From a Simple Idea to a Growing Texas Business: Whitney Sarnella’s Shelf King Story

We’re excited to share some special news from The Shelf King family: co-founder Whitney Sarnella was recently featured by VoyageAustin as one of Austin’s “Rising Stars.”

The VoyageAustin feature gives readers a look behind the scenes at Whitney’s entrepreneurial journey, the story behind The Shelf King™, and the purpose that continues to drive our business today.

For us, it’s an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come—and why we started in the first place.

A Business Built to Make Everyday Life Easier

The Shelf King wasn’t born from a plan to simply sell shelves.

More than a decade ago, Whitney and her husband, Chez, saw firsthand how difficult everyday tasks could become for loved ones experiencing mobility challenges related to Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis. Something most of us rarely think twice about—reaching into the back of a lower kitchen cabinet—could become frustrating and physically difficult.

That experience helped shape the purpose behind The Shelf King: make homes easier to use.

Whitney and Chez began their business in Austin in 2012, focusing on a simple combination of quality products, fair value, clear communication, and treating customers the way they would want their own family to be treated.

You can learn more about Whitney, Chez, and how the company began on our About The Shelf King page.

We’re Not Just Organizing Cabinets

One of our favorite parts of Whitney’s VoyageAustin interview is how she describes what The Shelf King really does.

Yes, we build custom pull-out shelves. But the bigger goal is solving those little frustrations homeowners deal with every single day.

The pan you need is somehow behind six other pans.

The slow cooker disappears into the darkest corner of the cabinet.

Pantry items get forgotten because you can’t see what is hiding behind the front row.

And reaching something in a bottom cabinet occasionally feels like you need to crawl inside the cabinet yourself.

Custom pull-out shelving changes that by bringing the contents of your cabinets out to you.

Our shelves are custom-built for existing cabinetry and designed to improve visibility, organization, and everyday access without requiring homeowners to replace their entire kitchen.

See how it works on our Custom Slide-Out Shelves page.

Accessibility Has Always Been Part of Our Mission

Better storage is nice.

Being able to comfortably use your own home is even better.

That distinction has been important to The Shelf King from the beginning. Pull-out shelves can reduce the amount of bending, kneeling, stretching, and digging required to reach everyday items stored in lower or deep cabinets.

That makes them helpful not only for people looking for a beautifully organized kitchen, but also for aging homeowners, busy families, and anyone who simply wants their home to work better for them.

Whether you want to improve your kitchen, bathroom, pantry, laundry room, or another storage space, our goal is the same: help turn hard-to-use cabinets into storage you can actually enjoy using.

Explore our custom storage solutions to see what is possible throughout your home.

Growing Without Losing the Small-Business Mindset

As Whitney explained in her VoyageAustin interview, growing a business also brings new challenges.

Over time, Whitney and Chez have had to learn many different sides of entrepreneurship, from operations and marketing to training, systems, and business development. Nevertheless, one priority has remained consistent throughout that growth: protecting the customer-first philosophy that helped build The Shelf King in the first place.

In other words, growth has never been about becoming bigger simply for the sake of being bigger.

Instead, the goal is to create a company that can serve more homeowners while maintaining the same standards of quality, communication, and care.

That philosophy is simple: show up, communicate clearly, do quality work, and take care of people.

As The Shelf King continues to expand, those principles remain at the heart of the business.

Today, The Shelf King serves homeowners across multiple Texas metro areas. You can find a Shelf King location near you and explore the areas we currently serve.

Still Proud to Call Austin Home

Although, The Shelf King continues to grow, Austin will always be an important part of our story.

It’s where Whitney and Chez built the business, developed relationships with homeowners, and learned what people really wanted from a home-improvement company: quality craftsmanship without unnecessary pressure or an unnecessarily complicated process.

Our Austin-area team provides custom pull-out shelving solutions for homeowners throughout Austin, Georgetown, and surrounding Central Texas communities.

If you’re local, visit our Austin custom pull-out shelves page to learn more about service in Central Texas.

Good People. Great Shelves. A Home That Works Better.

Whitney summed up The Shelf King philosophy perfectly in her VoyageAustin conversation: while we may not take ourselves too seriously, we take our customers and our work very seriously.

That combination has helped shape who we are.

We care about craftsmanship.

We care about affordability.

We care about communicating with our customers.

And most importantly, we care about whether the finished project genuinely makes your everyday life easier.

A pull-out shelf might seem like a small home improvement.

But when you can finally see the back of your cabinet, easily reach the pot you use every week, organize a pantry that used to drive you crazy, or enjoy your kitchen with less bending and reaching, that small improvement can make a surprisingly big difference.

We’re grateful to VoyageAustin for featuring Whitney and sharing a little more of The Shelf King story with the Austin community.

And we’re even more grateful to the homeowners who have trusted us inside their homes and helped a family-owned Austin business grow into what The Shelf King is today.

Storage Should Work For You Not The Other Way Around

You don’t need a full kitchen remodel to make your storage more accessible, organized, and functional. The Shelf King custom-builds pull-out shelves to fit the cabinets you already have.

Schedule your free consultation with The Shelf King →

Let’s organize, utilize, and simplify your home.