Welcome to 82nd street, Scottsdale AZ....we are done the renovation and it was listed on the day before American Thanksgiving...now, that was fast! Here are some before and after pics. I do have a ton of them but I am condensing the whole thing. It would take another 6 weeks for me to publish all the photos. Good job to the boys who organized it all, did all the work and thank goodness its done. Now, lets sell it!!!!
To recap, we took posession on the 31st of Oct, and started work the next day. We cleaned up and trimmed up the trees.
The back yard after we had it cleaned up of all the doggy stuff. And tore down the exsisting broken down water feature turned fire pit... along with some fake grass and a pretty ugly pool surround.
The back yard once the new grass with irrigationand pool had been replastered. We also took down the fence but left it in case the new owners felt they needed it. The back yard is completely enclosed and lockable so, we thought it would look nicer without the extra fencing. Also, we had the concrete decking painted to match the pool and the paint on the house.
The pool before the replastering....that was a dusty and ugly job. Oh and before we took down the fence. The pool is actually very deep. Very good for diving into on a hot day! We also took down the extra bit of patio cover at the far end of the picture...it was not very usefull and looked out of place.
Again, the pool without the fence and without the extra patio covering. I love the nice clean lines the house now has. The house also had a new roof in 2008 and a new air conditioning system recently installed...Oh yeah, look at the new block fence on the right hand side of the pic....There used to be a old dilapitaed wooden fence. Much cleaner and tidier.
The masterbedroom before....
And after. We painted the whole house a nice neutral color, had all new windows installed as well as new lights, fans, and new hardware on the doors, and closet doors. New carpet in the bedrooms as well.
The old second bathroom. Look at the colors in there before YIKES!!!! We re-tiled the showers in both bathrooms as they were old and out dated. We kept the vanity in this bathroom. It looked good and after a good clean up, she was very nice indeed.
And the second bathroom after.....new fixtures, mirrors, and a new valance....the toilets in the house were fairly new, and low flow too, so we kept them as well.
The master bathroom before...I think that maybe the old owner was a artist of some kind....the colors in this room were also very bright.
The new tile in the master, as well as some lovely new granite countertops and custom made cabinates. New valances and mirrors in here as well. Also, new lights and hardware.
The living room from the front door. We kept the ceiling fans as they were really cool. We widened the doors in this room to give the illusion of openess....we wanted to take down the whole wall on the left but it was load bearing, and would have been too much to do both in time and in $$$. $$$ that we may not have made back....
So, the living room from the front door with all the new stuff.
To recap, we took posession on the 31st of Oct, and started work the next day. We cleaned up and trimmed up the trees.Daniel spent alot of time on the Koi pond, so I will show the pics on another blog. Here is the front of the house before.
And after being cleaned up and painted...we put some black shutters on and painted the front door black as well. Just a little highliting...some new plants at the front too.
The back yard after we had it cleaned up of all the doggy stuff. And tore down the exsisting broken down water feature turned fire pit... along with some fake grass and a pretty ugly pool surround. The back yard once the new grass with irrigationand pool had been replastered. We also took down the fence but left it in case the new owners felt they needed it. The back yard is completely enclosed and lockable so, we thought it would look nicer without the extra fencing. Also, we had the concrete decking painted to match the pool and the paint on the house.
The pool before the replastering....that was a dusty and ugly job. Oh and before we took down the fence. The pool is actually very deep. Very good for diving into on a hot day! We also took down the extra bit of patio cover at the far end of the picture...it was not very usefull and looked out of place.
Again, the pool without the fence and without the extra patio covering. I love the nice clean lines the house now has. The house also had a new roof in 2008 and a new air conditioning system recently installed...Oh yeah, look at the new block fence on the right hand side of the pic....There used to be a old dilapitaed wooden fence. Much cleaner and tidier.
The masterbedroom before....
And after. We painted the whole house a nice neutral color, had all new windows installed as well as new lights, fans, and new hardware on the doors, and closet doors. New carpet in the bedrooms as well. The old second bathroom. Look at the colors in there before YIKES!!!! We re-tiled the showers in both bathrooms as they were old and out dated. We kept the vanity in this bathroom. It looked good and after a good clean up, she was very nice indeed.And the second bathroom after.....new fixtures, mirrors, and a new valance....the toilets in the house were fairly new, and low flow too, so we kept them as well.
The master bathroom before...I think that maybe the old owner was a artist of some kind....the colors in this room were also very bright.
The new tile in the master, as well as some lovely new granite countertops and custom made cabinates. New valances and mirrors in here as well. Also, new lights and hardware.The living room from the front door. We kept the ceiling fans as they were really cool. We widened the doors in this room to give the illusion of openess....we wanted to take down the whole wall on the left but it was load bearing, and would have been too much to do both in time and in $$$. $$$ that we may not have made back....
