Remodeling Envy

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Reds, I’ve got remodel envy. Now, I’m a woman who loves the so-called shelter magazines. I subscribe to HGTV Magazine and House Beautiful. I follow interior designers in Insta and bookmark pages for the Kips Bay Showhouse and the One Room Challenge. But, you know, in real life, everything in my house has been more or less the same for many, many years, and the same can be said for most of my friends.

 But two years ago, my sister redid her kitchen. 

It was the real thing - everything old went, including an oddly placed wall that squeezed everyone entering the space. She had the whole, newly opened living room-dining room area painted and new flooring laind throughout the first floor.

And her kitchen! Not fancy by the standards of those show houses and magazines, but to me, cooking all these years in my 1930-something layout, it’s spectacular. Pristine cabinets and drawers with soft-closing hinges. New stainless steel everything. A beautiful tile backsplash over cool marble countertops. A farmhouse sink deep enough to immerse a stock pot in and sweet touches like adjustable lighting and a beverage fridge right by the french doors to the deck. 

Now all I can think of is how I could maximize my work areas (Barb gained at least twice as much counter space) and make my storage so much more efficient. (It might help to get rid of two completely dead corner cupboards.)

How about you, Reds? Have you ever had remodel envy? What did you do about it?

RHYS BOWEN: I’ve just been reading about Debs’ upgrading of her pantry space. It looks brilliant. I have to say that I like my kitchen the way it is.  It has a walk in pantry, a nice breakfast area and a balcony with a view to the hills opposite. No complaints there although we do need a new stove but can’t make the effort to choose one. Instead we have to light one of the burners by turning the knob and blowing on it.  Our kids despair! 

However when we first saw our house in Arizona I drooled because everything had been remodeled, updated etc. A whole house all shiny and new. Lovely new kitchen with plenty of space. Gorgeous shower. White quartz counters everywhere–so easy to clean, and that hard faux wood floor that can be mopped in seconds. And the best thing about it–no forty year’s worth of clutter!

HALLIE EPHRON: I do, I do, alas I do have remodel envy. My daughter is an architect and she has endlessly pitched ideas for moving this wall and taking out that one and opening up the kitchen/dining room and I can see it all. We *did* redo our kitchen back in 1980 or so but the idea of “opening things up” and wasn’t yet on the horizon.

Now however, whenever I experience a bit of “remodel envy,” my next thought is: let the next owner do it.  Because how do you even live through a remodel??

LUCY BURDETTE: I do love my kitchen in Connecticut with all my heart. The pantry is a showstopper with lots of shelves and drawers and space on the floor for pots too big to fit in the main kitchen. My favorite part is the counter, made of old chestnut from someone’s barn and refinished with marine varnish. We were lucky to have built this house 25 years ago so it’s laid out exactly as I wanted it. We got a good chuckle out of my son-in-law remarking that it seemed “dated.” I will replace appliances that die (the fridge is hanging on by a thread), but no remodels for me!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, gosh, I love our house. It has its quirks, definitely, and I daydream about how I could rearrange the breakfast/sunroom by blowing out the outside walls and make a screened-in porch sort of amidst the garden, but I'm never gonna do it and it would cost fifty billion dollars anyway.

 

Our home is from 1894, and we did a little renovating 20 or so years ago, but I kept every bit of original molding and decoration and  woodwork. I DID make a sewing room (yes there was a sewing room!) into a pantry, and a SUPERsmall bedroom on the 2nd floor into a closet for me (!!) but it’s really pretty original otherwise. Although–do NOT talk about the basement. There are nooks and crannies  in there (like a coal chute)  that I would not even dare go near.

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  We did the whole gutting/remodel thing back in 2007. We bought our circa 1905 house from house flippers in 1995, and the job they had done on the kitchen was far from satisfactory (although probably an improvement over the original!) so we moved windows and doors and put in all new cabinets, an island, and appliances. But we had remodel horror stories, for sure! 

 

The contractors started in January, then once they’d torn everything out, announced that they couldn’t go any further until our foundation was leveled. Then it started to rain and didn’t stop for weeks and weeks, so no work progressed. (The foundation leveling has its own horror stories!) We lived with a toaster oven and an old microwave in our dining room, washing dishes in the downstairs bathtub, for about three months.

The end result was fabulous, however, fit for a House and Garden spread, and we have never regretted it for a minute. 

JENN McKINLAY: I remodeled my kitchen myself so no envy here. It’s a 1959 ranch and I redid all the cupboards–scraping, sanding, refinishing inside and out, and new hardware. I did have to buy some new cupboards (bare wood and pre-made) to replace cupboards that weren’t able to be refinished. The fit was so tight, I had to wax the bottom of the cupboard and the slab floor and use my feet to shove it in place under my new granite counter. 

