Local institutions prove that with renovations, sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference.

As a fashion-victim-turned-home-owner, I’m having to learn that houses are not outfits. I can’t just buy a new house if its windows aren’t fabulously now. I can’t relocate because the color of a brick front isn’t this season’s. New paint, furniture and other small adjustments are the only way to keep things fresh.

The same is true of restaurants, arts institutions and other city destinations. In a season of sensational new spots, both large (the Packard Building's transformation into the aptly named The Grande) and small (Spacely Sprocket-like restaurant Kissen), the news is that so many venerable locations and their owners are staying put and remodeling rather than buying anew.

Old City's Café Monticello turned a coffee klatch into a sumptuous lounge with but a change in lighting and name, becoming Amici. Bainbridge Street crêperie Beau Monde opened a second floor performance space, L'Etage. Chancellor Street's groovy gay bar of old, Key West, got kicked into this century by renovating and hiring young promotions folks who understand Key's original '80s vibe. Several institutions of foodie fun and arts stand out for renovations based on already innovative designs.

"When I first saw the space -- a Walnut Street brokerage firm with 30-foot ceilings and marble columns -- I knew it'd be the investment a home is," says Neil Stein of his now decade-old Striped Bass. "The place was Œwow' then and now. But you have to ensure that." So no sooner were the candles on his anniversary cake snuffed, Stein and Bass' original designer, Meg Rodgers, were ready to change his hallowed Bass' stripes. "It's about polishing what's there." Bass' mix of Moroccan motifs made mod, center dining space and banquettes will soon be made more comfortable, brighter and lighter through bolder colors and fabrics and breezier cream-colored window treatments.

Though not as old as the Bass, Stephen Starr's Tangerine in Old City and Morimoto on Seventh and Chestnut just went under the knife, not so much for a face-lift as for a collagen injection. For Tangerine, Starr removed his initial vision for its hostess stand, a formidably foreboding train-station motif, and revamped it as a welcoming L-shaped lounge. "The initial design intimidated people," Starr admits. "But in reality, the everyday guy likes a comfortable hang. Now we can bring the sexy feel of the back of the house, the restaurant, into the front with greater immediacy." As for the peaceful, curvaceous confines of Morimoto, Starr and designer Karim Rashid have built into (or under) its black-pebble basement/bathroom lounge a private, reservation-only dining suite, the Omekase Room. "The Om" is a smoked-glass retreat with one long kidney-shaped table, surrounded by white and red leather seating.

For those with taste buds titillated more by art and artifacts, the historic Rosenbach Museum & Library reopens this week, renovated, architecturally restored and expanded. "It was clear 2010 Delancey, an 1860s townhouse, was not designed to be a library, museum or even a place to hold public programs," says Michael Barsanti, Rosenbach's director of special projects. "When the house next door at 2008 became available, it presented opportunities to hold collections comfortably and make them more accessible while adding program and exhibition space. It allows us to use 2010 more gently."

Barsanti points out that while renovation to 2008 was dedicated to "workhorse" functions, the renovated 2010 very purposefully maintains its original architectural details. There is much attention to design detail, like recreating the light levels of modernist poet Marianne Moore's New York City apartment in the museum's exhibit on Moore. That subtlety graces much of Rosenbach's restorations and reinstallations of furniture, paintings and collection faves such as Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula, Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice's Adventures In Wonderland or Robert E. Lee's resignation from the Union Army. But then there are the major changes, like a new gallery dedicated to Maurice Sendak's work. Sendak's most famous book, Where the Wild Things Are, celebrates its 40th anniversary at Rosenbach with a "making-of" exhibit revealing Sendak's preliminary sketches, alternate drawings, "dummy" books and manuscript notes. "It was important to Sendak that his gallery look more [like a] domestic space than a white box," says Barsanti, who will mix Rosenbach collection furnishings and paintings with Sendak's Mickey Mouse figurines and toys from the '20s and '30s. And while the gallery's Samuel Yellin ironwork doors have been conserved by stripping off the heavy black paint to show their beautiful original finish, the rest of the gallery's changes emphasize the Rosenbach brothers themselves, like a reconstructed and refurbished personal library, detailing auction catalogs and the business of book-dealing in the early 20th century. All of these changes cost nearly $10 million, Barsanti estimates. "We're placing greater emphasis on the story of the Rosenbach brothers, their business and their importance in the establishment of some of this country's major research libraries and museums."