“Don’t have someone else renovate your house. You definitely want to have Bevel.”
That’s what this homeowner said after finishing their project, and we don’t take it lightly. This kitchen renovation was about more than tile choices and appliance placement. It was about trust, creativity, and building a space that feels like home in every sense of the word.
When this family came to us, they had a list of functional needs, but more importantly, they had a desire for something that felt warm, welcoming, and totally unique to how they live.
We walked through multiple design iterations together, asked a lot of “what ifs,” and created custom solutions for their home, including:
• A 15-foot island designed for gathering and connection
• A drink station with a rinser and filtered water tap
• Tactile materials like wood and hand-glazed tile layered with intention
• Carefully thought-through walk paths for big gatherings and daily life
But what really stood out in this project wasn’t the finishes. It was the partnership.
From early conversations to unexpected zigzags in construction, the collaboration and communication stayed central. The clients felt seen, cared for, and heard, because that’s how we believe building should be.
“Every time I turn onto our street, I feel proud. There are all these basic homes, and then there’s ours. It looks different, and it’s because of Bevel.”
It’s not just about finishing the job. It’s about creating something that lasts, for you, your guests, and the next family who walks through the door.
Watch the video here and see more about this project through the link in our profile!
We couldn't be more proud of how this project turned out and with everyone who helped us make it come to life. From amazing clients to great subs and vendors, this was a fun one.
Let us help you discover what your home could be.
Two weeks in, and it is already moving.
The bergamot is up to about 18 inches across most of the meadow. You can start to see established clumps forming: lanceleaf, coneflower, switchgrass, all starting to take their shape. A mat of rye and oats is filling in across the floor of the meadow, which adds a lot of texture at this stage.
A couple of things showed up that we did not plant. Fleabane, a small white native flower, volunteered itself in. Pokeweed came up in the back. That is one of the more interesting things about planting a native meadow: once the conditions are right, plants find their way in on their own.
The flamethrower redbud is also starting its run. It opens in that deep, dark red, then moves through orange and into yellow before settling into green by midsummer. It is already starting to shift.
The sun and shade split in this space is becoming more visible too. The shaded back half is running heavier on goldenrod. The sunny front is where the black-eyed Susan and bergamot are really taking off.
We will check back in a couple of weeks.
Not all materials in a home are created equal, and the way we think about selection starts at the very bottom of the structure and works its way up.
The first tier is concrete and framing. These are things you install once and essentially never touch again. That is why we default to higher strength concrete with specific waterproofing and structural details, and why we frame exterior walls with two by six studs instead of two by four. The extra two inches gives you better insulation, more structural strength, and more room to work with. You are not going to tear that out and redo it, so it is worth doing right from the start.
The second tier includes floors, drywall, roofing, and siding. These will need to be replaced at some point in the life of the home. That is just reality. Because of that, there is sometimes a legitimate case for spending less here on the front end, as long as the homeowner understands the tradeoff and is making that choice intentionally rather than accidentally.
The third tier is things like cabinets, countertops, tile, and fixtures. These are the most likely to be changed out over the life of the house, whether because of wear or because tastes shift. We still try to make thoughtful selections here, but the philosophy is a little different. We are not trying to pick the most trendy finish. We are trying to pick something that functions well and holds up, so you are not replacing it in five years because the trend moved on.
The through line in all of it is understanding what you are buying and how long you expect it to last. That conversation is part of the process.
Three years ago we pulled all the grass out of this side of the yard and planted a native wildflower and grass meadow. This is what it looks like right now, just after we cut it all down.
Cutting it down mimics what would naturally reset a meadow: a graze, a burn, a hard frost. It clears the dead material and lets the new growth push through. You can already see wild bergamot, lanceleaf, black-eyed Susan, sunflower, goldenrod, and coneflower starting to come up. thing worth noting about this space: the front portion gets full sun almost all day, and the back stays pretty shaded. You can already see different species starting to sort themselves into each zone because of it. months from now this will be four to five feet tall. We will keep documenting it as it gets there. are native plants, so they are already adapted to this climate. Whether heat, drought, a cold snap, they handle it. We are not fighting the environment to keep this alive.It does not look manicured right now. But give it some time.
