Formed in 2011, RKA Construction, LLC is a custom home builder located in Memphis, Tennessee. Created out of a love for building and a desire to provide a better ownership experience, our focus is simple- provide superior quality, craftsmanship, and customer service in everything we do.

Let us know if we can help with your current construction or real estate needs. We are a licensed general contractor and provide real estate services through Marx-Bensdorf Realtors. We would love the opportunity to assist you!


Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Burgundy Before Part 2



This is the hallway that leads back to the bedrooms. The door casing on the right is the front entry. The door on the left that you can see is the stairway to the upstairs. We are going to open that up where you can see some of the stairs and move the door to the top of the stairs. 


If you turn left by the stairs that is where the guest bathroom is. If you keep going down the hall there is a coat closet on the left and a guest bedroom on the right. The doorway straight ahead is the second guest bedroom. The doorway right past the closet on the left is the master bedroom.








This is the guest bathroom off of the hallway. It has a room you walk in that has a big linen closet and a large vanity with sink. 




Then you have another doorway that leads to the bathtub, toilet and another small sink.


We are planning on tearing it all out except for the tub and linen closet and basically making it one larger bathroom without the doorway in the middle. That will hopefully leave room for double sinks.


This is the first guest bedroom that was evidently the boys room since it has blue trim.


This is the second guest bedroom that was obviously the girls room with the pink trim and wallpaper.


This is the master bedroom in its current state. When you walk in on the left it has one closet, then the door to the bathroom and then a second closet.


This is the master bathroom. Which has obviously recently been renovated. So, I know some people are going to think we are crazy for ripping it out but these are our reasons:

  1. This is really not our style at all.
  2. I am in love with my current master bath and want to make this master bath at least resemble my current bath. (Look back at this old post to see what my bathroom looks like.)
  3. I am hoping and praying that we can combine the areas from this bathroom, the two closets and the hall coat closet to make a walk in closet and a bathroom. 
We are planning on reusing the vanity, toilet and mirror in this bathroom for the upstairs bathroom. 


These photos should give you a good idea of the house in its original state. Ryan has already had all of the demo work completed. So, the upstairs, kitchen and all three bathrooms have been gutted down to the studs. The dining room, living room and all the bedrooms are staying the same they are just desperately in need of some paint. 


We are working fast here. We already have a contract on our house and Ryan has already sold our buyer's house. So we are trying to move as quickly as we can. Everything has moved really fast, but if you know Ryan that is just how he operates.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Burgundy Before Part 1

Here are the before pictures of our new house on Burgundy.

These are the pictures of the upstairs. It is just one large room with lovely red carpet. There is also a full bathroom upstairs but we forgot to take before pictures.

We are obviously going to put new carpet upstairs and raise the ceilings in this room because they are a little low.
Check out this sink sticking out into the middle of the room.






These are the double ovens that were just in the middle of the kitchen. We believe they couldn't decide where to put them so they just made this  column in the middle of the room. This column basically splits the kitchen into two rooms.






In the picture below you can see this awkward walkway that was made by the sink and the double ovens. You can also see little bits of red on the floor. The lovely red carpet upstairs had already been ripped out and little remnants were all over the floor.







This is the dining room which is your basic dining room. It is a really good size and has a nice big window. I am really showing you these pictures so you can see the interesting wallpaper.



This is the den and its beautiful green trim. You can see that the kitchen is already pretty open to the den but we are going to open it up a little more. Below is another picture of the den showing the mantle.


I will put up the rest of the before pictures in a later post. There are just too many pictures to put them all in one post.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Before its too late

I wanted to finish showing you the work we did to our current house before we move. Like I have said before, when we bought this house it was a 2 bedroom, 1 bath and is now a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath.  We started all of the work after we had lived in the house for a year.

This is what the back of our house looked like before we did the addition. Our master was on the far left, the sunroom with the row of windows was in the middle, and the back door that led straight into the kitchen on the right. 


They ripped off the old brick and then just basically built the addition around the house. Which was good since we lived in the house during this whole process.


Then they did the framing and you can still see that row of windows was still there. After they installed the windows and doors they knocked out that rear wall and the only thing that separated us from all of the work was a sheet of plastic.


This is what the back of our house currently looks like. Well actually this picture was taken during the summer so everything is nice and green. That is our master wing on the left and the two french doors that lead to our den. Then our back door on the far right that leads into a small mud room area with a half bath and a laundry closet. 


You can't see it from this photo, but we also built a double carport in the back corner which has been wonderful. Well wonderful if Ryan doesn't have all of his hunting stuff in it.
We have put a lot of work into this house and love it. To say that we are going to be sad to leave it is an understatement, but we're looking forward to making changes on our new home.

