Carol Polsky
Newsday

Kitchen renovations involve a seemingly endless list of decisions about every little detail, from cooktop to countertop, flooring to faucet.

But even after all that agonizing, most kitchens are surprisingly impersonal for a room so often in use and so central to family life. A white kitchen tends to look much like other white kitchens, a traditional kitchen like other traditional kitchens.

Impersonal didn’t cut it for Michelle Francis of Bellport, a banker by trade and an art lover by nature. She waited seven years to decide on her kitchen’s backsplashes, and when she did, they were unique: stained-glass mosaics based on paintings, most of women in gardens, that she’d selected from art books.

“It was very personal, which was the reason I went with this,” said Francis, 44, who has four children and loves to cook after a hectic workday. “When I see the woman sitting in her garden, I can honestly say it gives me a sense of inner peace.”

Chip Hunter of Mosaica, a design business with a showroom in Patchogue, interpreted the art - a sower by Millet, women in gardens by Manet, Caillebotte and Kroyer - in his designs for Francis and her husband, Arthur, 52, who has his own construction company.

Hunter, whose company creates unique counters, fireplaces and furniture in glass and stone mosaics as well as commercial projects for resorts, casinos and churches, says he’ll always try to produce what the clients “are dreaming about and envisioning.”

He’s working on an ivory and amber mosaic volcano “sculpture” around a stove vent hood that will glow at night with LED lights. Last year, he created glass mosaic kitchen countertops with a red and dark brown tree pattern for clients John McDaniel, a music director, and Glenn Daniels, a personal manager, on the North Fork.

“I’d always wanted to do something mosaic in the kitchen,” says McDaniel, 47, who is working on a show under development for Broadway based on the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” “I thought it was beautiful, and I thought it would be inspiring to cook.”

The way the light reflects off the glass tiles onto the ceiling changes all day with the sun’s movements, he says, and “it’s quite the conversation piece.”

Personal expression

Northport kitchen designer Susan Serra says she tries to “disconnect” her clients from the catalogs with their standardized ideas and looks.

“I ask them who they are as people, what do they want to be surrounded by? Is it an ethnicity, a favored vacation spot, a collection? I encourage my clients to express themselves personally in the kitchen.”

In her own kitchen, she built shelves to display her collection of Scandinavian pottery from the 1960s and 1970s. An oil painting hangs near the stove.

One of her clients, Jeanne Taylor of Centerport, wanted a Tuscan look. She choose deep colors and commissioned a painted Tuscan landscape scene on her stove vent hood.

“You are in the kitchen, you should be surrounded by your favorite things,” Serra says.

Making it their own

The Amicos of Dix Hills went one step further, putting their personal touches directly into a painted tile mural over their stove.

Peter Amico, 59, who owns a medical equipment company, and his wife, Lisa, 50, recently completed a renovation with traditional cherry cabinets and elaborate Italian-made trim. They’d seen the standard painted backsplashes with flowers and vases and fruit, and wanted something more distinctive.

They went to Cynthia Rees Ceramic Tile Showroom Inc. in Huntington Station, where they were put in touch with artist Nubia Arango, Amico says.

Peter Amico found a picture that he liked of a village waterfront with mountains in the background, and Arango agreed to paint it with touches personal to them.

“The first thing that came to mind, since it was a kitchen, was let’s put my wife’s name on one of the stores - Lisa’s Cucina.”

Then, Amico says, he thought of his late father, with whom he shared a first name. “His whole life he had a fruit store. I had her make a fruit store with all the fruit in front, and I had her call it ‘Pete’s Pro- duce’ to honor my dad.”

The three family cats also made their way into the scene, their likenesses cavorting in the foreground.

The mural and special tile work (in a shape to mirror the curve of the stove hood) took several months to complete and didn’t come cheap: Amico estimates the cost at about $6,000. But, he has no regrets.

“I love it,” he says. “It’s absolutely great. Everyone sort of stands there and looks at it. It’s got depth in it, water in it. They see our cats, my dad’s fruit store.”

He and his wife have had other personalized scenes painted elsewhere in the home, too (the wine cellar, the playroom, the bathroom) and, for them, these are the homey touches.

“It really makes the home feel comfortable and unique to us,” he says.