One of the most important questions we work through with homeowners has nothing to do with the house itself. It's about how long you plan to stay.
If you're thinking this is a one to three year situation, that changes the math significantly. Resale value matters more. The scope of what makes sense to invest is different. But once you get to four or five years and beyond, resale becomes a less important part of the decision. You're renovating for your life, not for the next buyer.
Nobody can predict the future perfectly, and that's okay. But even a rough sense of your timeline helps clarify what kind of renovation actually makes sense for where you are.
Here's the other thing worth saying: almost any property can be adapted to fit a family's needs. The house itself is rarely the limiting factor. It has been many different things before you lived in it, and it will be many different things after. The structure, the layout, the function, all of it can change.
The more important question is usually about the lot, the neighborhood, and the surrounding community. Those things are harder to change. If the location genuinely serves your family well, the house can almost always be made to work.
So when someone asks whether their home is worth renovating, that is usually where we start.
Before anything goes in, we make sure everything is protected and laid out correctly. The work that happens before the visible work is usually what determines how the visible work turns out.
One of the most common questions we get is some version of this: is this wall structural, and can we take it out?
The honest answer is that you can remove almost any wall in a house. You can remove all the exterior walls if you want to. The only requirement is that you have a plan to replace whatever that wall was doing structurally before you touch it.
Every wall that carries load has a path. That load travels down through the structure and eventually reaches the foundation. As long as you understand where that path runs and you replace it with something equivalent, the wall can come out.
Clayton has a background in mechanical engineering, which means he thinks about structural systems the way most builders do not. That matters here in Middle Tennessee, where the building has to handle real environmental loads. An F3 or F4 tornado in the summer and eight inches of snow in the winter are not hypothetical. They are actual forces the structure has to be designed to resist.
Every situation is different. The wall itself, the load it carries, and the best way to redirect that load all have to be evaluated on their own terms. But the starting answer to "can we take this out" is almost always yes, as long as the work is done with the right plan behind it.
When we pulled the siding off to prep for a herringbone brick detail on this commercial facade, we found nothing behind it.
There was just open space between the window jamb and the block. Any water that got behind that siding was going straight into the building.
Here's how we addressed it: spray foam to fill the void, caulk at every transition point, L-angle metal zip-taped to the block, flashing lapped and shingled so water moves down and out, waterproof paint on the block face, and caulk sealing the window frame to the metal.
One thing worth noting on spray foam: it works, but we don't love relying on it alone in a location you can't see or access later. It moves over time and it separates. So we layered it with caulk and metal to give the system some redundancy.
The herringbone pattern is going on top of all this. The whole building gets painted, and it'll look clean when it's done.
But the part that matters most is what's behind it.
What we wish more homeowners knew before starting a renovation
Most people’s reference point is social media or TV. They have clean job sites, fast timelines, and everything always goes according to plan.
But, that’s not real construction.
Renovation work is, by nature, a little messy and a little unpredictable. You open up a wall and find something unexpected. The weather doesn’t cooperate. A detail has to be redone to get it right. These things happen on every project.
But, the difference is how it’s handled.
We plan for those moments, and we build processes around them. And when something needs to be corrected, we take care of it and move forward.
Every renovation is custom, every house is different, and every project comes with its own set of challenges to solve.
The goal isn’t perfection at every step, it’s a finished home that’s built the right way.
This was after a full day working through design options with a client.
We were through a lot of different layouts, a lot of back and forth. We are trying to land on something that works across the board: function, cost, durability, schedule, and feel.
It usually takes a few passes to get it right, but it is always worth the planning on the front end!
