Ross and Georgie Kidder thought they were buying a dated but livable 1980s estate home outside Los Angeles. What they actually bought was a three-year renovation that would tear the house down to its studs, twice.
The couple runs Ross Alan Reclaimed, a reclaimed-lumber company built around salvaging old wood rather than throwing it away, so a home with real bones felt like a natural fit for them. The plan was a cosmetic refresh: new paint, new floors, some organic modern styling to replace the boxy, formal decor the house had carried since it was built. Instead, contractors kept finding problems that were never supposed to be discovered mid-project, and each one pushed the scope of the job further from a facelift and closer to a rebuild.
A Cosmetic Job That Turned Structural
According to the full room-by-room account published on Emily Henderson’s design blog, the Kidders’ renovation stretched across three distinct phases over more than three years. The delays weren’t about design decisions or backordered furniture. They were about a staircase that had been built incorrectly, electrical wiring that no longer met code, ceiling joists that were simply missing where they should have been, and pipes that eventually burst during the work.
Georgie Kidder has described the process as one where the couple kept having to replace and correct things that were out of code, at a cost well beyond what they had budgeted for going in. That is a familiar shape for anyone who has bought an older home expecting to update the surface only to find the real work is underneath the walls, but the Kidders’ version came with an unusually public paper trail: photos and details of nearly every room, shared after the fact so other homeowners could see exactly what a “simple” 1980s update actually involved.
What The Finished Rooms Look Like Now
The style landing point is what design writers now call organic modern: warm wood tones, textured natural materials, and a palette that trades the home’s original glossy formality for something calmer and more livable. Given that reclaimed lumber is literally the Kidders’ business, it is no surprise that salvaged and natural wood shows up throughout the finished home, tying the couple’s professional expertise directly to their personal renovation.
That professional connection is part of what makes the reveal worth paying attention to beyond the usual scroll of glossy makeovers. Ross Alan Reclaimed sources salvaged wood for kitchens, built-ins, and flooring, and the Kidders were able to lean on their own supply chain and trade knowledge in a way most homeowners can’t when a contractor tells them a load-bearing element needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Even with that advantage, the renovation still ran long and over budget. That detail alone reframes the story: a couple whose entire livelihood is reclaiming and reusing old materials still couldn’t shortcut the process of bringing a structurally compromised 1980s house up to code.
photo credit: unsplash
The reveal was written up by Ryann Trombetti for Emily Henderson’s blog, with the Kidders’ own home styled and photographed for the piece, but the underlying story, and the home itself, belongs entirely to the couple. That distinction matters for anyone scrolling past yet another glossy renovation feature: this wasn’t a designer’s showroom project. It was two homeowners living through drywall dust and code inspections in their own house, then choosing to show the unglamorous middle of the process along with the finished rooms.
Why This Kind Of Reveal Keeps Resonating
Whole-home renovation reveals tend to get attention for the same reason that before-and-after photos of any kind do, but the ones that stick are rarely the ones with the fewest surprises. A gut renovation that goes exactly to plan makes for a nice slideshow. One where the electrical panel fails inspection, the staircase has to be rebuilt, and a pipe bursts partway through makes for a story you can actually learn something from, especially if you are eyeing an older house of your own and assuming the previous owners’ decor is the only thing standing between you and a finished home.
It also helps explain why so many people ask homeowners in the Kidders’ position whether they’d consider documenting the process as an ongoing series rather than a single after-the-fact post. A single reveal captures the outcome. A running account of code violations discovered floor by floor, room by room, would capture the part that actually determines whether a renovation budget survives contact with an old house. For now, the Kidders’ story exists as one long look back rather than a real-time series, but it functions as a useful reality check regardless of format: the decor is rarely the hard part of updating a dated home. The wiring, the framing, and the plumbing behind it usually are.
photo credit: unsplash
If you’re staring down an older house with decor stuck in whatever decade it was built, the Kidders’ timeline is worth sitting with before you commit to a “quick” update. Three phases, three-plus years, and a business built on salvaged wood still weren’t enough to keep this renovation on schedule. What eventually got shared online wasn’t just a finished living room. It was proof that the most useful part of any reveal is usually the part that happened before anyone thought to take a picture.
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