Meet Martin and Kendall Armenta

About Martin

Martin Armenta came to Texas from Sinaloa when he was five and grew up around the rock quarries north of Austin. At thirteen he was working at a welding shop that served the quarries, setting the cutting teeth on the saw blades for his older brother to weld. After that came four summers catching cut stone as it came off the line. It was hot, heavy work, and it settled one thing for him: he wanted to run the job, not just work it.

He started as an apprentice on commercial jobs. When the superintendent above him left, he Martin believed he could do the job but was told he wasn’t ready. So he went and got an offer from another company, brought it back, and the owner made him superintendent, with his own projects to run. As a superintendent, one of the changes he pushed was the order of the work: painting had always waited until the very end, and moving it earlier took about a month off a six-month build. That company helped pay for his schooling, promoted from within, and treated its crews like family. It is still the picture of what he wants Crafted Hills to be.

From there he moved into custom homes for a residential builder in Austin, which is where, as he puts it, he learned how to build a house: working through real plans with designers, architects and engineers, and holding the finish to a standard commercial work never asked for. By the time he was project-managing he had seven superintendents reporting to him, thirty to forty houses over two years, and one build schedule pulled from twelve or fourteen months down to ten.

In 2022 he and Kendall started Crafted Hills, working out their first bid on notebook paper at the kitchen table. The subcontractors on your job are the same people he has built with for ten years. He is on site with them, he meets every inspector himself, and he will tell you what can’t be done before you sign anything. In his words: this is possible, this is impossible. He lives in Jarrell with Kendall and their family.

About Kendall

If Martin runs the build, Kendall runs everything around it. If you email, you’re emailing her. She handles the billing, keeps you posted on where the job is, and has every conversation from the first message to the day the keys come back. She is the person you actually talk to.

Her rule on money is simple: every change gets written down and priced before the work happens. They learned it the hard way in the early days, doing the work first and settling up later, until a few months on they couldn’t say where the money had gone. And the money follows the work: on most projects you pay $500 at signing, then in draws as stages are finished, and Crafted Hills doesn’t take its own payment until you’ve walked the punch list and signed off.

She is also the one who sits with you at the start to work out what you actually want the house to be, and who carries the selections through with you once the job is under way: the cabinet drawings, the stone, the fixtures. It is the part of the job she has grown into, and the part she is still growing.

She and Martin started Crafted Hills in 2022 because they wanted to do the work the right way and do it together, and to build something their kids can have one day. It is a family business in the plainest sense: two people, the crews they’ve worked with for ten years, and nobody to hand you off to.

On site

The owner is the one on your job

The subcontractors on your project are mostly the same people Martin has built with for ten years. He is on site with them rather than checking in from a distance, and he meets the inspector himself.

Most people are afraid to pull permits. We pull them. A remodel permit in Austin takes about a month, and Martin knows the inspectors well enough to know what each of them wants to see.

Straight answers

The truth, before you sign

Martin will tell you what cannot be done before you sign anything, and he will tell you how long a job really takes. A whole house is usually a season of your life. We would rather say that at the bid than halfway through.

On payment, the money follows the work. On most projects you pay $500 at signing, then draws tied to stages that are finished. We do not take our own final payment until you have walked the punch list with us and signed off on it.

How design works with us

A whole house needs a plan before it can be priced, and you do not have to go looking for a designer to get one. We bring in a designer we’ve built with, and an architect when the job needs one, and we work it out together: Martin walks the house with you first and says what will and will not work, the designer draws it, and Kendall sits in while you work out what you want the house to be, then carries the selections through with you. When the drawings are finished, they are the plan, and we price and build to them.

The Salerno owners in Cedar Park hired us first and asked whether we knew a designer. We did, and we brought them in. The Explorer kitchen came together with no separate designer at all: the owners’ saved pictures, our cabinet maker’s renderings, and Kendall at the table with them.

If you already have a designer, you keep them, and we build what they drew. We handle the structural side, the permits and the inspections, and we flag anything that will not work before it is built, not after. The Enfield owners came to us that way, with their designer and a finished set of plans. We opened the kitchen, sized the header for the new window, and coordinated the engineer, and Houzz ran the finished kitchen as Kitchen of the Week. Either way, the drawings are the plan, and we build to them.

Tell us what you’re thinking about

Most people think about this for a long time before they call anybody. Calling early is easier than calling late. Nothing has been ordered yet.