Recreated

Sometimes, God calls us to leave cushy jobs to make cabinets.When Bryan Thompson told his wife Sara that he was planning on starting his own cabinet business, she wasn’t ecstatic.“She told me I was crazy,” Bryan laughs.But the couple prayed about it, and Bryan felt led to step out on a shaky limb. So on New Year’s Day 2015, with Sara supporting him, Bryan left his lucrative marketing job (making almost six figures) to start Recreated Cabinets, a custom cabinet company based out of Birmingham. He partnered with master craftsman Joey Keely, who Bryan describes as “the most talented woodworker I have ever met.”Bryan and Joey work out of an office on First Avenue North, where planers whine from the woodworking shop in the back. In the front office, a verse is scratched in orange and blue chalk (yes, Bryan is an Auburn fan), on a large board:Therefore, ifanyone is in Christ,he is a new creation.The old has passedaway; behold, thenew has come.2 Corinthians5:17“That’s where the name comes from—recreated,” Bryan says.If you’re wondering, Recreated is a Christian-run company. Bryan and Joey met in small group at The Church at Brook Hills.Only four months out, the business is doing well. “We’re covered up,” Bryan says. “There is a huge opportunity here, because I believe the housing market is coming back.”At Recreated Cabinets, the whole kit and caboodle of cabinet making is relatively simple. They come out to your house, look at your space, and measure it. Then you look at options: Modern? Pottery-Barn-ish? South Carolina beach house? You decide.Then Bryan and team go to work. They design it out on the CAD 3-D drafting program so that you can see a visual of what is going to happen in your domicile.“The design program looks like your house,” Bryan says. “You can look at it and recognize your room.”And since Recreated is equipped with a paint room, customers will be pleased to know that they can have any color they want.“There are no variables we don’t control,” assures Bryan. “We can have a whole kitchen done in two weeks. We make everything here. If something doesn’t fit right, we just go make another.”These are the niceties of the business, but one must wonder why would anyone leave such a lucrative position to follow their bliss? Not to mention that the gutsy, premeditated jump occurred after Bryan learned his wife Sara was pregnant.But this wasn’t the first time they had faced adversity and truly depended on God’s faithful promises. Just two years earlier, Bryan was let go from his job at a family-owned lumber company. When Bryan’s father, who was the president of the company, announced that he would be retiring in the coming year, the other family quickly bought the Thompsons out— and showed Bryan the door. After almost a decade in the manufacturing business, Bryan was without a job. Bryan and Sara had just closed on a house in Homewood, and within a week of Bryan losing his job, Sara, who is a Nurse Practitioner, lost her job.“Our faith in our Father was all we had,” claims Bryan.Bryan scrambled to find a job, and soon landed a marketing gig in Birmingham. This experienced helped Bryan to have greater faith, and gave him the confidence he needed to eventually lunge headlong into Recreated.“If I look at my life, I see how faithful God has been in the past,” Bryan says. “We have a Savior who loves us and I know that no matter what happens, His Gospel is true—no matter what.”Bryan worked in marketing for nearly two years, devising creative plans for folks to grow their business. Now, he focuses on producing tangible goods.“I like the idea of waking up and making something,” says Bryan. “I like to touch it, feel it, see it made. I like to see a person’s reaction when it’s in their house.”The skill sets are a perfect combination: Joey builds while Bryan tackles the business, marketing, and selling side.During the transition, Bryan wrote a manifesto called “Why I quit my comfortable job.” He detested the thought of being mediocre, and said that he didn’t want to teach his children that it was ok to settle. “Life is full of trade-offs—some people trade being comfortable with being spectacular,” he said.God is faithful. A concept that is consistent through the transitions and pitfalls of life. So the question becomes, for each of us, are we willing to trade the spectacular for the notion of security? Are we willing to take risks if God calls?“I truly believe that we are here to share and spread the Gospel,” Bryan says. “The things that happen to us open up conversations so that we can share the Gospel.”One must wonder if “Recreated” has more to do with God’s work in Bryan than it does the actual cabinets.And, like Bryan and Joey’s work, God’s recreating of us is always that:Fully-custom. 78To have an article written on your business, please contact (205) 587-1170. Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/78magImages by Al BlantonTo see the work of Recreated Cabinets, please visit www.recreatedcabinets.com.