Oro Valley Renovation

[orovalleyreno]

Sorry for the long delay, life just got in the way of our plans for more frequent updates on this blog. Even though we have not posted recently, lots of progress has been made on the our renovation. Our handyman extraordinaire, Chris, has done much of the work and we are thrilled with the outcome. Tony and I will be flying down to the house in a couple of weeks just to check everything out in person and get everything in order for winter and I will post more pictures then!

In addition to the renovation/construction, we moved much of our furniture and personal belongings from Seattle to Oro Valley in March. We have also been shopping for additional furniture and we are ALMOST (~95%) there. Art work still needs to be hung and we need to purchase some decorative items but we are close to hanging out our shingle for guests.

[orovalleyreno]

Progress is being made...but it is slow progress. Recent updates from last week: 

1) Kitchen cabinets had a revitalization application to make them less cherry and make some of the wear/scuff less noticeable since we decided not to replace them.

2) Kitchen cabinets had new hardware added

3) New kitchen appliances were installed sans dishwasher which has been delivered twice damaged. The refrigerator is being replaced as it has a bunch of manufacturing cosmetic defects. Costco has been great to work with in dealing with all of these issues.

4) We “recolored” the grout in the kitchen. Even after steaming the grout they remained a strange grayish color. We tried a product which involves tape off the grout lines and painingt on the colorant followed by a sealer. Time will tell if it lasts but for now it looks soooo much better.

5) New LED lights are being installed throughout the house.

6) 1900 pounds of LVT flooring was delivered to our curb and we had to carry 40 boxes each weighing 46 pounds into the house. It was our work-out for the day. :-)

7) The Master Bathroom and Guest Bathroom vanities are being painted. We are using Extreme Bond primer followed by an Enameled Urethane paint. Hopefully it will be durable but already it looks more modern and clean-looking. Sherwin-Williams products, of course.

[orovalleyreno]

Painting complete...now we have a neutral blank slate to start our rebuild. The painters did a great job. Arriving on our doorstep today were 18 packages. Did you know you can get a toilet delivered via FedEx?

[orovalleyreno]

Countertops, Backsplash and Floors...Oh My!

We had “scope creep” already and decided to replace both bathroom countertops with quartz. The lighter grey will be in the guest bathroom and the darker grey in the master bathroom.

Kitchen backsplash tiles arrived from TileBar today and they are all beautiful, but the clear winner will be the one with glass and granite in the stacked pattern but we are reserving our final decision until the plastic is removed from the kitchen and we can see it all looks together.

We might have even more scope creep as Tracey has mentioned she might tile the wall behind the master bathroom vanity.  

We are still planning on using Mannington Adura Max but finding an experienced installer with attention to detail has been a challenge. More interviews this week but this delay will domino our timeline for the whole project. :-(

[orovalleyreno]

Painting started last week to cover up all of the interesting color choices made previously for this house. The current colors were so dark that when we painted sample paint on the walls everything looked violet! Everything in the house had to be primed white before it could be repainted with the new color (A New Grey for walls, Alabaster White for trim, doors and ceiling). The painters decided it was best to spray everything and treat the house as “new construction” since so much has already been demolished. 1-2 more days and they should be complete, but it is looking better already!!

Oh and yes Dad we are only using Sherwin-Williams Paint!

[orovalleyreno]

OK, we are installing something we never thought we would consider....Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT). We had wanted real wood but wood and the dry Tucson weather are not a good pairing, we don’t care for laminate, tile is too hard on our feet and then we stumbled upon LVT. 

What sold us was that it is nice to look at (even better than laminate, IMO), soft on the feet (no shoes needed to avoid plantar-fasciitis in the house!), waterproof and VERY resilient. It is perfect for this house, our needs and the Tucson climate. We went with Mannington Adura Max...a family-owned company and made in the USA, too!!!

[orovalleyreno]

We are making progress in just a few days...

Paint colors selected (yes Dad we are using Sherwin-Williams) 

Faucets purchased

Ceiling fans purchased

New electrical outlets/switches/covers purchased

Nest Thermostat purchased

Nest Smoke/Carbon Monoxide detectors purchased

Most lights purchased

Bathroom sinks purchased

New kitchen/bathroom cabinet hardware purchased

New exterior locksets purchased

New kitchen appliances purchased (we splurged and got the GE Cafe line in black stainless we really wanted!)

New Toto toilet purchased

New quarter-round purchased

We have a handyman (recommended by our neighbor) coming over to put in a few new electrical outlets and discussing our needs to help putting this house back together again. We can demo, but putting it back together might be beyond our skill set. 

[orovalleyreno]

Just waiting for 1-800-GOT-JUNK to pick up all of our demo’d debris. This includes rooms full of pee-stained carpet. Disgusting was an understatement. The entire house was a whole new level of filth than we anticipated and we are thrilled to be starting with a clean canvas. Out with the old, in with the new.

[orovalleyreno]

We flew down to Tucson in late February 2018 with a renewed plan after parting ways with our design/build firm. The new plan is to do a cosmetic renovation and accordingly we have scaled back our budget to 25% of what the design/build firm wanted for the renovation. We spent 4 days doing demo including ripping up all of the carpet, padding and tack strips, removing all of the light fixtures, removing the kitchen granite backsplash, demoing both bathroom ceramic tiled counters, demoing build-in closets, removing all of the doors including hinges and hardware. We have hired painters who will begin next week. We have selected new flooring and we are in the process of getting quotes. We have started purchasing updated fixtures, etc. In the end, we will get about 80% of our wish list for about 25% of the cost. In the end we will be leaving all of the tile floors, cabinets, baseboards and the kitchen counter, but the rest of our wish list will happen. We are super excited and this is a much better plan for in the end. 

[orovalleyreno]

We have a problem...

After 6 weeks we have completed the design phase in mid-February 2018. We were super excited to get started with the demo and then we were presented with the cost. It was 60% over the budget we gave the design/build firm when we retained them. 60%!!!! We were disappointed and frustrated as there were no discussions that we were having budget issues until this moment. We knew the budget was tight from our initial discussions so we made some design changes to help reduce costs and thought we were on track in regards to the budget. In addition to be so far over budget, the firm was not able to provide details as to where we went over budget, but it appears like labor is the primary issue. When we dug a bit deeper, we learned that they did not get competitive bids for much of the work. We decided to part ways and eat the $3000 design fee. We are going back to our original plan of a lower cost renovation and we care going to serve as our own general contractor. Now we start over...

[orovalleyreno]

We hired a local design/build firm and we have started the process for our whole house renovation. We love our designer, Kelly, and we feel she “gets” our style and vision. We have significantly increased our budget since we bought the house but we are super excited by what it will look like when it is complete. The new plan is to gut both bathrooms and the kitchen, replace all of the floors and light fixtures and of course painting the whole interior. 

[orovalleyreno]

We closed on the house in early January 2018 and this is what it looked like. It was WAYYYYY more dated than we remembered. After spending 1 night in the house (camping-style) we decided to do a bigger renovation. 

[orovalleyreno]

These are the MLS pictures from the inside when we purchased the house. The style is not our style and will be updated. Let the demo begin!

[orovalleyreno]

The pictures below are of the exterior of the Oro Valley, AZ house when it was listed on MLS as that time we purchased it in January 2018. We loved the layout, view and neighborhood but felt the interior was dated and did not care for the design style! Oh my to the wall colors!!! We planned a cosmetic interior renovation to make it more our style. Let the transformation begin…