 

I did hire someone to put in granite counters and rewire the kitchen for the new steel appliances. But I put in my over the sink light and ripped out the vent and cupboards over the stove by myself. The plan is to put a skylight there (yes, I will hire someone) but I haven’t gotten to it yet because, alas, I am a seventy percenter and only get things about that far done and another project distracts me. LOL.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? Have you tackled remodeling? And what, in your house, are you dreaming of changing? 

On Deck(oration)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Surprised to see me at the helm again? Rhys, poor thing, is trapped in Tuscany, recovering from a grueling week heading up a writers' workshop there by drinking Chianti and eating cinghiale y crostini al tartufo. Let's all take a moment to feel sorry for Rhys.

The Spode Hunt ware

Okay, enough of that. Today I want to talk about home decoration, a topic we rarely touch on here at JRW, because we A) have been living in our homes so long we have all the comfy chairs right where we want them and B) barely have the time to make our beds, let alone repaint the living room. But I'm sure I'm not the only one to get the urge to shake things up every now and then. I do it seasonally, since I am the Queen of Slipcovers.


Now it's summer, I'm going to be replacing the green damask slipcovers on the living room chairs with white-on-white striped cotton covers. I have a whole box of pillow covers that come out in June as well - white and pale green and yellow instead of green-and-maroon and red-and-brown. The Spode hunt china with its autumnal colors goes back inside the china cupboard, and I display the Canton Rose instead - all bright and light. I'll put away the wool and plush throws and replace them with cotton ones, because this is Maine, and we're going to need to wrap up some nights, even in August!

Smoke stains and water damage!

In the parlour, the winter slipcovers of dark crimson not-really-velvet get swapped for coral and geranium, and the pillows will lighten up as well. For the rest of the downstairs - the library, the kitchen and the family room - it's mostly just summer flowers to evoke the season. We inherited a burnt orange wall-to-wall carpet in the family room that would cost a fortune to replace, so we've decorated around it with cream and brown. There's not much of a way to summer-fy those colors, so I just close my eyes until fall comes round again.

No swords indoors.

Usually, the hot-weather, cold-weather change out, combined with several subscriptions to home decor magazines, is enough to satisfy. (Ross calls shelter magazines Playboy for women: "They're full of beautiful, desirable things that will never be yours.") But this year, I've gotten a real itch. I want to paint my kitchen.

We "did" the kitchen in 1994, right after we moved in. We tore down a crumbling plaster wall and had it drywalled, had the wooden floor refinished and glossed up, and painted the doorways, window frames and chair rails a deep green. I hung lincrusta wallpaper to echo the pressed tin ceiling in the foyer and covered the center panels of the (original 1920s) cupboard doors with a bright floral Waverly print. We replaced the old hanging lights with bright sealed brass and had under-counter lights installed. And then we stopped.

Peeling lincrusta. The edge of the door's not so great, either.

Twenty-two years later... the lincrusta has started peeling off. One of the glass light fixtures had been broken, thanks to a kid playing with a sword. There's water stains on the drywall and the ceiling (we got the leak fixed but didn't repaint downstairs.) The wooden floor is worn and scuffed. There are smoke stains on the cupboard above the stove that can't be scrubbed off. But mostly, it just looks dated. Too busy, too much color and pattern, too floral, too late-eighties/early nineties.

My inspiration! (From Pinterest, of course)

So I want to redo it in black and white. Strip off the lincrusta and paint the walls, doors, windowsills and cupboards in white. We have a black-fronted oven and dishwasher, and the original iron hinges and pulls on the cupboards, which I think will pop against glossy white. Maybe replace the laminate counter top with something glossy and black, if we can do it ourselves. (Youngest's ongoing boarding school expenses mean we have a pretty limited budget.) Keep the overhead lights, but spray over the bright 80's brass with an oil-rubbed bronze finish.


Of course, you all see the biggest problem I have with starting a kitchen re-do: I still have to deliver a book! In the meanwhile, I'll continue to cut out pictures from magazines and price materials at the local stores. How about you, Reds? Any real - or dream - decorating you'd like to do?

I don't see any spaghetti sauce or cat hair, do you?

LUCY BURDETTE: Julia, you astonish and amaze me! I do the absolute minimum, that is take off the flannel bedspread and wool blanket on our bed and replace with a bright yellow and green quilt.

