By Shelbi LeMeilleur
For the last 20 years or so, Lucy Deckard has been dreaming of a new kitchen. While the kitchen was already a little outdated when the family moved into the house in 2001, 20-plus years of wear and tear, in addition to the kids moving out, allowed Deckard and husband Terry Creasy to finally uncover the kitchen of their dreams with help from Stearns Design-Build.
“It was already pretty old when we moved in, and then our kids were little and we had lots of other things we needed to take care of, so I just lived with this kitchen,” explains Deckard. “It was one of those things that we just kept really putting off. Then finally our youngest finished college. We thought, ‘Ok, now we can do this.’” Deckard and Creasy enlisted the help of Stearns Design-Build to help with the overwhelming task of remodeling their kitchen.
“We are a design-build firm, so we start with the design process, and try to make sure we understand a couple of things,” says Hugh Stearns, president of Stearns Design-Build. “One, understand what the big picture of what the client wants to accomplish — why are they doing the project. And then we also want to understand their values. Every company says, ‘We deliver value.’ Well we understand that value doesn’t mean the same thing to every client. Then those big picture items, a good idea of those — we can begin to work on the details, how we are going to solve the issues they have and how we are going to create a design that reflects the character of their personality.”
Deckard worked with an in-house designer to fine tune ideas and concepts. She says the website Houzz was a big part of the process to find ideas and designs she liked to give the designer an idea of what was best to do in the space.
“It was almost like having a therapist looking at different things saying, ‘Ok, now this is what it seems like you like,’” Deckard says. “They walked me through the whole thing, then they started asking more detailed information.”
After the design process is complete, Stearns-Design Build utilizes what they call a job manager method.
“We have a job manager in charge of the job,” explains Stearns. “They are doing some of the work themselves, they are using some of our in-house labor, and we are also subcontracting some of the labor.”
For this particular project, it took about eight weeks to complete, but Stearns notes that it depends on the project. At the end of the eight weeks, Deckard and Creasy finally had their dream kitchen.
“It just turned out better than I expected — prettier than I expected,” she says.
Some of the most notable parts of the new kitchen include a new countertop, which Deckard says is tremendously easier to clean; custom cabinets that created more storage space and have pull out drawers; and her number one wish-list item: moving a partial wall.
“We had a partial wall that we wanted to move out,” Deckard says. “If we wanted to do dishes I was just facing a wall. I could lean over to try and watch the TV or see what was going on in the family room. … It was one of the things I really wanted and I’m happy I got that.”
As Stearns says, their goal is to deliver value to each client they serve, and they hit the mark for Deckard and Creasy.
“Any time you do any kind of updating your house, it’s going to be expensive,” Deckard says. “I think the thing is, you want to really think about, ‘Well where is it you are going to get the most payoff?’ and I think the kitchen — at least for us — is where we spend most of our time. It was worth it to me to put the money in the kitchen.”
