design – Dark Horse Woodworks

Chris Dehmer elected President of Cabinet Makers Association Board

July 9, 2019 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

IMG_20190605_085045_01 Dark Horse Woodworks’ Chris Dehmer has been elected president of the Board of Directors of the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA), the industry group for professional cabinet makers and woodworkers in the United States and Canada.

Chris previously served as an at-large board member for two years and as vice-president for one year.

He joins newly elected vice-president James Fox, treasurer Matt Wehner and secretary Brian Clancy. Board members are Ken Kumph, outgoing president Leland Thomasset and former secretary Monika Soos.

“When I first became involved with the CMA in 2012, Dark Horse Woodworks was still fairly new,” Chris says. “In the beginning, I appreciated the impact of winning peer-judged awards for our work via the CMA’s annual Wood Diamond Awards. We were proud to be recognized for our work, but the awards were also a great marketing tool for us. It’s powerful for potential clients to see that you’re doing work that is honored by others in the industry.”

Chris soon took his involvement to a deeper level, attending events, participating in discussions on the online forum and eventually joining the board in 2016.

All-in

Owning a small business is challenging and time-consuming, and taking on outside commitments is no small thing.

But Chris sees the CMA time commitment and his growing leadership role as wise investments. In his inaugural “President’s Message” for the CMA’s quarterly magazine, PROfiles, he explains the value of being part of the community.

“My involvement with the CMA is the single best professional development opportunity I’ve ever encountered, and being on this board has changed me and my business forever,” he wrote. “When you start a business, it’s tempting to want to go it alone and to look at the others in your line of work as competition – even if they aren’t literally vying for the same customers, you may see them as competing against you for awards or respect or reputation. That’s not the way it works with the CMA. The best part of being in this group is the ability to draw on the knowledge of other members.”

The CMA also provided Chris with an opportunity to develop another set of skills: Public speaking and what many in the business world call “thought leadership.” He has spoken at national industry conferences and CMA events about his experiences as a business owner, craftsman and entrepreneur.

“It’s definitely rewarding to have started out as a novice and to have reached a point where I have knowledge to share with others who are just starting out or who may be changing gears,” he says. “I credit my CMA friends for helping me get to that point by sharing their hard-won expertise with me over the years, and I intend to keep paying it forward whenever I can.”

A renovation tale: The finish line (Part 3)

April 3, 2019 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

As promised, Dark Horse is happy to (at last) bring you the final installment of our “Professional cabinetmaker wrestles his own kitchen reno to the ground” story, complete with photos.

As mentioned in earlier posts, there are distinct pros and cons to doing your own kitchen overhaul.

The good news is that you’re likely to end up with exactly what you wanted, down to the smallest details.

The bad news? That might take a lot longer than you’d imagine.

When you’re spending most of your time working on projects for paying clients, it can really slow your progress to the finish line of your own kitchen. Just to be clear – for me, the finish line doesn’t mean you can put things in your cabinets or cook a meal in the kitchen. For me, it means every last detail is complete, and every aspect of the kitchen reno is so pristine that you’d feel at ease about bringing in a professional photographer to photograph the “After.”

After the bulk of the work was complete on my project, a handful of items lingered on the check list for months and kept me from declaring it finished.

Getting by with a little help from your friends

A major woodworking trade show was held in Atlanta last August, and my friends and fellow board members from the Cabinet Makers Association came to town.

I had the CMA crew over for dinner one night before the show got under way. Given that everyone knew about my reno, it was a great opportunity for them to see the mostly finished version. I planned to tell them about one of the lingering issues on my to-do list and get their advice: The wine fridge door wouldn’t open correctly.

It was hitting the divider to the right of it, and I hadn’t been able to figure out how to fix it.

Former CMA president Matt Krig came over first, and we looked at the problem door and talked through it; then board member James Fox arrived and joined the conversation. Eventually, Monika Soos and her husband Radu arrived, and I pointed out the problem to them.

