By Keysha Drexel
Journal editor
What was supposed to be a minor renovation turned into a major reconstruction project for one Hoover homeowner.
But the resulting kitchen of her dreams was well worth the wait, said Beth Meadows of Bluff Park.
About a year ago, Meadows and her husband of almost 51 years, Bill, bought a one-story ranch style house on Park Avenue in the heart of Bluff Park with the intention of renovating it.
“We had lived in Old Weatherly in Pelham for 20 years, but my grandchildren live in Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook and I was spending most of my time on the road,” said Meadows, who is retired from Hoover High School where she taught English for 30 years.
Meadows had always loved the Bluff Park community and thought with a little work, the 1950s ranch-style house would be a great place to spend more time with her four grandchildren and her two grown sons.
“My husband is a builder and my son, Bill Jr., is a contractor, and we all thought we could take the existing house and make it our own with a little renovation,” Meadows said. “But as we got into the renovation project, we realized there were some major structural problems.”
Instead of looking at the problems as roadblocks, Meadows said the family forged ahead with a bold new plan for the property on Park Avenue.
“We wound up tearing the whole thing down and just starting from scratch,” Meadows said.
While many people would find a surprise rebuilding project like the one Meadows faced a bit daunting, the 73-year-old said she found the whole enterprise to be a fun experience.
Along with help from her husband and her son, Meadows enlisted one of her former students at Hoover High School to help her build her new home.
“Bruce McCloud is an architect and one of my former students,” Meadows said. “We had great fun working together to come up with just the right design.”
Meadows said she wanted the new home to have a cottage feel but at the same time have a fairly open floor plan.
“I wanted to have open spaces, plenty of places for people to gather, but I’m not really into that modern look, so Bruce helped me come up with a design that reminds me of a cottage,” she said.
And while she welcomed the advice of her family, friends and former students when it came to planning the new construction, Meadows said in the end she trusted her own judgment.
“I had people talking to me about resale value and things like that until I finally had to tell them that I will be in this house until I go to the old folks’ home or to the grave, so I’m going to make it how I want it to be and not worry about if it will sell well down the road.”
Just before the Fourth of July holiday, Meadows and her husband moved into the new, two-story house which boasts four bedrooms and two and half bathrooms.
“We were able to save the old hardwoods and match up the new hardwood floors with the ones from the old house and we were able to build on some of the existing foundation, but other than that, everything else in the house is completely new.”
And while Meadows said she loves the whole house, her favorite part of her new home is the kitchen.
“I love to cook and I love to cook a lot, so this kitchen is my favorite part of the new house,” she said. “It’s exactly the way I wanted it to be, and I love it.”
The spacious kitchen opens to the living room and boasts a large center island where three or more people can sit to enjoy breakfast or conversation with Meadows as she whips up her family’s favorite recipes.
The countertops and island feature white mountain marble from Vermont.
“I picked out that marble before I decided on anything else about the kitchen,” Meadows said. “I was warned that the marble would stain, and it was a little difficult to find enough matching pieces of the Vermont marble, which is a little less porous than other marbles, but it was well worth it because I just love it. I used the same marble in the bathrooms, too.”
The kitchen has a white subway tile backsplash and plenty of cabinets.
“I wanted a clean look for the cabinets. I didn’t want anything fussy-looking or too ornate,” Meadows said.
The walls in the kitchen are painted the same “agreeable gray” as the walls throughout the house, tying all the spaces together.
“I wanted something that was classic and would stand the test of time, and even though the walls are the same color throughout the first floor of the house, it’s amazing how different the color can look from room to room and at different times of the day,” Meadows said.
When it came to outfitting her new kitchen, Meadows said she knew just the people to turn to–-AllSouth Appliance Group in Homewood.
“I’ve worked with AllSouth for years, and they always have the high-quality appliances that stand the test of time,” she said.
Leah McIntyre with AllSouth Appliance said she and the company’s staff were more than happy to help Meadows outfit her new kitchen.
“She is one of our most loyal customers,” McIntyre said. “We call her the AllSouth Appliance Ambassador.”
Meadows said her first priority in putting her new kitchen together was finding a Wolf range.
“When we were building the new house and I needed somewhere to get some serious cooking done, I would sneak over to my son’s house, and he had a Wolf range and I just loved it and vowed that I would have one in my new kitchen. The red knobs really sold me on that model,” Meadows said.
Meadows also outfitted the kitchen with a stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator and a stainless steel Bosch dishwasher.
“I love that dishwasher. It’s so quiet that you can’t even tell that it’s running. It has this little feature that will project the time left on the wash cycle on the floor so you know how much time is left because otherwise, you’d have no idea it’s even on because it’s so quiet,” she said.
After getting her new kitchen set up just the way she wanted it, Meadows said she couldn’t wait to cook up a treat for her family and friends.
“I was so excited about trying out my new toys that the first thing I made in my new kitchen was an old Southern favorite–cream cheese pound cake. My family loves it when I make it, and I thought it would be the perfect thing to break in my new appliances,” she said.
Meadows said after her first experience of cooking in her new kitchen, she can affirm that the rebuilding project was a complete success.
“It didn’t go how we planned it in the beginning, but I think it turned out just the way it was supposed to, and I couldn’t be happier with the results,” she said.
Try Beth’s recipe for cream cheese pound cake in your own kitchen:
Photo special to the Journal
Beth Meadows’ Cream Cheese Pound Cake
2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
One 8-ounce package of cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups of sugar
6 large eggs
3 cups of flour
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of vanilla
Prep a tube pan thoroughly with oil and flour. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Using a mixer, combine the softened butter and cream cheese. Add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. One at a time, add the eggs, incorporating each one into the mixture well before adding another egg. Mix the baking soda with the flour and gradually beat the flour mixture into the sugar and egg mixture. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla to the batter. Pour the batter into the oiled and floured tube pan and bake at 300 degrees for about an hour and a half or until golden brown.
