Kitchen and main floor remodel in Ann Arbor, MI

Featured project. Ann Arbor, Michigan

A kitchen that pulled the rest of the floor along with it

This kitchen remodel in Ann Arbor started as one room and finished as most of a floor. The cabinets needed replacing outright, which meant the room was coming out to the studs whatever else happened. Once it did, the floor it sat on, the stairs beside it, the windows around it and the deck off the back all came into the job.

LocationAnn Arbor, Michigan

ProjectKitchen, main floor, stairs and deck

InvestmentAbout $165,000

Completed2025

Remodeled Ann Arbor kitchen with walnut slab base cabinets, white shaker wall cabinets, a terrazzo backsplash and matte black counters — White shaker above, walnut below, and a terrazzo slab running the length of the wall.

The kitchen this Ann Arbor home had lived with

The room measured about 170 square feet, so this was never a case of buying space. It was a case of making the space work harder. Plenty of homes in Ann Arbor of this vintage carry the same soffit above the wall cabinets, boxing in a foot of ceiling for no reason anyone remembers, and this one had it too.

With the cabinets going regardless, the sensible move was to strip the room and reset it rather than fit new boxes into an old layout. That is also the moment the rest of the floor stops being a separate project.

View from the dining room into a remodeled Ann Arbor kitchen with a brass globe chandelier, white upper cabinets and a sliding patio door — Looking in from the dining room, with the deck through the patio door.

Why a kitchen remodel in Ann Arbor became a main floor rebuild

Kitchens spread, and not because anyone is selling upward. A kitchen sits in the middle of a floor, and the floor does not stop at the doorway. Take out the kitchen flooring and you are left at a line where new meets old. Replace the windows on that wall and the siding above them has to come off to do it.

So the work grew by adjacency. The kitchen was gutted, the soffit came down, and the closet and the openings through to the entry were reframed. About 1,200 square feet of hardwood went across the first floor. The stair got a new railing, the office got a new floor, and the deck was demolished and rebuilt. An upstairs bathroom sat in the same contract, which is why a job that reads as a kitchen carries a tiled shower in its scope.

Grouping work this way is the argument for design build: one contract, one crew, one sequence, and the flooring transitions line up because the same people set both sides of them.

Walnut, white shaker and a terrazzo slab

The cabinetry is two-tone and it is the decision the room turns on. White shaker uppers keep the top half light in a kitchen with one window. Walnut slab-front bases carry the grain horizontally along the run, with slim black bar pulls and a black recessed toe kick. The cabinetry reads as two materials doing two jobs rather than one finish applied everywhere.

Behind it a terrazzo slab runs full height and wraps the window, one continuous surface rather than tile with grout lines. Large angular chips of white, amber and gray sit in a pale matrix, so the wall carries pattern without carrying colour. Against matte black counters and a black apron sink it is the only busy thing in the room, which is why it works. That is the whole logic of a countertop and backsplash pairing: one surface stays quiet so the other can talk.

Close view of a terrazzo backsplash slab showing large angular white, amber and gray aggregate set in a pale matrix — The terrazzo up close. Chips, not veining, which is how you tell it from stone.

Polished nickel bridge faucet and black composite apron front sink below a window against a terrazzo backsplash — A bridge faucet and a separate filtered tap at the window.

The stairs, and what we deliberately left alone

The stair sits immediately off the entry, so it is the first thing anyone sees, and it looked its age next to a new floor. It got a new handrail, new posts and black metal balusters, with the skirt painted out black so the assembly reads as one piece of carpentry rather than a rail bolted to a wall.

What it did not get was new treads. The treads and the landing are still carpeted, exactly as they were. A railing is joinery you can add to a working stair; rebuilding treads means taking the stair apart. That money went into 1,200 square feet of floor instead. If you want a stair taken back to its stringers, that is a different job, and our staircase work in Ypsilanti is the one to look at.

New stair railing with a walnut handrail, sculpted newel posts and black metal balusters above carpeted treads — New handrail, posts and balusters. The carpeted treads stayed as they were.

Floors across the first level, and one that fought back

The hardwood came to the house early and sat acclimating before anyone opened a box, which is the unglamorous step that decides whether a floor gaps in February. Prep, then installation across the first floor, with the subfloor repaired where it needed it. The kitchen floor and the living space now run as one surface with no threshold between them.

Two things went wrong and both are worth saying. A factory defect in the hardwood got past everyone and made it into the installed floor before it was spotted, on the third day of laying it, and it had to be put right after the fact. The office turned out to have a bad enough subfloor that a joist needed repair before anything could go over it.

Neither was anyone’s fault and both cost time. The reason to print them is that the costs that surprise people are almost never the finishes. They are what gets found underneath.

Detail of a red oak border and stained threshold meeting new hardwood flooring in a home office — The office floor, laid with a lighter border and a stained threshold.

Windows, siding and a deck rebuilt in composite

The first-floor windows near the kitchen and entry were replaced, which meant reframing the exterior wall to take the new units and their doors. Once they were in and trimmed, the row of siding above them came down and went back up. That sequence is the reason to do window replacement and siding in one visit rather than two.

The back deck was demolished and rebuilt in gray composite, on a bordered layout with a diagonal breaker board, Azek trim, and a black metal railing with closely spaced vertical balusters. It is not a wood deck, and the difference is the point: composite is what you choose when you would rather not sand and stain a deck every second summer in this climate.

Upstairs, the bathroom was rebuilt around a new tub, with a waterproofed and tiled shower, a tiled floor, a new exhaust fan and new fixtures. It produced the best small story of the job: the tub’s drain sat in a different orientation than anyone had planned for, so the shower valve plumbing moved across to line up and the west wall was furred out to meet the flange. None of that is visible in the finished room, which is rather the idea.

Rebuilt back deck with gray composite boards in a bordered layout and a black metal railing with vertical balusters — The rebuilt deck, with the border and breaker board visible across the field.

Composite deck and teal blue lap siding at the rear of an Ann Arbor home with a sliding patio door to the kitchen — Looking back at the house, with the new windows and the siding above them.

How the main floor reads now

From the dining room you look through a single run of floor into a kitchen with a brass globe chandelier over it, light cabinets above, dark below, and one patterned wall. Turn around and the entry hall runs on the same boards to a stair with a new railing on it. The lighting does the rest, with under-cabinet strips washing the terrazzo so the aggregate reads at night.

The comparison for anyone budgeting is simple. A kitchen alone is a smaller number. A kitchen plus the floor it sits on, the stair beside it and the deck behind it is a bigger one, and it buys a house that feels finished rather than a room that makes its neighbours look tired. Our cost guide for Ann Arbor kitchens sets out where those lines fall across Washtenaw County.

See how a smaller Ann Arbor kitchen came together, browse other featured projects, then get in touch.