“Why don’t you just reverse the door?” Radu asked.

Of course.

The very simplest and most obvious solution had never even crossed my mind – or occurred to the others as we stood around staring at the problem.

Sometimes you can’t get out of your own way.

(Thank God they came over.)

The details

Aside from those final tasks dragging on for longer than I’d have liked, I couldn’t be happier with the way the kitchen turned out.

It has the look and feel we were going for – a mix of modern and retro elements (you can read more about the thinking behind the design in this earlier installment).

The color scheme was an off-white that had a green tint with red and gray accents. Designers Christy Dillard and Heidi Pearce helped with the overall color schemes (including working around the red oven).

Here’s a rundown of the main features and details in the new kitchen:

The cabinets are transitional, somewhere between modern and Art Deco style, painted with a color called Tapestry Beige. The material is routed MDF.
The countertops are quartz.
The idea of having some glass-front cabinet doors was appealing, but that limits what you can store in those cabinets if you want to keep the overall look of your kitchen aesthetically pleasing. To steer clear of that limitation, we went with ribbed glass and put a panel painted the same color as the cabinets behind the glass on the upper cabinets.

The decision to use unusual/retro-style appliances was an important part of the design scheme. Viking offered a double oven in factory red – one of the two ovens has a traditional pull-down door and the other is a French-door style. The placement of the ovens in the corner of the kitchen is a bit unusual, but it’s very effective.
Unfortunately, we could not find a red retro refrigerator to match. Thanks to a brilliant suggestion from the staff at appliance dealer Howard Payne and Co., we found a stainless steel model and took it to an auto body shop where it was painted to match the ovens.
All appliances were made by Viking, with the exception of the wine fridge, which was made by Jenn-Air.
The Blum Servo Drive touch-to-open system (a last-minute addition to the budget that was well worth it) is a favorite feature. Only two things in the kitchen require opening: the dishwasher and the wine fridge. In addition to the convenience of the touch-to-open system, the lack of hardware also makes for clean lines.
The backsplash was created from made-to-order tiles in shades of brown, cream and pale green.
The pendant lights came from Etsy.
The flooring is porcelain tile.
There are some other cool features scattered through the kitchen, including a roll-out pantry and a deep drawer with inserts to corral long-handled kitchen utensils.

Where a desk used to sit in the old kitchen, you’ll now find the wine fridge (the one with the “problem” door), a cabinet to hide the microwave, toaster and coffee maker, and big, deep drawers (liquor bottles are tall, after all).
A 27-inch iMac is mounted in the corner cabinet, which makes it easy to look up/display recipes or stream movies/TV while cooking.

The reno didn’t increase the square footage of the kitchen, but taking the cabinets all the way up to the ceiling added a lot more storage. The adjacent laundry room also got an update with a new stacking washer-dryer set and new flooring to match the kitchen.

I also added a small, matching cabinet in the adjacent sitting room (which was converted from a sleeping porch during an earlier reno). This cabinet serves as a bar area and has extra storage.

The bottom line

So was it worth it to bring my work home, so to speak, and slog through all of the disruptions and delays?

Absolutely.

I spend my days giving my clients their dream kitchens, and it’s really satisfying to finally have a dream kitchen waiting at home.

~ Chris Dehmer

Postscript: Here’s a photo of the previous kitchen as a reminder of where we started. To see more “before” photos, read the first post in the series.

You really do get what you pay for

June 1, 2018 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

I recently had the eye-opening experience of seeing some high-end homes that had surprisingly low-end cabinetry. While many of the cabinets looked nice when you glanced at them with the doors shut, you only had to inspect them a bit more closely to figure out that the materials and construction were not exactly top-of-the-line.

Frankly, it was a shocker.

How did such shoddy work end up in such exclusive, expensive projects?

When you’re in a craft profession, this kind of thing can be frustrating.

