From the July 28 Dallas Morning News article.

There are defining moments in any home renovation when you question your decision to remodel.

For Dallas homeowners Kelly and Karen James, it was when the window contractor went missing and left them with a floor-to-ceiling hole in their upstairs bedroom. In the middle of December.

“We piled on the blankets, but in the mornings, you didn’t even want to stick a toe out from underneath the covers,” says Kelly.

The Jameses, however, are the first to admit: Great reward requires great risk, especially when renovating a home while living in it.

Kelly had grown up in the Dallas suburb of Lake Highlands and put himself through school at Texas Tech, in Lubbock. He started out studying agronomy ?EUR??,,????'?????<

“I just fell in love with it,” says Kelly. “It was a combination of art, architecture and the outdoors all sort of wrapped up in one.”

Back in Dallas, Kelly became a principal at Tary Arterburn and in 1989 launched his own firm specializing primarily in high-end modernist design.

“I’ve learned a lot along the way through osmosis by working with great architects,” says Kelly. “My modern design aesthetic is also the result of my rebellion after having grown up with lots of antiques and lots of clutter.

Sources: BBC, Associated Press, Dallas Morning News