Handyman in Painted Desert

Painted Desert Golf Club opened in 1987 as an 18-hole, par-72 course, and homes went up around it on about 460 acres. Today the community has roughly 1,600 residences, from townhouses and single-family homes to larger estates, ranging from about 1,000 to more than 5,000 square feet. If you need a handyman in Painted Desert, the house could be a compact townhouse or a large estate on the course.

The community is guard-gated and sits just west of U.S. 95 and south of the 215 Beltway. A homeowners association maintains the common areas and sets the neighborhood's exterior standards. The course is a desert-style layout where players hit to targets across open desert.

Homes that back onto a fairway have no neighboring house to shade the rear wall, so back windows and sliding doors take the full force of summer. New rollers and weatherstripping keep a slider moving and sealed, and fresh caulk around the frames keeps dust and monsoon rain out. Monsoon storms can bring flash flooding, and water that pools on a patio will find any gap along the bottom of a door.

Exterior painting carries more weight on a golf lot because the back of the house faces everyone playing the hole. West-facing walls tend to chalk and fade first. Stray golf balls can leave dings in stucco and trim that are worth patching before the next repaint.

The first Painted Desert homes are now close to 40 years old. If yours still has its original tile, vanities or cabinets, a bathroom remodel or kitchen remodel can be done in stages, one room at a time. Smaller jobs fill the gaps between projects: cabinet repair on doors that no longer close, flooring installation in a worn hallway and tile installation where a cracked floor tile has to go.

Plumbing repair on a house this age often starts with the main shutoff and the water heater valve, since those are the ones you need in an emergency and the ones least likely to have been turned in years.