We’re grateful to have gained the trust of clients who have hired us to create their dream kitchens and other projects; this is the project we call “The Walnut House.”

Knowledge matters

Coming across this less-than-impressive work in otherwise well-crafted, big-budget homes made me stop and think about how these decisions are made.

Do the homeowners just not worry about the details that make the difference between a high-quality project and a shoddy one? Or do they not know?

For those who are considering a remodel or new construction, I thought I’d pass along some insider perspective based on the Dark Horse approach to custom cabinetry.

First, it’s my experience that while clients know the big picture of what they want (style, color, etc.), they almost never tell you what they want when it comes to materials and construction.

For that reason (and many more), we have a spec sheet that we share with potential clients that outlines the type of materials we use. We’re careful to say, “This is what you’re getting.”

Our specs are identical 99 percent of the time; we never approach a potential job with the idea that we’ll customize our specs and use lower-quality, cheaper materials in order to give Dark Horse a better chance of winning a bid.

We’ve built our reputation on executing client projects the best way we know how, and in addition to the level of craftsmanship we offer, we make a point of seeking out the best products and materials available.

Here are a few examples:

Every cabinet box we build is two-sided, pre-finished and US-sourced.Why US-sourced? Once, we tried cheaper Chinese import plywood for some shop projects; when we cut the material, it smelled funny, and the sawdust from the cut was blue. Consistency in thickness is more critical than ever since we incorporated a CNC into our production – we have to tell the machine how thick the material is so that the joints come out tight. Domestic plywood tends to be much flatter – I’m not sure why this is but my guess is that it has something to do with the imported plywood sitting on a ship during transport.
To give you an idea of the difference in materials, the domestic plywood we use costs $65-70 a sheet; some companies use particleboard that costs $18 per sheet (similar to what you see in IKEA furniture).
We don’t use prefab drawers, and that makes a huge difference in both looks and function.
We also use Zero Edge banding on our cabinetry, which is more heat- and moisture-resistant than typical edge treatments. But that advantage comes at a price – 80 cents per foot instead of 2 cents per foot for traditional hot glue edge-banding.
We use soft-close doors, slides, etc. – in short, the best hardware we can buy. It costs a little more, but it’s worth it. (There’s a lot of cheap, shoddy hardware out there.)

Here’s an in-process photo showing the kind of 3/4-inch prefinished plywood cabinet box construction that goes into all of our projects; this happens to be my own kitchen, which my wife and I decided to renovate last year. (There’s no top because this is a sink cabinet.)

What’s the lesson you can take away from this insider view?

You get what you pay for.

A company with a solid reputation and happy customers obviously excels at the craft of cabinet-making, but that company also begins with high-quality materials, and those materials cost more. (I have yet to find a magical source of stellar materials at bargain basement prices, but if you have any leads, I’d love to hear about them.)

Our Golden Rule

Some companies have the advantage of a showroom where clients can see examples of their work; that would be a great way to show our clients what quality materials and craftsmanship look like, but a showroom is not an option for Dark Horse.

So instead, we just try to emphasize to clients what we choose to use in our work and why we choose it.

And the “why” is simple – it’s the way I would want it done in my house. If I wouldn’t put it in mine, I won’t put it in yours.

~ Chris Dehmer

A renovation tale: Shoes for the cobbler’s children (Part 1)

February 9, 2018 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

In this modern version, I’m the cobbler, and it’s way past time for me to build a new kitchen at my house.

Our first kitchen reno – pre-Dark Horse

I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to build dream kitchens for clients year after year and not want to create your version of the ideal kitchen.

Long ago, about six years before chucking my day job and starting Dark Horse, I renovated our kitchen on my own. When we’d moved into our Craftsman-style house, the kitchen was tiny, maybe 10×10. It had a sink and a refrigerator, and that was it. The original giant cast iron sink was rusted and not very practical. The metal cabinets were not deep enough to hold modern dinner plates, and there was no stove or oven.

When we first bought our house, this was the state of affairs in the kitchen.

