That was a gorgeous kitchen. Do you know when it was put in?

Your reno looks great.

Oh, my! That before. lol

You’ve really calmed it back down. Post back with the after afters when you’re done. I’m looking forward to a bit of color creeping back in.

Very nice! I can’t wait to see the after! Doing reno to my kitchen as well. We chose espresso cabs and thinking of White Zeus counters. What are yours? I just love that contrast.

To answer some of the questions..

the kitchen was probably done in the early to mid 90s.

We kept the original cabinets (they were good quality and probably predated the 90s renovation) took out the pipe wine holders and stained them walnut to get the knots out of the knotty pine. They are not as dark as they look in the pic

We added the same wide plank hardwood floors (light brown with a grey undertone) that we did throughout the rest of the house.

The countertops and stove backsplash are a white quartz with some grey veining by MSI called Botanica.

The mosaic backsplash was reportedly done by an artist .. and featured things like little creepy ceramic dolls heads..

The whole thing was sort of frightening but we put up with it for three years as while we renovated other things in the house

Kind of like zinnia’s kitchen she just posted, the tile was cool but not as both countertop and backsplash. And especially not if there’re ”creepy ceramic dolls heads”!

I love that you kept the cabinets and stained them, I’ll bet it looks even more gorgeous IRL. Nice job!

Thought you were joking about the doll heads. Decided to zoom in. That was a mistake. Nope. Face at the top right of the dishwasher. Nope nope nope nope nope.

Looks great!!

Yeah in addition to the creepy dolls head there was part of a beer bottle in the backsplash .. very artistic!

And for laughs here is the before living room .. and two afters ... still waiting on a glass divider for the step down living room but the new floors are in

To be clear we painted the whole interior white before we moved in as I couldn’t stand the beautiful whatever you call that paint job...this latest Reno was the kitchen and floors..

Well! that house was ….special!

I do like the stained glass over the door.

Looks like a lot of our college town professors’ homes, ha.

Wow, you sure know how to renovate! Nicely done.

Three years! How did yousleep at night! Good on you for seeing past to the 'possibles.' Great work!

EBL construction .. thanks we got lucky with our contractor who is a husband of a friend.

Tuckerdc.. yes about 3.5 years of that kitchen and those floors ! it was priorities and money : )

First we had to paint the inside and skim coat the ceilings, (year1) take all the ivy vines off the house (year 1) restucco the exterior and replace a lot of windows (year 3) do massive landscaping (trees that hadn’t been cut in 30 years) (year 2) redo the roof, replace the HVAC and electrical and pool equipment (years 1-2).

In case I didn’t mention it ; ) it was a fixer upper.

On the bright side it’s now like a new house and it really has a fabulous property.

My husband suggested that I start planning a fire pit as next years project but I may just stop now for a while and enjoy the damn house.

All for walls being in your taste now. That said, the originals at least took some skill to achieve that effect. Front window is gorgeous. Seems like this was an ideas out versus an execution house and you’re working on a reversal of that trend.

Seregirl - I get what you mean about ideas... there was just so so much going on there that you couldn’t appreciate the good stuff such as the stained glass window . FYI There are really beautiful windows are on the other side of that room which are not pictured in the photos .. two story floor to ceiling windows that overlook trees and a pool.

And so funny that you zoomed in on the creepy dolls head.. it used to freak my younger one out initially so we started giving her different names and laughing at her.. (the doll not my child)

Whoops Seregiel.. sorry for the misspelt autocorrect of your name!

Wow! I think the before pictures must have been done by folks who never made it back from Woodstock. Your Reno is gorgeous.

Zorroslw.. it was an interesting house... as it was entirely covered in ivy when we first bought it so we actually weren’t 100 percent sure what it looked like underneath ( it’s pretty ) the exterior work was actually more dramatic than the interior if you can believe that.. will post pics at some point.

We have been out in a rental house for two months for the floors ( upstairs-downstairs and the bathrooms) and kitchen work .. I am looking forward to moving back in this weekend even if it’s not 100 % done!!!!

I’m with your daughter. I never liked dolls, and it would be doubled if I bought that house! That is not a cosmetic I would have overlooked so your rehab is going wonderful.

At first I wondered if your before was done by Isaiah Zagar but his work is far better (but certainly does include doll heads).

Thunderbolts of lightning!
Very very frightening!

But I love your reno! That quartz countertop is especially beautiful. Enjoy your new kitchen!

Your transformation goes from overstated maximalist to subtle minimalist. Kudos to you for both taste and execution.

Love the fireplace but can't let my wife see it. We have a huge natural fieldstone fireplace (all stone from the property during construction) that she wants to cover with drywall. I could live with large tiles or paint it like yours. Ours is a working wood burning insert that we use a lot (5-6 cords a year) so I wonder if it would discolor.

The Netherwood.. Thanks.

FYI the only reason we painted ours our fireplace was that it wasn’t a nice natural stone ( see orig pic).

If yours is, why not keep it? It’s a great look if done right. Re: staining Ours is also wood burning and it hasn’t stained the paint so far but then again we don’t use it that much as we live in Southern California: )

This is an old photo of the fireplace. It is 16 feet high by 10 feet wide overall. The photo shows only a small portion of it.

It looks stunning to me but can you take a pic of it in the room? The issue could be that it’s out of proportion.

Here is a photo-after new trim installed before door replacement-now

One idea of an update without losing all the stone

I don’t want to get in the middle of a couple disagreement about style but I think it’s great and the fact that the stones come from your property make even more special.

And I like the compromise of bringing it down by half.

Here are some befores and afters on our exterior

WOW! What a stunning transformation. I love it! I can barely tell its the same property. Congrats! Looks so fresh but also like has been there forever.

Post move in pics

Still setting up

Dining room

I love your kitchen redo. I am doing the same in mine: regading using an edge splash and range splash made of the countertop. I feel it looks clean. I plan not to put any tiling above the edge splash, just paint; what are you doing?**** leaving the edge splash and paint abve it or tiling above the edge splash??

You made a lot of nice changes, ENJOY !!!!!

No tile above.. glad you like the Reno.

wow that's nice