Martini Productions was created in 2013. We are a three-legged stool, Brock Walter (investor and numbers guy), Shawna Walter (interior design and all things pretty) and Frank Kaminski (General Contractor extraordinaire). We have 6 full time team members and each has a very important skill set that makes Martini hum. We also have our core sub-contractors for architecture, electrical, plumbing and HVAC that we use on every single Martini production.
In the fall of 2005, Brock and I were about to get married and purchased our home. I was not in love with the house, but my husband-to-be wanted to live in this specific neighborhood and told me that I could change whatever I wanted about the house. That began our relationship with DKS Construction and Frank Kaminski, its’ owner. Between 2005 and 2013, Brock and I had DKS completely renovate our home and even built an addition. Of course, we didn’t do it all at once, that would have been too easy. We did it little by little, with each project being an adventure and an exercise in my pent up home interior creative imagination. Bless Frank’s and Brock’s hearts, they put up with me all those years!
Flash forward to the summer of 2013. We decided to renovate our master bathroom and storage area above our garage into a fabulous closet/dressing room for me. Frank and the guys once again were up to the task of tackling my vision of a “Carrie Closet” (see Sex and the City if you don’t understand). So once we had the plans for the master bath and dressing area worked out we decided “why not do the hall bathroom while we are at it”. This would mean a whole lot of dust, dirt and possibly not a working shower in the house! Brock and I decided to hand Frank our house keys and head for our condo in Florida for a month telling Frank to let us know when they were done.
Our son was about to start kindergarten that fall. I had had a career in commercial real estate development and finance before our son was born. While in Florida, over our morning coffee, Brock announced that we were officially done upgrading our house. He then proposed an idea. Would I be interested in partnering up with Frank and starting a business renovating houses? I hadn’t even thought of it, but with our son starting school, this would be a perfect opportunity to have a flexible position and an outlet for my creative passion in home interiors/design. I immediately said “Yes”! I then had the task of approaching Frank with the idea. Honestly, I was fearful that he would not want to work with “the crazy lady with all the ideas” . . . but he was willing to take a chance and the rest, as they say, is history.