And another view; this kitchen is a cabinetmaker’s nightmare.

The renovation I did as an amateur with some solid skills was fine – and it was certainly a huge step up from what we started with. The style we went with then was traditional, and the kitchen has served us well.

But about three years ago, I reached the point where I had to do something with all of that inspiration I’d been getting from my Dark Horse work. While there was nothing wrong with our kitchen, it was not what I’d call “awesome” – and I wanted to come home to a truly awesome kitchen.

My wife and I were on the same page, and the decision was made.

Getting started

There’s no doubt that there are advantages to being a professional when you’re doing a personal kitchen reno project. But I’ve learned firsthand that there are some hurdles you can’t escape whether you’re an amateur or a pro, and other things that become more complex because you do this stuff for a living.

For instance, I quickly figured out that when the goal is agreeing on a design and making all the other decisions that have to be made, having professional expertise in the mix can complicate matters instead of speeding them along.

Most couples setting out on a renovation are starting from the same place, after all, learning as they go.

The unique challenge for my wife and me was the fact that we brought two very different perspectives and sets of experience to the table. Because I do this for a living, I have what is probably an excruciating amount of knowledge about everything that’s involved. On top of that, building kitchens for a living also means that I have strong preferences.

To sum up what I mean, picture this not-so-imaginary scene: My wife rolls her eyes as I explain why we must have XYZ feature/material/hardware in the new kitchen. Minutes later, I throw my hands up because she just doesn’t appreciate the great wisdom I’m bringing to the process. Repeat scene – many times.

Beyond the difference in perspectives, doing your own renovation also makes you appreciate the ease of working with clients on a kitchen that isn’t yours.

I have many conversations with clients about what their dream kitchens will look like, and I now recognize what a breeze this part of the process is for me. During the planning and design step, I get to lay out the options, explain the basics and then exit the process. The clients go away and hash things out, and we meet again to finalize everything.

When it’s your kitchen, you can’t step away from the process and let other people make the decisions. You have the same challenge as all of your clients who are doing a renovation with a partner: You have to work through it all with the other person, make a case for your (strong) preferences and end up as close to mutual satisfaction and civility as possible.

Another shot of the first kitchen I installed; it’s all gone now.

Desk area included in our original reno kitchen

Finding common ground

So how did we get through the decision-making phase?

My wife had been looking at a website called Houzz since we first started talking about the project three years ago.

In case you’re not familiar with Houzz, the short version is that it’s a website filled with home design ideas, photos of real-world, finished projects, vendor pages and a lot more. Dark Horse and pretty much any other company involved in building or renovating homes have a presence on Houzz because so many homeowners go there to search for ideas. Houzz turned out to be the main driver for my wife to figure out what she liked.

My past projects were a big source of inspiration for me, of course, and I knew from the start that I wanted to move away from the traditional look of our current kitchen. I liked some aspects of the modern kitchens that have become our specialty at Dark Horse.

At some point along the way, I spotted a kitchen I really liked in my wife’s saved projects on Houzz. I had never seen a style quite like it, and I’m sure that’s what caught my attention. By the time this kitchen entered the picture, we were on about version 6 of our project design attempts; the fact that we both liked this one was big, and we knew we needed to run with it.

There were still compromises to be made along the way, of course – for instance, my wife wanted painted cabinets, and I preferred wood grain. In this case, I decided not to push my preference since the overall design was something I liked.

Chance encounters

On top of the challenge of getting on the same design page, we also experienced another common renovation struggle: Getting to the starting line.

Building other people’s cabinetry for many hours a day can certainly take a toll on your personal renovation plans, and even the goal we’d picked as an incentive ended up being a convenient excuse to delay the project. When we’d decided to go forward with the reno three years ago, our goal was to have it completed before the Dark Horse holiday party that we host in early December every year.

