The Moore House

“Where have you been? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

It has been too long, and the reason is I spent most of my summer in Arizona putting the final touches on our home renovation. I won’t send you on a trail of past blog posts to fill the gaps. My husband and I took on the exciting, enormous, overwhelming, and fulfilling task of renovating my grandparents’ home—two states away.

Kind of nuts, but kind of great.

When I tell you it’s been a journey, I mean it wholeheartedly. But I can finally say that the house is done and ready for visitors. If you want to skip to the good part, I won’t keep you. The house has its very own website and listing on Airbnb and VRBO.

If you want to hang on for the story—here it is. We loaded up our truck, two kids, tools, supplies, and our black lab Angus for the trek from southeast Texas to southeast Arizona. We didn’t know exactly how long we’d be gone, but my only direction from Joseph was, “We’re not going home until the house is finished.” Well, we technically went home before the house was finished, and that clocked in at about three and a half weeks.

We’ve had contractors working on our house, tackling the things we couldn’t do ourselves, but we had a list of things we were going to finish up ourselves near the end.

There was a lot of work left to do when we made it to Arizona. A lot. Probably more than we wanted to admit. But we didn’t have another choice; we were there to work, and we had to get it done. So, for the next few weeks, we worked alongside the contractors as they finished up their to-do lists.

Here’s the real reel—we stayed in a hotel the first few nights, but after that, we were at the house. And the first night we stayed, we had two outlets in one bedroom where we could plug in a lamp, tools, extension cords, etc., and we were able to plug in our refrigerator in the kitchen. It was glamorous.

But you know what? We powered through it. We worked from sun up to sun down. We tackled challenges we didn’t think we could. We learned new skills (ahem…laying floors) and wore off the favorite label to painting. I love to paint, but after this house, don’t even think about asking me to do it. We became masters of troubleshooting and running to the hardware store.

The Floors

We ended up putting down LVP flooring in our house. The exact one is here: Malibu Wide Plank French Oak Fillmore. Once we got the hang of it, it moved along faster than I thought. What about the original hardwoods? We wanted to, but they were only in about a third of the house, and I didn’t want a hodgepodge of flooring. Also, it would have been a lot more labor and money. The good news is, we didn’t tear any of them out, so if I get a wild idea someday to bring them back, they’re still there. P.S. if you’re installing floors yourself, go ahead and get the kit with the special mallet, tapping block and spacers….oh, and kneepads.

The Trim + Beadboard

This feature is a big part of the house, and we get a lot of questions and compliments on it. Is it a lot of work? You bet. Does it cost a lot more than just sheetrock? When you’re looking at only material costs, no. The labor comes when you’re caulking every seam and filling every nail head.

The recipe is simple. The panels went first. Then the 1x5 trim boards, capped with 1x2 trim boards, and lastly, 1x6 boards for our baseboards.

We went through so much caulking, and I was grateful TikTok made me buy several of these: Putty Sticks.

Around our doors and windows, we continued with 1x4 trim boards with a 1x2 cap.

It makes such a dramatic impact on a space for a relatively digestible cost, but it is labor intensive.

I picked a reverse color scheme, opting for Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter for all of the trim and doors, paired with Benjamin Moore White Dove for the walls.

Here’s a side tale: I bought most of our paint in Texas before traveling because there aren’t any nearby Benjamin Moore stores once we were in Arizona. Well, I needed more paint. Did you know you can color-match paint in a different brand? You can, but… it’s not perfect. I knew that, but I had no choice. Turns out, while I love Revere Pewter, I loved Sherwin Williams' take on it better. I also got acquainted with, for the very first time, using Dunn-Edwards paint. Never have I ever, and I’m a huge fan!

I also get asked about paint sheens a lot. I went away from the standard and did something different. Instead of a traditional semigloss for all of the trim and doors, I did satin. Gasp! Instead of eggshell for the walls, I did matte. But in the case of Dunn-Edwards paint, I used their velvet finish, and it’s heavenly. I really wanted a historic, cozy feel to our home, with a lot of inspiration coming from European design. Paint sheens vary greatly, and for me, it made an impact.

The Details

Remember how I said we weren’t going home until the house was done? Well, we did. I actually made a trip back out by myself, and my mom came to help me put the finishing touches on our house. What that really meant was touch-up paint, making sure the kitchen countertops got installed, decorating and stocking the house, more troubleshooting, cleaning, and taking official pictures of the finished house. And here it is!

It’s hard to believe it’s done and ready for guests—in fact, we’ve already had our first reservations booked. If you’re looking for a getaway to our hidden gem in southeast Arizona, we know a place. If you want to know all the best vineyards to visit, places to hike, and who has the best margarita in town, I certainly know that, too.