Amazingly, we already have a contract on our old house without ever putting it on the market. We went to Church last Sunday, saw a neighbor and told him we were going to move. He knew somebody that wanted to look at it and the house was sold later that day. It was crazy...  really unexpected, fast and crazy. I had been praying about this move a lot and obviously God is trying to tell me something.

I know that the family who bought the house is going to really enjoy it and that makes me feel better about leaving.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Clarification

I would like to clarify that on the last post I put up a picture of Elvis' first house in Memphis. We are not moving into that house.... I wish. Even though Elvis house was kind of ugly I would still totally live there. We will be closing Monday on this house.
This is the picture off of the real estate web site and was obviously taken last spring. I have everything pinned on Pinterest to show Ryan exactly what I think should be done. Now we just need to get in there and start working.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Bittersweet

It is with mixed emotions that I tell you that we are moving. Ryan and I are purchasing another house but this time for ourselves.  I love our house on Oakley in High Point. I loved it from the first time I walked up to it and pointed out the bad paint on the front porch. The first time we walked through it I looked at Ryan as we were standing in the kitchen and told him, Ryan I LOVE this house. We bought it and have lived here ever since. 


It has been a wonderful first house. Ryan and I have put a lot time and effort in to this house, but I knew that with Ryan always looking at houses it wouldn't be long before he found one he wanted to move to. I've been biding my time for about two years always coming up with something wrong with the houses he wants to move to. 


Well, I have finally agreed to move. I have to admit I have shed a few tears this past week but I am ready. We have a contract on a house and in our typical fashion it needs work. The house is in good shape but needs a new kitchen, new bathrooms, new paint through out, and an exterior face lift. 


Here are a few reasons why I have agreed to this move. I will get to pick out everything for this house and I mean everything. It has a better parking situation. The house we have now is fine if I didn't have a husband with a four wheeler, a hunting boat, tons of duck hunting stuff. Not to mention he's always e-mailing pics of Land Cruisers for sale that he wants to buy. I guess  I come by it naturally, as my dad has always been obsessed about parking. I am talking obsessed.... had to have a house where he could park four cars comfortably without anybody being blocked in and where his suburban with its huge antenna could fit. 


I am going to miss High Point Grocery, our small neighborhood grocery, since I run up there for stuff I forget all the time. I am going to miss Cheffie's and High Point Pizza the two restaurants that are in our neighborhood. Especially Cheffie's since I get it to go almost every Wednesday night when Ryan has class. I have so many friends in this neighborhood including my twin sister who I can walk to their houses. But we are really not moving that far away. It's still in East Memphis I mean it even has the same zip code. It takes about 5 minutes on average to get to this new house from my current house. 




Here is a plus; the new house is around the corner from Elvis's first home in Memphis. Before he bought Graceland he bought a house on Audubon Drive in Memphis (found the picture above on the internet but that is Elvis house). Elvis Presley Enterprises bought the house back a few years ago and converted it back to exactly what it looked like when Elvis lived there. Ryan's business partner, Chris Clark actually had the privilege of performing the restoration. I am a huge Elvis fan and get excited every time we drive by it! This new house is also going to cut my long 8-10 minute work commute to about 5-7 minutes. Which may not seem like a big deal but I am not a morning person so every little bit helps. 


Well, I better stop talking about it or I might get emotional again. 

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Lots of Happenings

There is a lot that goes on in the life of houses. Most are not physical changes that you can see, so I thought that I would fill you in on what we have been up to this last week. Its been a little busy...


  • The kitchen sink and bathtub for the master bath at St. Andrews were chosen by me and ordered by Ryan. ( I like to take credit but really its mostly Ryan)
  • We have looked at another potential house to renovate, but it smelled so bad that I had to leave. Ryan sent in an offer, but ours wasn't the best.
  • There was a closing yesterday on a house that some of our close friends bought. Ryan has been dealing with that and getting all the details in order. 
  • Ryan had an open house on Sunday at his parent's house. He had a nice turnout, so hopefully there will be continued interest.
  • We went to Somerville and met with the cabinet maker that we use. We finalized layouts and made selections on all of the cabinets that will be used at St. Andrews.  This includes the kitchen, all the bathrooms, the laundry room and the butler's pantry. 
  • We picked out all of the tile last weekend and it has been ordered.
  • Ryan is currently negotiating on another house that we may decide to move in ourselves. If it works out we'll be looking for nice owners for our current home.
  • There has also been a good bit of activity at St. Andrews as we get closer to installing finishes. Ryan and Chris run a pretty tight ship over there and really push to keep everything on schedule, which is not an easy task.

On a personal note duck season is over so Ryan is very sad and I am not so sad, just kidding, kind of.