But for the next couple of years, when work projects and personal obligations began to stack up in the months ahead of December, we’d throw in the towel. “Well,” one of us would say, “there’s no way we can get it done before the party now, so we might as well wait.”

In the end, it was a chance encounter that threw the switch on the project at last.

In January 2016, with the latest holiday party behind us and the renovation still not scheduled, I headed to a big industry show in Orlando. While I was checking out new hardware and other products for Dark Horse, I stumbled across some cool retro appliances, and they gave me a new shot of inspiration.

I came home and sent an email to a design team I know and asked them if what I had in mind was up their alley. They sent back an enthusiastic “yes,” and by the end of January, I had sent them a list of the appliances and other things we liked.

Full-steam ahead

By the end of February, the designers had sent us options for finishes, floor tiles, walls, backsplashes, etc.

The style we landed on doesn’t fit neatly into any of the usual categories, so maybe “eclectic” is the best way to describe it. There are modern elements, such as clean lines and minimal door hardware. The raised panels on the doors (kind of a reverse Shaker) give a nod to the Craftsman style of the house, and we added some retro touches via the appliances, tile floor, backsplash and reeded glass doors.

Once we hashed out the design particulars, the project fell into a good rhythm.

In March, we made final decisions on appliances, and by Memorial Day, I had begun building out the cabinetry. Around the first of August, the cabinets were done, and I decided to start demo the week of Labor Day. One of our dogs is petrified by loud noises, and we decided it would be better to have him out of the house; my wife and the dogs headed out of town to join family for a long-planned vacation, and I got ready to dismantle that kitchen I had labored over all those years before.

On HGTV shows, everything I’ve just described takes place in a span of days, not years, and “Demo Day” is a pretty exciting highlight for everyone, with homeowners and TV hosts alike bashing walls and ripping cabinets apart.

In order to keep some suspense and excitement going in my reno story, I’ll wrap up Chapter 1 (“before”) here and begin Chapter 2 (“during”) with the thrills of Demo Day; be sure to tune back in to find out what a Demo Day is like in the real world!

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Celebrating 10 years of Dark Horse Woodworks

January 11, 2018 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

I was tempted to keep this photo to myself, but decided I may as well put it out there, especially since fellow small business owners will relate: That first check was cause for celebration!

In the middle of the holidays, I realized that another important occasion had crept up on me: the 10th anniversary of Dark Horse Woodworks. Our first day of business was December 28, 2007, and like many of my fellow cabinet makers, our first place of business was my garage.

When you go out on an entrepreneurial limb, it’s both exciting and terrifying. Taking my sideline full-time was a risk and a leap of faith, and back then, I wouldn’t have dared think ahead to whether the company would still be around a decade later.

I’m very happy to be one of the people whose leap of faith paid off; big anniversaries like this one are nice because they make you stop long enough to look back and take stock.

A character-building experience

There’s no question that running your own business brings plenty of headaches, trial-and-error learning and moments of sheer panic. Even when your venture becomes a success, you go through times when you feel nostalgia for the days when your business was smaller and you had less on your plate.

Some days, success means keeping your sense of humor and perspective intact long enough to avoid crossing that dreaded boundary where the thing you love becomes the thing you dread.

Thankfully, along with all of the challenging times and learning curves, Dark Horse has also seen more than our fair share of high points – positive changes in the business itself, exciting honors and gratifying feedback for our work, and great relationships with peers in the industry.

Bigger space, bigger ideas and a bigger universe

Dark Horse Woodworks’ growing physical footprint may be the most obvious change we’ve seen in the past 10 years. Looking back, the thing that astounds me most is the fact that I built a few kitchens for people in my 400-square-foot garage. Now that I have 6,000 square feet (and wish I had even more), it just seems impossible.

Early garage shop days…

A tight squeeze.

Using every bit of space – vertically and horizontally.

Along with the increase in square footage, we’ve also expanded the technology we have on board, which has enabled us to expand the services and types of cabinetry we can offer. (We’ve written on the blog about our Zero-Edge technology and about the CNC router that we added just this past year.)

