Meet Karrina Rotter | Owner and Principal Home Designer at Krafted Renovations- A Real Estate Investor/Resell Firm plus Design Firm

We had the good fortune of connecting with Karrina Rotter and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Karrina, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Work life balance to me is one of the most important aspects of owning a business (or in any career in fact) to make a priority and put forth the effort to really make it happen. I know for me personally its so easy to just put my head down and work. I can still be bad about actually stopping working at a certain time of the day, setting boundaries with clients and associates I work with and I still struggle to “turn it off” at night. I find myself checking my emails still before bed, responding to late night texts (that could easily wait until the morning) continuing to work on weekends and holidays. I find it very challenging to not be working because in my line of business and I think just being a Buisness owner in general, there is never not “something” you should be working on, trouble shooting, managing, etc.

So over time I have started to implement “office hours” that I try my best to stick to, especially with clients and work associates. I say my response hours are Monday-Friday 9am-6pm. I try my best to also make myself follow these hours for doing work as well. Turning off my computer at 6 or as soon as my fiancé gets home from his job, stopping the emails at that end time too, trying to be more mindful and present with those around me durning those after hours as well and not still in my head thinking about everything I still need to be working on or need to get done. I try to set the expectation when vacationing or on holidays with clients and associates that my responses will either be very limited or not at all if it is not “urgent.” Overall I just try to create a healthy work life balance and trying to implement it all now before having kiddos. Because I know once they come I am going to need to get really good at balancing both owning a business and being a mother and currently the best practice is balancing this all with my fiancé, family and friend time as well.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I got started in the real estate investing and design world technically in 2016 when I became a Realtor. It’s what gave me my foundation and “foot in the door” so to speak. So when I decided to transition more into the real estate investing side of things I felt confident in knowing the rules and laws of real estate to know how to buy and sell my own properties. Now a huge learning curve came into effect when I started to design and hire contractors to do the work on my renovate to resell projects. Coming from a background with zero experience in design or construction, I basically “winged it” and started self educating for construction. I contacted a few clients I met along the way while being a realtor who did fix and flips and asked their advice, some even gave me some contacts of contractors to interview, and let me know some of the important “do’s and don’ts” of the business. But overall, I was on my own to learn this career path. I listened into one seminar on it all and decided that was not the true way to learn about this (looking back on that, they actually gave really poor advice to people) and turned to the internet! I googled, A LOT!

I finally decide to jump in, well I should say, dive in, head first and sold my personal residence, bought a fixer upper on a normal conventional loan, used the equity from the sell of my home to fund the remodel, and bam, I was in.

When it came down to interviewing the contractors…well, not as easy of a task. The real estate side was so simple to me because it was familiar, buying the property was simple to me, the hard part was fining someone to renovate it. I interviewed over 15 general contractors all across The Valley. I hired one and fired them within the first 3 weeks because of the way he spoke to me. Now I get it, at the time I was a 22 year old girl, very green in the construction/design world, but the problem wasn’t that I was green. It was that I was a 22 year old woman, in a man driven, correction, dominated, field. And there are men out there that do not want to take direction from a woman, let alone a 22 year old woman. So there were multiple of those who did not get the job because the way they spoke to me. Very demeaning, down playing, sooo many “mansplaining” it just overall was uncomfortable and I knew I did not need to tolerate that. But after 10 or so interviews, I started to get discouraged. Until finally a now good friend who was an early on mentor for me, recommend a GC he had used a few times. I interviewed him and it was a NIGHT AND DAY difference! He treated me with nothing but respect, he loved to teach me and never made me feel less or uneducated within the field. Spoiler Alert!! He is still my GC to this day!!

I learned very early on, you can have all the money in this business, all the experience, but none of that matters if you do not have a strong, respectful team of contractors to work with! Building that contractor relationship is hands down the biggest part of my Buisness’s success. Together we are able to provide quality, high-end designed and finished homes to our customers and we now also take on private client and other investor work together as well!

For the design side, being Krafted Renovations (me) is not a General Contractor (hints the reason for the story above) the single handed biggest question I am asked is how I come up with my home designs, and what background/education I have with Interior Design.
To keep this part short. I do not have a design background. I went to college and got a degree in business marketing. I hate to be this person, but its honestly the truth, when I start a new project, I just “go for it” with the designs. I play around with colors, fixtures, tile, paint, hardware, etc and keep playing with it until I like the overall picture. It just comes to me and I keep tweaking it until I am satisfied or until my clients are in love with the overall look. I get my inspiration from houses I see on instagram, Pinterest but mostly now, from trial and error from past projects or things I wanted to do on another house that I wasn’t able to I always keep in the back of my mind. Once a designer mind gets going the creative juices just start flowing! And for me, my mind runs wild which is why you will see a lot of different home styles mixed into my designs. I can’t ever just pick one! Im sure any design teacher would think I am crazy with some of the stuff I mix together but I just love to add that flair in homes!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love everything Scottsdale, I love everything Arizona!

I would start with taking them to get a coffee at my favorite spot in Old Town- Schmooze
Then I would drive them through all the different neighborhoods Scottsdale, Arcadia and PV have to offer and show them how crazy green some of the neighborhoods are (most are shocked to see that in the middle of the desert)
Then I of course would take them to lunch at either Montauk or Grass Roots
Early evening (in the winder months of course) take them on a hike up Camelback and show them the wonder that is the Arizona famous Sunsets.
For dinner I wouldn’t be able to choose but options would most certainly be either Toca Madera, Cala, Maple and Ash or for my favorite more casual spot-Barrio Queen.
And, if they are up for it, you have to experience the mini Vegas that is Old Town Scottsdale Nightlife! Bottle Blonde and Whiskey Row being my top favorite spots!

Next day I would for sure take them for a fun day and overnight trip to Northern AZ stopping in Sedona to show them the gorgeous red rocks before heading to my home town in the cool pines, Williams!

But honestly there is no shortage of things to do in Scottsdale and AZ in general, I love how in 2 hours you can be in a completely different world with our state, it makes it so diverse and enjoyable year round!

Website: www.KraftedRenovations.com

Instagram: @KarrinaRotter & @Krafted_Renovations

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KraftedRenovations/

Image Credits
@karliecolleenphotography and @ashleyfreehanphotography