Though come to think of it, we finally had to throw out a rug under the kitchen table which had faded to an ugly tan (lots of sun!) And then the chair cushions had to go--not only because blue paisley didn't match anything, but also because the foam cushions were pushing out on all sides. I had some new cushions made by a seamstress on Etsy. I wish I'd gotten something a little darker to hide spaghetti sauce and cat hair, but other than that, we're thrilled.

HALLIE EPHRON: Lincrusta?! Had to look it up. TWO sets of dishes? And Julia, you could write for one of those dirty magazines.

Susan's tea-themed summer pillows.

We moved into our house 40 years ago, redid the kitchen, put on addition 10 years later, and beyond that have patched the paint and Elmers-glued the wallpaper seams. But I do have a pale gray set of slip covers for my couch that I have never (maybe once) used. Since the dark green it usually wears is fading (and you would too, after more than 25 years) maybe it's time to pull them out. Problem is they make the couch look literally like the elephant in the room.



SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Wow, switching out dishes? That's so Martha Stewart! We take off the beds' down comforters and put on cotton quilts, and switch out all the wool/velvet cushions for cotton in the bedrooms and living room. That's about it. Don't get any home decor mags, but I'm a fan of decor8  and a few other design blogs. Right now I'm working on a gallery wall with a new piece of art Noel and Kiddo had framed for me for Mother's Day by art duo Faile, titled, "A Call to Adventure." I love it — makes me think of a sort of mad Mary Poppins.

Hank's winter pillows...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Love it!  Oh, we have lincrusta on our hallway walls..it's so great and subtle.  We change too, in the spring. Er, summer. Er, soon. Our winter slipcovers  (soft loden green velvet) get changed to crisp white canvas. The pillows get changed ,too--here are winter--and summer (just the covers for now...I'll change them. Soon. Really.).  And we change dishes, too..the winter wreaths with luscious grapes and apples and plums to the summer wreaths with summery flowers and pale green stripes.   The only sad part--when the pool opens next week , the ducks leave. To every thing, turn turn turn..

 

...and her summer covers!

Who else wants Debs' fabulous leather sofa? I'm swooning.

RHYS BOWEN: Julia... Is it something about your part of the country that turns everyone into Martha Stewart's? Two sets of dishes? I have two sets. One good, for company, one everyday for us. And I change decor as I move from our California house (John's family antiques) to our Arizona condo (my choice light and airy Scandinavian, I.e. IKEA). We've done odd bits of upgrading in our CA home over the years... Replaced ugly brown doors with white ones, redone our bedroom, my study, but I have some projects planned if I ever find time for them: new hall floor desperately needed. Present one old and cracked tiles. Scrap that awful popcorn stuff off all ceilings. Major job. Repaint interior, put crown molding and recessed lights into living room. Replace kitchen counters. Replace downstairs bath. Ideally I'd like to leave these in the hands of a capable person, go away and come back to find them all finished! Luckily I'm still in Italy, too far from home to want to rush out and change the pillows!

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  I love JRW. I'm always learning new things. Today it's that our the anaglypta wallpaper below the chair rail in our living and dining room is actually a type, or brand, of lincrusta. Who knew? It was put in by the contractor who flipped our old house back in 1994 or so, and we like it and have never redone it. Unfortunately, one of our cats likes it, too. As a scratching post. We have three or four places now that we have to keep blocked off. Another project to tackle. (Repairing wallpaper, not getting rid of cat...)
As for the seasonal flip, we change duvets for cotton quilts, velvet cushions on the sofa for summer woven, winter for summer runner on the dining room table, and that's about it. Oh, we put away the furry throws in the living room, too. And I love to completely change out the cushions on my front porch swings, but so far they are all still in the attic... Here's the summer living room decor.


JULIA: I have to confess, the Spode and the Canton Rose are only two of my sets of china. I also have an old ironware and gold set for twelve and a blue-and white Royal Dalton set for eight. This is why I could never live in a tiny house...I'd have to choose between my china and Ross. And I'm not sure which would win out.

Readers, are you swapping things out for the season? Or, like me, do you have a yearning for a BIG redo (but first I'll finish the book! I promise!) Send me your pics and I'll put them up on the front page!

More inspiration. If I finished my book...

...maybe I could HIRE someone to do this!

Mary Sutton's fab living room w husband-made built-ins!

More built-ins at Mary's house.

Mary Sutton's kitchen. Love the 50's cutout above the window.

Mary's husband installed the wainscoting! Envy.

*"C" is for Countertops

(*apologies to Sue Grafton)

Ro: The plan was to give myself a few weeks off. To reconnect with friends and family that I had alienated in the last six self-absorbed months. It lasted about three days. Then I got the bright idea to do a mini-renovation in my kitchen. Nothing major. Nothing structural - not a facelift, just a little botox. Dream on.