We also joined the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA), the association for professional cabinet makers and woodworkers in the United States and Canada. This turned out to be a huge decision for us; after all, at 10 years old, Dark Horse is still a newcomer compared to many CMA member shops that have been around for several decades. I always learn a lot thanks to the generosity of more experienced CMA members.

On top of the relationships and resources, we’ve also been recognized with multiple CMA “Wood Diamond” awards every year since we joined; being recognized this way by our peers is important validation that our work is hitting the highest marks.

Accepting one of our 1st-place Wood Diamond awards from CMA president Matt Krig in July 2017

A couple of years ago, I was honored to be elected to the board of the CMA, and I always enjoy being part of the regional events, shop tours and trade show activities. In March, I’ll be doing a presentation at the CMA’s 20th Anniversary conference in Denver, and this summer, I’ll be a CMA speaker at the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta. It’s a good feeling to have gone from being a novice in the cabinetry/small business world to having learned enough to be able to share some often hard-won lessons with others; starting and building Dark Horse has been a little like getting a 10-year business and entrepreneurship degree.

Teamwork

We would never have made it this far without clients, architects, designers and homebuilders who trusted us to team up with them on their projects.

I have some really great clients who have become great friends since we did their projects, and I’m especially appreciative of the folks who hired Dark Horse back in the early days before we had a track record.

And of course, I could never have made the business a success without the people who have worked for me over the course of our first 10 years; thank you for helping Dark Horse deliver quality and workmanship to each of our clients.

Icing on the cake

We would be bad marketers if we didn’t share the good news when our work gets coverage in the media, so if you follow our blog, you may have already read about some of these things.

But marketing aside, seeing your work in a publication or recognized in the community is pretty thrilling on a personal level, so I wanted to mention those kinds of high points in this anniversary post, too:

The Friar Tuck project was featured in a New York Times real estate story.
The Oakview home was featured in Dwell magazine magazine.
I was glancing at Dwell’s website one day and found more of our work in several of their online features.
Curbed Atlanta featured a home with a Dark Horse kitchen (created with Zero-Edge technology) in July.
Dark Horse was the cover story in the Winter 2017 issue of PROfiles, the CMA magazine.
The CMA invited us to participate in a video series in 2017 and gave me a chance to talk about how we got started, why I love what I do and some of the technology that is taking Dark Horse into the future. Feel free to check out the interview (it’s a bit over two minutes long).
Our work has also been included on the highly respected (and popular) Modern Atlanta home tour three times.

Thanks to everyone for your support and cheerleading; I’m looking forward to seeing what our next decade brings.

~ Chris Dehmer

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A lucky glimpse of our work on a “mid-century modern treasure”

August 18, 2017 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

Screen Shot 2017-08-18 at 4.46.51 PM For most of our projects, we create cabinetry for multiple rooms in a home, and we end up with extensive photos of the final “product” that we share in our gallery.

For a recent project, we worked on only one room, creating high-gloss kitchen cabinetry with the Zero-Edge technology we invested in last year. In this case, we did not do the installation, which is rare for us. Work is hopping, and I never followed up to get post-installation photos of the finished kitchen.

Screen Shot 2017-08-18 at 4.47.07 PM

Fortunately, this beautiful mid-century modern home went on the market not long ago, and it drew the attention of Curbed Atlanta, which featured the home in July (“In Druid Hills, midcentury modern treasure is ‘unadulterated’ for $799K”).

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It was great to see the finished kitchen, and thanks to the kindness of the staff at Domo Realty, which is handling the sale of the home, I’m able to share screenshots of the kitchen here.

A view of the kitchen from the dining room

If you enjoy mid-century modern, I highly recommend that you take a look at the Curbed Atlanta feature, as well as the Domo Realty listing for extensive photos of this distinctive home.

