Camden craftsman featured on national television, 'Kitchen Crashers'

Wed, 09/19/2012 - 12:00pm

Networking can be a funny thing. Sometimes people work hard to make connections that lead to successful partnerships and sometimes it just falls in their lap.  Brandon Kimble, a custom furniture/cabinet maker and owner of Brandon T. Kimble Designs in Camden, knows this well. He went from talking to his brother-in-law at a birthday party one day to appearing on televison on an Aug. 20 episode of "Kitchen Crashers," part of DIY Network's Blog Cabin series. Because his brother-in-law was a mutual friend of one of the contractors connected to the show, one thing led to another. The show Blog Cabin needed a custom cabinet maker for an upcoming episode featuring a Maine farmhouse in Waldoboro and Kimble was asked to run the install of the kitchen.

According to their website, Blog Cabin is "the groundbreaking multimedia experience based on a very simple idea: You Design It, We Build It, You Could Win It! This truly interactive series asks Internet users to vote on the design features for a real vacation getaway."

What this means is viewers and online followers get to choose every single element of a house that DIY Network fully renovates and one lucky winner gets to move into the finished home, completely free. In this case, the network purchased an old high-posted cape located in Waldoboro and has renovated every part of it for a 2012 giveaway. Along the way, six special epsiodes of the renovations will be broken down into sections inside and outside the house: Mega Dens, Bath Crashers, Yard Crashers, House Crashers, Kitchen Crashers and Desperate Landscapes.

Kimble's crew tackled the kitchen of the 3,000 square foot high posted cape, thus landed on Aug. 20 Kitchen Crashers episode. We checked in with him shortly after the episode aired.

Q: Who actually is responsible for pulling the kitchen's overall design together?

A: Victoria Lesser is the Interior Designer on the show. The viewers and online followers of Blog Cabin picked all the counter tops, fixtures, and whether there was going to be an island or a penisula--they chose an island. Online, they voted for everything wanted and that's what went in it.


Q: Did you like what they picked?

A: Yeah, thought it looked great! You can see everything that went into the kitchen on the website's Kitchen Tour.


Q: How long did your crew take to rebuild this entire kitchen?

A: They left us with just drywall and finished floors and we did it in three days. It was a long three days; we put in a lot of overtime just to get it done.

 

Q: What did you end up doing?

A: We did all the cabinets, all the countertops, the sink, the island, the wine rack, basically the entire kitchen.

 

Q: What was it like working with a TV crew shooting around you the entire time?

It was great--probably one of the best experiences I've ever had.  I've never had a TV crew filming me while I'm doing things; however, if that needs to start, I will do that.

 

Q: What's the response been?

Well, because the show was aired on the DIY channel and not HGTV (their big sister channel) most locals I've talked to still havent seen it. It will, however, air on the website shortly, so stay tuned. I was also approached to do two more episodes to do in Boston, but we'll see on that.

The DIY Network plans to give away the Maine 'Blog Cabin' valued at approximately $700,000. The final show airs at 9 p.m. Sept. 27 on the DIY Network. It can be seen again at 8 a.m. Sept. 28 on HGTV. To enter the sweepstakes to win the "Cabin" visit: http://www.diynetwork.com/diy-blog-cabin-2012-main/package/index.html

For more information on Brandon T. Kimble Designs visit: www.btkdesigns.com