Rebekah Calcutt, Lead Designer for Chesapeake, VA-based Dave’s Cabinet, is recognized as a top young professional developing creative solutions to kitchen-and-bath needs, from commercial to residential and remodel to new construction. Plus, she also has put her stamp on trade-show booths. Bekah assisted in designing the cabinetry/countertop displays for Green Forest Cabinetry at the KBIS 2022 in Orlando and has been asked to assist in the entire booth design for KBIS 2023 in Las Vegas.

A graduate of Virginia Tech’s four-year, NKBA-accredited program in Apparel, Housing & Resource Management, Bekah says practicality factored into her decision to enter the K&B industry. “Ultimately, I had the strong desire to find something that I was good at, that I enjoyed doing and that would support me,” she says, noting that the career options in Design made her excited to use her creativity. She recalls her first design project after graduating as her most memorable. “While it was very rewarding to experience that first kitchen go from a design to a reality,” she says, “it was also a great learning curve on the customer-client relationship I aim to have and how to better myself as a designer.”

“Ultimately, I had the strong desire to find something that I was good at, that I enjoyed doing and that would support me. Looking at the career options in Design made me excited to use my creativity.”

Her own personal design style “leans toward Transitional and Eclectic,” and work-life balance is extremely important to her—and sometimes a struggle. “I must keep the distinction that being a designer/sales team member is only one role in my life,” says Bekah, who got engaged to her fiancé, Noah, in May 2022. “I’m also a fiancée, a friend, a homeowner, a daughter, etc…. I recognize that if I do not allow myself the space to balance all these roles with appropriate priority, then I get overwhelmed and burnt out.”

While she channeled her creativity as a child by playing piano and cello, enjoying arts and crafts and redecorating and rearranging her room—“If my mom would have let me, I would have repainted every year,” she says—her leisure time these days is spent working on home improvement projects with Noah, crafting, enjoying time with family and friends (and her orange-and-white cat, Peanut) and binge-watching Netflix.