So, the living room from the front door with all the new stuff.And of course my favorite room...the kitchen before
And the kitchen after.......I LOVE the new sliding glass door that lets the whole back yard become part of the new kitchen....we put the same granite counters in both the kitchen and bath. This is 3 cm granite with yummy gold and yellow and reddish brown running through it. I also love the lights above the kitchen bar. They give the room a lovely warm glow.
The kitchen from the hallway that leads to the bedrooms....
The original kitchen had the stove and fridge right beside each other on the wall to the right of this picture...there was no room to work or to move at the stove. So we put the fride over on the other wall and made a little mini bar to open up the room some more....the tile was original and we had it cleaned and fixed up in the spots that were really not working or had been trashed.
Does anyone want to buy a house in a really nice area of Scottsdale?????? Just call Dan Rooney at Rooney Realty!!!! LOL
And the kitchen after.......I LOVE the new sliding glass door that lets the whole back yard become part of the new kitchen....we put the same granite counters in both the kitchen and bath. This is 3 cm granite with yummy gold and yellow and reddish brown running through it. I also love the lights above the kitchen bar. They give the room a lovely warm glow.The kitchen from the hallway that leads to the bedrooms....Does anyone want to buy a house in a really nice area of Scottsdale?????? Just call Dan Rooney at Rooney Realty!!!! LOL
Lovely little girl in her christining oufit. She was baptized the saturday of the party as well.
And fitting to a spanish birthday party, was the pinata...Oh my gosh, the kids and adults all had such fun. There is a rope that is tied to the pinata. One man on one side and one on the other....when the kids come and try to hit the pinata open the men pull on either end to make the pinata jump and dance to make it more challenging to hit...
Kids from all ages are encouraged to hit at it and break it open to let all the candy inside come out....while a child is "at bat", the group was singing a verse from a song, and once the verse was done, that was the end of that childs turn.
And, to keep it warm (as they serve it all night) he places the soaked banana leaves in a cooler and then puts the yummy beef and pork into it. All of it is shredded to be served with corn tortillias.
After the baptizmal, the family goes back to the family home to enjoy some home made pezoles (don't know if I spelled it right) It is a yummy flavored broth with shredded beef, cilantro, fresh finely diced sweet white onions, and lots of fresh lime juice. I am sure that there is other ingredients but I am not sure what they are. I do know that this soup was very tasty....
So, the dinner was served by the family to everyone that was there...I would say there was about 35 people there including a ton of kids. Your dinner plate comes to you with a sweet tasting pasta salad, home made beans, and the yummy slow cooked shredded pork and beef. There is fresh finely chopped white onions, cilantro and key limes on the table to put on your meat. Then warm and very fresh corn tortillas. SO DARNED GOOD
And of course....tequila. Albert had asked Daniel if he drinks tequila and he said that he had, so when we got there, Albert brought out a nice bottle. He didn't have any, but I did!
They also cleaned up around the playset that I get to make new again...this is actually the view from the side of the house where we put a new block fence to and have added a wrought iron gate. It will be nice to see the kids playing and to be able to enjoy the Koi pond by just walking through the new gate.
The front yard has also been cleaned up and the trees trimmed to look better and to let lots of light in. I noticed today that the yellow rose bush beside the Koi pond is flowering now that it is getting light. So pretty.
On the inside, the new wires have been run to update the wiring, the pot lights in the kitchen have been put back in working order, and the old light fixtures have been removed and redrywalled. Also, where ever we opened up door ways needed to be fixed up. The interior walls here are kinda spackled, so where ever there was a repair or refurbish, they had to go over and respackle it. That's what this fellow is doing. 
This is the master bedroom that we opened up the small door leading to the masterbath and then to the hallway. The house was orginally built in 1960, so the house had a lot of small rooms and spaces. We wanted to bring it into this century, so we eliminated some of the doors that had no use and enlarged some to make the house appear to have a open concept.
We also guted the bathrooms. The tile that was in there originally was either too small for todays times or was UGLY. This is the new tile in the master bath....I like the accent tile in here. Lots of pretty different colors. Trust me, we are definately painting the whole inside too. Yuk on that orange!
This is the second bathroom. The shower seems quite small, so we put in larger tiles and added some accent and also raised the showed head up so that people over the height of 4 feet will be able to shower without bending down to rinse off!!!
That's all for now...Ciao
Thank goodness they have on scarfs to cover their mouths and noses...maybe a better idea would be some of those masks for dust.
You can see the painstaking job they had to do today. I bet that they all sleep like babies tonite.
The view of the swing set from the back and side of the house....I can hardly see it because of the overgrown trees....but give it some time. The boys pulled down the fence today to make ready for the new cement block fence. We are thinking of putting a nice archway or wrought iron fence in here so you can access and enjoy the waterfall and Koi pond. As well as the playset.
We had wanted to take down the whole wall dividing the kitchen area into the living room, but as it is, the wall is a load bearing wall. So, we got the same effect of openess by enlarging the entry from the kitchen into the living room.