And the folks at Domo also passed on a compliment that we appreciated: The house is under contract, and they told us that the kitchen helped sell the house. We enjoy seeing all of our projects through from start to finish, and that kind of feedback is the icing on the cake.

Grateful: A quick look back at a year full of opportunity

January 3, 2017 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

NYT kitchen

It’s been another great year for Dark Horse, and none of it would have been possible without the faith that our clients place in us when they hire us to help build their dream projects.

Below are a few of the 2016 highlights we featured on our blog over the course of the year; click through to read more details about each story if you’d like.

Thanks to all of our clients, supporters and friends for sending us work and reading our stories over the past year: We wish you all a great 2017.

~Chris and the Dark Horse team

NYT kitchen

April 13, 2016

Dark Horse featured in the New York Times

Our work debuted in the New York Times in the spring!

The Friar Tuck house, a beautiful modern home renovation we worked on a few years back, was on the market, and the Times chose to feature it in its “What You Get” real estate series. Each story in the series features three properties of varying styles in different areas of the country that are for sale in the same price range.

In the story, “$1,800,000 Homes in Kentucky, Atlanta and New Mexico,” we were called out for the award-winning kitchen cabinetry in the home.

August 26, 2016

Chris Dehmer elected to Cabinet Makers Association Board of Directors

Chris was honored to be elected to the board of the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA), the association for professional cabinet makers and woodworkers in the United States and Canada.

“Being part of the CMA has given Dark Horse the opportunity to connect with and learn from many stellar wood-working businesses across the US and Canada,” Chris says.

September 1, 2016

Dark Horse wins 5 Awards from the Cabinet Makers Association

You can imagine how excited we were when the CMA recognized Dark Horse with four first-place Wood Diamond awards and one third-place award at the CMA awards ceremony in Atlanta this summer!

The Balmoral project

First place, Euro Kitchen under $25,000 category

The Wesley bar

First place, Residential Bar (European) under $25,000

The Olympic house

First place, European Library under $25,000

Third place, European kitchen under $25,000

The Stonehaven project

First place, Mudroom under $25,000

October 5, 2016

Seamless: Dark Horse acquires “Zero-Edge” capabilities

We’ve acquired the technology to produce cabinetry and furniture components with seamless edges. Zero-Edge Technology, as it’s usually called, is a game-changer for our company and the industry as a whole.

Dark Horse wins 5 Awards from the Cabinet Makers Association

September 1, 2016 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

BalmoralBarView In our relatively short history – Dark Horse was created in 2007 – we’ve had a lot of good news come down the pike.

If you follow our blog, you know that our work has ended up in Dwell magazine a few times; that homes we’ve worked on have been featured on Modern Atlanta tours; and that a home we worked on years ago was featured in the New York Times a few months back.

But there’s nothing quite like being singled out by our peers across the United States and Canada with Cabinet Makers Association (CMA) awards. We’ve been fortunate to win Wood Diamond awards every year since we joined; these honors means so much because we know that our fellow cabinet makers truly understand the time and attention to detail that goes into every one of our projects.

So you can imagine how excited we were when the CMA recognized Dark Horse with four first-place Wood Diamond awards and one third-place award at the CMA awards ceremony in Atlanta last week!

So what is a Wood Diamond Award?

The awards recognize cabinetry companies of all sizes in the United States and Canada for work submitted in 38 categories. This year the CMA added a third project budget classification to further narrow down the submissions by dollar amount. CMA members can now submit projects that fall into three project budget categories: Projects Under $25,000; $25,000 – $50,000 projects; and projects costing more than $50,000.

All judging is done by CMA members who did not submit any projects for consideration.

Hats off to our visionary clients and partners

Without design-savvy clients, designers, architects and all of the other talented people we partner with on projects, Dark Horse would not have award-worthy work, so we have to share our thanks for this year’s Wood Diamond projects; below are a few details about the work that was recognized.