In the same way that I haven't quite taken the kool-aid on HDTV, the world of Sub-Zero fridges, pro-style ovens and trendy countertops escapes me. I've done more research on countertops recently than I've done on book three. I don't even know what half of this stuff is, but I'm beginning to feel countertop envy. I have (shudder) a tile countertop. When I revealed that to a prospective contractor over the phone yesterday - there was a little pause - as if I'd said something so pitiful he didn't quite know how to respond. Oh, I'm so sorry - I know a support group.

Anyone who's been to my home knows I'm just as likely to have a $5 lamp from Goodwill as a $15,000 oriental carpet (which my dog routinely barfs on.) I'm an equal opportunity shopper. But do I really need a $20,000 countertop? Does anyone? Is it honed by Vestals?

Two fresh-faced guys in khaki pants and Polo shirts showed up today (at different times) to explain it to me. Now I have a headache. I'm supposed to pick out my own stone, too. Who am I? Michelangelo? Can't I just say, give me the gray stuff?Apparently not. This reminds me of my wedding. When the caterer asked me if I wanted sprigs of rosemary to tie around the napkins.

HALLIE: For a very short while, I was watching that show where people shop for houses and talk about how they're going to make them over, and it was making me crazy about the kitchen which we redid when we bought our house in the early '80s. My countertop is Formica, the color of those green highway signs... I still love it, but suddenly I'm thinking (provide scary music) **MARBLE**. Which of course leads to thoughts of light pine cabinets. Which leads to lots of money and lots of stuff I simply CAN live without. When we bought our house it had no kitchen counters at all--really, none. And a cast-iron sink that hung over a radiator. And a few WW II-era pink metal Sears cabinets. We loved the house because no one had spent a gazillion dollars on fixtures that weren't our taste.

I'm just back from BEA and heard Thomas Friedman give the keynote speech on his new book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" Tough messages for tough times. I wish "fixing" the world were as easy as fixing the kitchen with new countertops.

HANK: Did you use the rosemary? We should blog about weddings someday.Anyway. Kitchens. (Although we should probably talk about Thomas Friedman.) We got Corian a few years ago. I decided (scary music) that granite was, cold. I mean, it would feel cold to the touch.
So the Corian person came with samples. A thousand million samples. White, I said, gimme white. White with specks. (At the same time I was thinking, hmm, maybe black with specks. But we were trying to lighten up the place so I figured black wasn't the best answer.) It looks great. And years later, perfectly new.
But the countertop came with a VIDEO. A VIDEO. I'm supposed to watch a video about countertops?? I didn't. (But I always, in those cases, worry there might be something in the video that says, about halfway through, congratulations! You watched this and now you get a million dollars. Still, probably not, so it's not worth it.)

Digression: we got a GPS. And it came with a DVD that you're supposed to watch to find out how to work it. Hey. Note to sellers: I'm NOT going to watch a dvd instruction book. I'd rather not read an instruction BOOK, if I'm going to not do something.
Anyway. Me? I just want kitchen cabinet doors with glass. But then someone will have to come over and clean the inside of the cabinets. And rearrange the stuff inside.(I do have this idea though: what if I got photos of lovely, you know, pasta and cookies and interestingly gourmet things, and pasted them behind the glass. You know, faux food. It could work!)
Let us know what you decide, Ro!

RO: That's a riot....pictures inside the cabinets of neatly stacked things to camo the messy stuff.
I did not go with the sprigs of rosemary..I thought she was insane. My husband's assistant at the time did my whole wedding ..all I did was buy the dress and show up. I didn't even get my hair done, I went to a basketball game that day. My maid of honor was waiting for me at the Plaza. She was freaking because the game went into overtime. (That was back in the day when the Knicks were still good and actually got into the playoffs.)

I do realize kitchen makeovers are not the hot issue in many parts of the world, and I could build an annex to my library in Tanzania with what it will cost me for this "touch-up." Maybe I'm being influenced by all of these house shows on television...

BTW You will LOVE the GPS. Have you named her yet? (Mine's Tomasina)

ROBERTA: Part of my counter is refinished chestnut, recovered from a barn, then varnished with six coats of marine varnish. Absolutely stunning. Except I won't let anyone chop anywhere near it lest it be marred. So that's a lesson--if it's too nice, it's a little hard to enjoy:).
I was going to suggest weddings last week as I celebrated my 16th anniversary. We'll do it soon...after we straighten out the world...

RO: Can we start with my kitchen?