It began with a hobby
In the garage on his days off Travis would pursue his interest in woodworking
It never fails. You’ve invited guests to your house for dinner and you spend all day cleaning and straightening each room in your house. And then the same thing happens: your guests spend the entire evening gathered only in the kitchen. Let’s face it: the kitchen is the true heart of the home. And your cabinets are the first element in that room guests will notice. So when it comes to designing or renovating/ redesigning your kitchen, you need to work with a cabinetmaker who will give you beautiful results at the best price. In other words, you need to go to Shelby, NC and visit Walker Woodworking.
Travis Walker, a paramedic at the time, began building cabinets and other pieces of furniture as a hobby in the 1990s. From an old oak tree on his family’s property, he built a china hutch and an entertainment center for his wife, Stacey, as well as a crib and changing table for their daughter. Every piece was made on Travis’ days off. Friends began to take notice.
His business began to take off once Travis began receiving requests for jobs. He incorporated his business in 1999, still working full-time as a paramedic, but everything changed once he displayed his work at the Southern Spring Home and Garden Show in Charlotte in 2001. “His phone started ringing nonstop for new business,” Stacey remembers. “In the summer of 2002 he quit his paramedic job to concentrate full time on Walker Woodworking.”
Walker Woodworking now employees 38 people and boasts an impressive 70,000 square foot shop, half of which is their award-winning showroom. (We have a 70,000 SQ ft shop and at a different location a 5000 SF showroom) It is very much a family business; wife Stacey now handles marketing for the company and their daughter Taylor, graduate from Appalachian State with a bachelor’s in interior design, works as one of the designers. The company’s focus is mainly on custom cabinets for kitchens and bathrooms but they’ve also built large conference tables and a few other unique furniture pieces and other custom jobs.
Walker Woodworking’s process is fairly straightforward. For remodeling jobs, the team typically visits the home, (Travis still does many of these), to evaluate the space and offer opinions and suggestions on design and space layout. If it’s a new home being built, the client will send the floor plans to the Walker Woodworking design team who starts building the layout. If all goes as planned, a customer can have beautifully designed custom cabinets in around eight to ten weeks.
In addition to their custom line, Walker Woodworking also offers three supplementary cabinetry lines desirable to customers who want finished cabinets in a speedier timeframe than Travis’ team can typically offer or for customers who want to stay within a certain budget. “Many clients would come to us, especially new construction, and we would do the kitchen and master bath cabinets, but they would get someone else to do the secondary areas to save money,” Stacey describes. “We now have the ability to install several different lines of cabinetry for one project. We can mix and match what works best for the client’s style and budget.”
It comes as no surprise that making their customers happy is a priority for the team at Walker Woodworking. They understand that cabinets are a critical design element in any remodel or new build and want to eliminate any stress to the homeowner by providing an exceptional experience. “We have our own install team, which is an advantage,” Stacey says. “And everyone communicates with each other. They know, understand, and respect how each team member prefers to work on a job.”
Before defaulting to the larger ‘big box’ stores, you should consider Walker Woodworking. Don’t let their Shelby address discourage you: it takes no longer to drive to Shelby than it does to the Lake Norman area and (bonus) you won’t be sitting in traffic. In fact, if you drive up after the morning rush or before evening traffic, it takes less than an hour. And because they have all of their products in their showroom, you can accomplish a great deal in one trip. “Other showrooms that don’t offer ‘real-time’ design can lead to multiple trips, making your project drag out for weeks,” Stacey explains.
With beautifully designed custom cabinets from Walker Woodworking, your kitchen can be the entertaining space you’ve always wanted but never knew you needed. The best part? You’ll never have to clean the rest of your house for guests again.
Walker Woodworking does charge a consulting fee, but they also offer a budget analysis which takes approximately two hours and can be an excellent tool to use when moving forward with a project. Browse our gallery to see some of the work we do.