When real estate agent Mary Ann Glass saw the home come on the market last year, she was thrilled it had the requirements she and her husband Bob were seeking: a three-car garage and a pier-and-beam foundation.

Then they went to look at it.

Sign up for our newsletter!

* indicates required

“When we went through it, we were just…,” she pauses, unable to finish the sentence. “And after we closed, I thought: You have truly lost your mind.”

The home’s previous owners move into the home in 1975, and little had changed during the past 25 years. It was, Mary Ann says, full of dark brown shag carpets, dark wood moldings and kitchen cabinets, harvest gold bathroom fixtures, outdated wallpaper patterns and heavy drapes.

“It was so depressing,” she says. “There was just so much work in here.”

But Mary Ann has been in the real estate business long enough to know a hidden treasure when she sees one. When she got beyond the foundation and garage, she recognized the home was built by Jim Kienast, well known in the Lake Highlands area for his designs.

“He was the first guy in the era to put the big kitchens in and the things that women wanted, so he was very sought-after. He put the biggest closets in, the bigger master baths, bigger utility rooms, and he did the pier and beam foundations. They didn’t do any after him; they just don’t do them anymore.”

So the Glasses bought the home and closed in September 2001. After three months of extensive renovations, they moved in at the end of the year.

Now, with a lot of elbow grease and probably even more paint, what had been dungeon-like quarters has become a bright, open and airy home.

The Glasses hired decorator/contractor Midge Gray to help out, and Leigh Ann Ellis designed their landscape. Bob did much of the work himself, stopping by the home almost every weekend, Mary Ann says.

Hardwoods were laid in the living areas, tile floors were put down in the kitchen and bathrooms, and cream-colored carpet is now in the bedrooms. The heavy drapes were replaced with shutters. Wallpaper was torn off the walls and replaced with more neutral tones. Bright orange porcelain tile and appliances in one bathroom were re-porcelained in a more soothing shade of white.

In the master bath, sand-colored floor tile was laid and a gigantic sunken Jacuzzi tub replaced the more dated one with an inexplicable figure of a swan attached to it. A double vanity is separated by a huge mirror suspended between sinks.

In the front part of the home, just inside the front door, a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace mantel was another aesthetic hurdle Mary Ann was determined to tackle. “When you walked through the door, it just jumped out at you. That’s all you saw,” she says.

So they applied several coats of concrete stain to the mantel. Now it’s much lighter and blends in with the rest of the décor.

Easily the biggest accomplishment in the Glass home is the kitchen, virtually unrecognizable from its “before” photos. Rather than chuck the dark wood cabinets, the Glasses applied coats of white paint to them and found it produced immediate results.

“There was nothing wrong with them,” Mary Ann says. “I couldn’t see tearing them all out and starting over.”

The kitchen countertops, originally blue Formica, were replaced with granite, and a custom marble slab was made to cover the large center island. Linoleum floors were replaced with tile. The kitchen’s backsplash was done in tumbled marble and new appliances were installed, including a double oven.

“I love this kitchen,” Mary Ann admits.

One of the quaintest touches is a vegetable bin installed where a trash compactor used to be. Cloth-covered metal frames slide out to reveal onions and potatoes and the like.

“Before, I always had them lying out all over the counter,” Mary Ann laughs.

The home now barely resembles its previous incarnation, and that suits the Glasses just fine. They’re looking forward to having family gatherings in its open floor plan, and they recently welcomed their second grandchild.

It’s a home, Mary Ann says with a laugh, that they’ll remain in “until they carry us out in a coffin.”