional kitchen. “We grilled out or made simple microwave meals while our kitchen was in progress,” says Lawrence. “We learned to be patient and to not worry so much about having everything perfect during the process.”

Now, with the kitchen wrapped up, there are no such issues. “It’s such a great space to come home to,” Lawrence says. “We hang out at home a lot and cook in the outdoor kitchen when the weather’s nice.” However, with another project completed, Lawrence and Burks are already looking toward their next change. “As soon as we finish one area of our house, we start dreaming about improving something else in it.” For their home, they’re looking to tackle the back of the house to turn it into a master suite. The couple also recently purchased a condo downtown for Burks to use as a base of operations for his photography business. If that property needs renovations, you can bet the Uhlhorn Brothers will be the first ones they’ll call.

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Arlington Farm Project

by Samuel X. Cicci

It's great to see how Memphis is growing, but sometimes it's nice to have a place away from all that noise. For this Remodel Memphis project, a place of peace and solitude can be found only 30 minutes from downtown, near Arlington. Originally just a barn, the real estate has been developed over the decades to become a serene vacation home. 

The original farmstead home, standing at around 1,000 square feet on a 100-acre property, has been in the homeowner's family since the 1970s, and has been host to family gatherings, staff parties, and weekend retreats. "We've owned the farm since 1979," the homeowner says. "We used it when our two daughters were young, and had horses, cows, chickens. I don't think I've bought an egg since 1979!" Her husband grew up on a farm and wanted his daughters to have the same experience. Recently, one daughter purchased the adjacent plot of land and suggested they fix up the old house. 

Rather than start anew, the homeowners wanted to keep the existing base and incorporate it into the new structure. They hired Don Conway as plan designer, and then contacted Keith Allen to handle the building. "Getting started, it was a little tedious to get the framing restructured with the existing home," Allen says. "But, once we got past that, then everything was very fluid." Allen maintains that being flexible during the process is a crucial aspect of being a custom homebuilder. "Things change on a regular basis. The vision that you start with may not necessarily be the vision that you end up with." 

In this case, however, the project continued to progress at a steady rate. The project took about a year to complete, with extensive work done to both the house and the larger property. Renovations wrapped up in mid-2018, with most of the process running smoothly. "They knew what they wanted, and they could make a decision on the spot, which makes my job a lot easier, says Allen. "With custom work, the owner can really see it all coming together and make modifications and changes on the fly. I think our personalities and our visions kind of blended together, and it turned out to be really enjoyable, probably one of my most enjoyable projects."

When the homeowners sat down initially, they were interested in a Colorado Rockies-esque lodge style. Rather than wholesale changes to the structure, most of the efforts focused on changing the finishes. After considering the various finishes, colors, and materials presented by interior designer Robin Selberg, the project over time evolved into more of a modern farmhouse. 

"Robin was fabulous," says the homeowner. "She knew we didn't want anything too high end, but comfortable, and she was able to get things right." 

The house quintupled in size to around 5,000 square feet by the time the project closed. Originally the house had a large central family room with a fireplace and vaulted ceiling, and that was the only thing left intact. Extra beams were put in to help tie the structure together, but everything else was built around it. The homeowners had the kitchen and upstairs bedroom taken out completely and changed the second floor into a space with extra bedrooms (including bunk beds for the grandkids), bathrooms for every room, and a game room. The new downstairs space includes two bedroom wings, new bathrooms, a new laundry area, and a dog wash for pets. Overall, the homeowner estimates the bedrooms can accommodate 20 overnight guests. 

While centered around the old space, the property is essentially a brand new house. To accentuate the interior, the family brought in pecky cypress and someone to give it a stain wash. "I think that little email right there, along with wide plank hardwood floors, really sets it all off," says Allen.

Outside, the team initially leaned toward using rustic cedar and dark colors, but eventually turned to a lighter, white exterior. Once the house was finished, extra work needed to be done around the farm. While the property did have a road leading up to the house, it required extra enhancement with new surfacing. Next came landscape work; a screened porch and another patio with a porch swing provide plenty of outdoor options. 

The farm also contains a lake. They redug it earlier this year, built a new dock, and then added bass and bluegill. So far, it's been the perfect spot for fly fishing. As the finishing touches to the property, they added an electronic gate at the front of the driveway and installed a horse arena. 

The farm is almost unrecognizable from its original location. "I hosted by Sunday school, and there were about 60 of us, and they were all blown away," the homeowner says. "They'd been to the house about 25 years ago, but couldn't believe the transformation." And, as if there weren't enough ways to entertain guests, the house even holds a Wurlitzer jukebox, which the kids use for dancing on a regular basis. 

With the project wrapped up, the homeowner sees the house a perfect centerpoint of the beautiful natural landscape. "You just go out there, and you enjoy it," she says. "At night you hear the bullfrogs and the foxes, and you can see the stars without all the lights of the city. It's just an incredible place."

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How to Live With Your Remodeling Project

Remodeling your home is uniquely different from building a new one. With remodeling, your home becomes the worksite. You live side by side with the project from start to finish. Once construction begins, you’ll probably long for simple pleasures like a dust-free home or a fully functioning kitchen or bath. But the end result will be well worth these inconveniences.

Here are some tips to help minimize the stress involved with a remodeling project.

Open the lines of communication.

Consistent and open communication between you and your remodeler will enhance your understanding of the project, provide an opportunity to exchange ideas, and ultimately help to make the experience a positive one for everyone involved.

Prepare for the pre-construction meeting. One way to ensure the success of your project is to plan for and actively participate in a pre-construction meeting. This allows your remodeler to clarify procedures and explain how the job will progress. It also offers both you and your remodeler an opportunity to prepare for those issues that may arise later. You should think of this meeting as a forum for all participants to define their expectations and agree on the anticipated outcome.

Prevent remodeling fever. The train-station atmosphere of a remodeling project can lead to remodeling fever. The main symptom of this temporary affliction is feeling a loss of control that results from disrupted routines and the impact on your personal space. The best way to prevent this fever is to prepare well, remember that “this too shall pass,” and focus on the progress being made.

Prepare for inconvenience. A remodeling project can turn your home and — on some days — your life upside down. A kitchen remodel will, of course, affect meal planning. But a little ingenuity and some culinary shortcuts can lessen the impact. Set up a temporary cooking quarters by moving the refrigerator, toaster oven, and microwave to another room. Arrange a dishwashing station in your laundry room. If the weather is warm, fire up the grill and dine alfresco.

Designate a safe haven. Find at least one place in your home where you can escape from the chaos and commotion.

Guard against dust. During a remodeling project, dust has the unfortunate tendency to appear everywhere from lampshades to plates stacked inside your kitchen cabinets.

Maintain a sense of humor. Remember that certain things are out of your control and it’s best to laugh rather than upset yourself about things like the weather or delayed delivery of materials.

See the remodeling process as an adventure. Tell the kids that you are “camping in” and transform inconvenience into fun. Along the way, celebrate as different stages of the project are completed.

This article has been reprinted with the permission of the National Association of Home Builders.