A Whole-Home Renovation and Interior Design Transformation in Summit, NJ

Renovating a large home room by room can easily produce a collection of disconnected decisions. For this Summit residence, what started as a kitchen project opened into something broader: updating the home across multiple floors while creating a consistent architectural and interior language from the foyer and kitchen to private bedrooms, offices and lower-level entertaining spaces.

Michael Robert Construction and the Ellie Mroz Design team coordinated construction, finish decisions, custom details, interior design and furnishings across the project. The result is not one repeated look. Instead, each room has its own mood while materials, proportions, millwork and color create continuity throughout the house.

The kitchen was reworked as part of the larger whole-home effort, with a quiet neutral palette, marble, warm metal accents and carefully integrated cabinetry. Rather than treating the kitchen as a stand-alone showpiece, the design connects it naturally to the adjacent family spaces and the broader material direction of the home.

Custom millwork is one of the strongest connective elements in the project. Built-ins, fluting, cabinetry, shelving and architectural openings give the renovated rooms a sense of permanence while allowing the palette to shift from light and restrained to deep and atmospheric.

This is where construction execution and design direction work particularly well together: details are resolved as part of the architecture rather than added as decoration at the end.

A whole-home project does not require every room to look the same. Here, the design becomes more expressive in spaces such as the library, powder rooms and bar, where deeper color, stone and tailored furnishings create memorable shifts in mood. Those moments are balanced by quieter bedrooms and baths, giving the home variety without losing cohesion.

The private rooms continue the same balance of architectural polish and livability. The primary suite and bedrooms use restrained color, texture and tailored furnishings to create calm spaces that still feel connected to the more expressive rooms elsewhere in the home.

Bathrooms were treated as part of the home's overall material story rather than isolated design exercises. Marble, tailored vanities, metalwork and carefully controlled contrast create spaces that feel luxurious through proportion and detailing rather than visual excess.

The lower level extends the project beyond the formal and family spaces upstairs. A dedicated theater and bar create a distinct entertaining zone, demonstrating the breadth of the renovation and the value of planning the home as a complete living environment.

Large renovations create hundreds of interconnected decisions. Construction details affect furnishings; millwork affects lighting; material lead times affect sequencing; and changes in one room can influence budgets and decisions elsewhere. Coordinating construction and design gives clients a more connected path through those decisions, with construction, design and furnishings considered together instead of passed between disconnected teams.

That integrated model does not require a closed ecozystem. Both teams also collaborate with outside architects and designers when a project calls for it. The advantage is disciplined coordination, clear responsibility and a shared understanding of how design intent becomes a finished home.