I’m always on the lookout to find the next great Fine Homebuilding back cover. So when I get an email from one of my coworkers with “back cover?” in the subject line I can’t WAIT to see what it is. They’ve helped me find some really amazing projects but I was totally unprepared for the link our senior copy editor Chris Hoelck sent me. His one-line email read–“This is pretty cool.” I clicked on the link and thought “What the…!” Was that really the hull of a pirate ship sticking out from the top of a bedroom wall? What was going on here? Was this the master suite in some exclusive pirate-themed resort?
Yes, it was the hull of a pirate ship…and a rope bridge…and a crow’s nest…and a jail cell. But this pirate themed bedroom wasn’t the latest creation from the Imagineers at Disney. This incredible room “The Kuhl-est kid’s room ever!” belonged to one lucky six-year-old boy, the nephew of the designer of the room, Steve Kuhl.
Through emails and telephone conversations, I had the pleasure of getting to know Kuhl–who is, well, so cool. He’s been building, designing, creating, tinkering and exploring the design build field for a long time now. Or as he writes on his website “I began wrecking things at the age of three. By the time I was five I started to figure out how some of it went back together.” At age 11 he designed and built his first amazing kid’s room, an underground A-frame fort for himself and his friends. (You HAVE to visit his website and read the article in the July 5, 1982 Minnetonka Sailor. It’s incredible.). At age 17 he founded Kuhl’s Contracting, a painting and cedar roof restoration company still in business today.
In 1999 he and his business partner, Dan Murphy, started Kuhl Design + Build, specializing in large remodels and whole-house renovations. But the award-winning firm is never too busy to tackle even one-room remodels, like a six-year-old’s bedroom. And while they may never again be asked to create another pirate-themed bedroom, Kuhl and his associates stand firm in their belief that “an opportunity exists within every design to develop a unique solution.” I wonder what they’d do if they were asked to create a spaceship bedroom? I’m sure it would make for another great back cover.
Kudos to Steve and the coolest (Kuhl-est?) team at Kuhl Design + Build for their incredible vision and attention to detail.
And many thanks to Chris Hoelck for bringing this great project to my attention so I could share it with all of you.
Maureen
Photos courtesy of Steve Kuhl.
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