Heather and Colin relocated to Upper Arlington, Ohio from Alexandria, Virginia in October 2019. They actually purchased their home remotely sight unseen! Technology, such as FaceTime helped facilitate many walkthroughs with their realtor. They knew this was the home for their family, but weren’t sure anyone would be able to complete any of the renovations before they wanted to move in. Read on to see how the collaborative Team at The Cleary Company got the family’s renovations completed by using all three of the company’s remodeling services – Design-Build, bath2BATH and Home Services.
The Projects – Interior Carpentry, Floors, Bathrooms, Kitchen & Mudroom
What spaces did you have redesigned?
The kitchen was a full redesign of the footprint. The new layout includes a new island, relocated appliances, new floors, and widening the entryways into the kitchen. The new arched entryways match others in our home. We had both full bathrooms renovated as well. The rest of the house involved refinishing floors, removing wallpaper, painting and freshening up the rest of the house after 40 years of nothing being touched. We had new railings made for the stairs, complete with a custom Cleary-built wooden banister.
What is your favorite aspect of your remodeled spaces?
Overall it’s the original wood floors we had refinished. We love the way the whole home feels now with the gorgeous floors. We are thrilled with the renewed look and feel of the original 1938 style of our home. Removing the wallpaper throughout the home and painting the dark brown trim white lightened everything up. The way the home functions now is as if it is an open concept, without it truly being a fully open floorplan.
In the kitchen, it’s the dark-stained butcher block element of the island. It fits with the traditional style we really wanted to be emulated. The island top’s stain color was also used for the built-in bench, with storage, in the eating nook. We love the backsplash and the pendant lights that their Designer, Katie Florjancic, found to match it.
When we started work on our bathrooms, the bath2BATH Team had pre-selected bath collections we could choose from. This was great for expediting the process, however, in our main bath we wanted a walk-in shower with a zero-threshold entry, not a pan with a threshold. The bath2BATH Team made that happen and now they offer that option as part of their curated design styles. We feel like we were a small part in helping them refine their shower design styles.
What advice would you offer to someone who is thinking of remodeling their home?
It is going to take longer than you think and it’s going to cost more than you think. At the end of the day, you need to find people that you trust. When you can turn over the project to your remodeler and let them do their job, it makes everything work much smoother. You can have high expectations, but if you have the trust in your team – you let them do their job and you never worry. We never worried at any time about what was happening. Even when we ran into challenges, they problem solved and created the best scenario for us.
Why did you choose The Cleary Company to complete your remodeling projects?
Initially, it was our realtor who recommended The Cleary Company to us. We had only seen our house online and knew from the photos and a Facetime what we wanted to change. Our realtor and their Project Developer, John Coleman, CRPM, walked us through the house room by room to find out our questions and ideas. He quickly let us know what could be done before we moved in and what the timeline would be for any additional projects. It was clear that The Cleary Company was going to make our vision happen. John got all 3 Teams together and made sure every division knew what needed to occur and how they could all get it completed in the planned time frame.
What was your favorite part of working with The Cleary Company and why?
Trust! Everyone that worked on our home was so knowledgeable, kind, sincere and helpful. We fell in love with every single person that we had working in our home. They are all amazing! We can’t say enough good things about The Cleary Company. Our Project Manager, Mike, was someone we could count on for everything. We weren’t living in the area while the projects were being done and our project manager took care of everything for us.