An auction sign appeared in the yard of one
of their favorite houses in town. After a number of years
of looking for an older house in an established neighborhood,
this college town family made their move.
The home's layout was suited to two people,
with a small kitchen, limited closet space, and a woodworking
shop heated with a separate furnace. Built in the 1940s by
a local cabinet maker and his wife, the house had come on
the market after the wife passed away in her 90s, following
a brief illness .
The quality of the cherry woodwork, the potential
in the screen porch and woodworking shop spaces, and the wood
paneled upstairs bedrooms cinched the case, however. All the
space they needed already existed under the roofs, it just
needed to be reconfigured to fit a modern family's life.
The new owners, a family of four, including
two teenagers, plunged into a major renovation with help from
a sympathetic architect and contractor. For six months they
camped out in the house while renovation work went on in all
of the first floor but the living room.
