So That’s Why We Never Got Out of the House

The last time we posted we were 3 weeks into a Kitchen Reno here in Arizona. As I mentioned last time, we were thinking this would take us a couple of seasons, but once we got started in November it became a project to be completed this year. And other than a call-back for our Countertop installer, it’s all finished – except for sorting out my tools and materials in the shed. Soon I might even be able to access my Beer Fridge without climbing over a bunch of paint cans.

How it started –

The window and the Valence had to go.

In the middle of the project we decided to replace our entrance door as well.

This:

Became This:

In the middle of the project we decided to head home to Kelowna for Christmas. We looked at flying last fall, and the number of stops we had to make (Mission, Kelowna and Calgary) meant that we were going to spend more time in airports than what would be practical. With the monumental screwups with flights that occurred over the Christmas season we were glad we did drive. However, Diesel prices in California had us thinking it wasn’t such a great idea.

And neither was the first morning’s view from our hotel in Mission.

This is the view from our doorbell camera the day before we got home. We have the best neighbours.

We had a nice drive to Kelowna (where it was minus 28C).

There was lots of snow in Kelowna. Which just reinforced why we spend our winters in Arizona.

The drive to Calgary was pretty, but cold as well.

After almost 2 weeks of snow every day we made it back to Arizona and the pretty desert.

Once we were back in Arizona at New Year’s we dove into the painting portion of our project. In December we got a quote from a refinishing company of $6800 to do our cabinets and a timeframe of mid March. After swallowing our tongues, we bought a sprayer and sander from Home Depot, paint from Benjamin Moore and a bunch of sandpaper and went to town on our cabinet doors. Four weeks later we were done (including getting our Countertops replaced) and saved ourselves about $6000.

We first tested the process on our Entertainment cabinet to see how it would work. We quickly decided that spraying the cabinets in the house was not a great idea, as the overspray went everywhere. The finish product looked good though.

All of our kitchen ended up in our living room for a while during the painting process. That was an interesting time. It seems that everything we needed was available…..except those things we couldn’t find.

All the spraying was done in our shed, and as it is pretty small it took a long time to finish painting the doors, as I could only spray a handful at a time. As there were 3-4 coats of paint on each side of the doors it took over a week to do each of three separate batches.

As things began to settle down on the volume of work required we began to reclaim our mornings (I couldn’t paint until the temps were above 12C/50F anyway) and we managed to get out on a hike for the first time this season. The Desert is really green this year.

In the midst of it all our new Countertops were installed.

Then we installed the tile backsplash and re-installed the rest of the doors.

And then we were done!

And so what began as a ‘this might work’, evolved into ‘this will work, maybe we can complete it over the next couple of seasons’ finally became ‘the project we just had to finish’. We have been very diligent at getting it done, and stayed hunkered down in our place most every day. We still have people running into us around the resort asking if we’d just arrived, as they hadn’t seen us yet, and one long time friend keeps coming up to us and introducing herself as we must be new to the resort.

After 3 months the project is essentially finished (other than sorting out the mess in my shed), and now it’s time to play again. About Time!