The Balmoral project

First place, Euro Kitchen under $25,000 category

For the Balmoral project, we created a sleek kitchen featuring a bar area with suspended cabinetry above it. The kitchen island incorporates open, lighted wine storage, and we also created a hidden pantry.

Balmoral house

3 tips to take to heart before you start your dream project

August 18, 2016 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

We’ve put in a lot of time helping people make their dream homes – or dream renovations – a reality, and today I thought I’d throw out a few kernels of wisdom that may be helpful to people considering a dream project.

I’m not going to be the first or last person to share this advice, but I believe that some of these rules of thumb can’t be repeated enough.

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One of the dream projects we were honored to help bring to life

Please understand that the real world does not operate like the world of HGTV.

I can’t tell you how often those of us who do this for a living away from cameras run into the notion that miraculous things can be achieved in a week … or less.

If you want a great, lasting result, you should not suggest that your contractors do your renovation at warp (or TV show) speed.

Regarding your budget: Think ahead and make sure your early decisions/upgrades/changes don’t translate to scary shortcuts on the back end.

Sometimes, our involvement comes later in the process, and by that point, it’s not uncommon to find that clients’ budgets are shot. This can then lead them to decide that they’re going to go with cheaper cabinetry to make up the budget shortfall. We’re obviously biased about this, but we think it’s a bad idea to have to resort to low-end, non-custom cabinetry at the last minute, especially when the rest of your new home or renovation has gotten the high-end treatment.

Save yourself from these late-in-project dilemmas by making budget decisions all along the way that keep the entire project in mind.

3. No matter what time estimate you hear at the beginning, make a mental note that it will probably take double that amount of time. And I’m not sure doubling is even enough. You may have the very best contractors and specialists working on your project, but even then, things happen. Unpredictable things. Big things. Or a succession of small things. Or a mix of the two. Regardless, the more mentally and logistically prepared you are for these things to come along and delay the move to your dream home, the more sane you will be when move-in day actually arrives.

We hope these reminders are helpful and not daunting – we can tell you from experience that when you’re patient and committed to the project you’ve dreamed up, the outcome will be worth it.

~ Chris Dehmer and the Dark Horse team

Dark Horse featured in the New York Times

April 13, 2016 by darkhorse with 0 Comments

NYT kitchen.png

We’re happy to announce that our work debuted in the New York Times today!

The Friar Tuck house, a beautiful modern home renovation we worked on a few years back, is on the market, and the Times chose to feature it in its “What You Get” real estate series. Each story in the series features three properties of varying styles in different areas of the country that are for sale in the same price range.

In the story published today, “$1,800,000 Homes in Kentucky, Atlanta and New Mexico,” we were called out for the award-winning kitchen cabinetry in the home:

The kitchen has quartz countertops, a 16-foot-long island and stainless-steel appliances. The room’s rift-sawn oak cabinets have a single continuous grain across the doors. The work of Dark Horse Woodworks of Atlanta, the cabinets received an award from the Cabinet Makers Association. Off the kitchen, there’s a bar designed to be handy to the pool through sliding glass doors. Additionally, there’s a library, set off with pocket doors.

We created extensive cabinetry throughout the Friar Tuck home, including the bar referenced in the excerpt above, and the article called out some of that work as well (though without crediting Dark Horse specifically – hey, you can’t win ‘em all):

The master bedroom is outfitted with extensive ebony cabinetry, including a television cabinet above a gas fireplace and dressers in a closet. The bathroom has a vanity with double sinks and a quartz countertop, as well as a frameless glass shower.

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We hope you’ll check out the article as well as the slide show (just click past the photos of the first home to get to the Atlanta house photos). The photos include our kitchen cabinetry, the bar, and the shelving and a TV enclosure we built for the fireplace/living area.

Interested in seeing the rest of the Dark Horse creations not pictured in the NYT slide show? Check out our own coverage of the Friar Tuck project.

Links, all in one spot:

NYT article

NYT slide show

Friar Tuck on darkhorsewoodworks.com

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