The long, narrow kitchen is divided by an old chimney. The stove and food-prep area are on the north end (foreground here), while counters, cabinets, and additional sinks on the other side make serving simple.

This house is in Dunstable, Massachusetts, a hamlet with a still-rural air. Built as a traditional brick-end Federal very early in the 19th century, it grew with a gabled ell extension to the east and several screened porches added early in the 20th century.

By the time Mary and David Dacquino found the house, a side door and windows had been added to the street side, throwing off its classic symmetry. Interior partitions and extra doors divided the stately old house into a warren of spaces. But its colonial simplicity, fireplaces, and early moldings beckoned.

Mary especially liked the kitchen—a long, somewhat curious room extending half the length of the first floor. In the center sits a handsome brick hearth, a reminder, perhaps, of this space having been two rooms during the house’s time as a travelers’ inn. The large kitchen boasted three sinks and 36′ of countertop space, promising plenty of homemade pasta primavera for the couple’s army of nieces and nephews. A separate mudroom entrance at one end protects the house from any incursion by the harsh New England winter.

The promising room needed significant restoration. Ignoring colonial precedent in search of Tuscany, previous owners had faux-finished the walls with a yellow glaze and applied trompe-l’oeil paintings of roosters, pigs, and horses on cupboards and doors. The navy-blue ceramic tile floor was out of character and out of plumb, with tiles cracking. Mary and David began work with the floor; after removing additional layers of asbestos tile, linoleum, and vinyl, they found the underlying wood floorboards unsalvageable. A new floor of wide pine planks was properly laid. Particleboard cabinets were replaced with simple, Shaker-influenced units made in ash by a local cabinetmaker and painted in historic colors.

The south end of the kitchen is centered on a sawbuck dining table milled from lumber salvaged from an old shed on the property. Built-in bookcases, a 10'-long window seat, and the centered hearth make the long room cozy and comfortable.

Countertops now are a practical combination of soapstone and reclaimed 200-year-old chestnut. They kept the old sinks of stainless steel and copper. Mary, an accomplished cook, insisted on a commercial Viking stove. To keep the ventilation from looking too modern, a new soffit with an antique pediment camouflages the vent above. Behind the range, a veneer of antique-style brick integrates with 19th-century English mosaic tiles, which continue above the counters.

Architectural salvage and antiques furnish the room. An 8′-long sawbuck table was custom-made from old barn boards on the property. A mid-19th-century pine worktable with apple green legs became a perfect workstation by the stove. Ironstone and yellow ware; vintage copper pots, pans, and chocolate molds; a rusty bread sign from an old bakery; and café curtains made from mangle cloths create the look and feel of an early New England kitchen.

The mudroom at the north end likewise needed a total makeover. Housed in a two-story ell added by previous homeowners, the addition had a hipped roof that didn’t belong. Mary and David reconfigured it into a larger, more functional addition, making room for a pantry and powder room as well as a 16′ x 8′ mudroom downstairs, and a bedroom and bath upstairs. The back porch now has a flat roof and decorative balustrades milled to match those on the front porch, which ties the addition into the main house.

The good-looking range has a combination of electric and gas burners, and a powerful extractor fan concealed by the wooden mantelpiece. The tiles are in the traditional oblong shape with a cream crackle finish. A glossy black border tile defines the tiled areas. Made from old wood, the large center table is used for preparation as well as family meals.

The Georgian period, in my view, was the most influential and enlightening of architectural eras and one that has stood the test of time. Governed by classical principles of design, particularly those involving scale and proportion, it is a style of both exterior and interior that is immensely pleasing to the eye. The attention to the detail of each and every architectural element is what I find particularly intoxicating. Whether you are resotring an existing 18th-century property or looking to build or furnish a new house in Georgian style, there is a wealth of references and craftspeople to help you.

The painted wood fireplace was custom-made and lined in brick. The Belfast (or farmhouse) sinks rest on pine shelves, and the drainer and countertops nearby are also in wood. No window treatments have been used, as privacy is not an issue and the sash and trim are handsome.

Classical features and architectural details can be successfully reproduced to emulate the past. Color, pattern, texture, and accessories all help bring harmony and life to a room, but these are insignificant if the “bones” are not in place. By this I mean the room’s structure—its proportions and such architectural elements as windows, doors, architraves, plasterwork, and wall and floor finishes.

Georgian-era kitchens were very much out of sight and out of mind, a below-stairs warren of kitchens (cooking areas), sculleries (for washing and cleaning), larders, and pantries where, in the grandest houses, an army of cooks and servants worked over open fires (and the owners rarely set foot). Today, of course, the kitchen has become the hub of the home and the preferred venue for casual family meals. The challenge in designing kitchens today for Georgian-period or –style homes is to produce something timeless, yet also ergonomically efficient, and bristling (unobtrusively) with modern appliances.

In spite of its vintage look, this is a new kitchen, carefully planned with each piece of furniture custom-built to look informal and traditional.

An antique pine dresser is the focal point on this wall, with its collection of old pots, teapots, and plates, all in regular use. The cupboards and glazed-door cabinets on either side were custom-made for glasses an tableware.

The owners of this house are both enthusiastic cooks, so they were very involved in the design and layout of the room, and the selection of furniture and equipment. I find that kitchen layouts are very personal. Everyone has his own habits and routines to be accommodated. A designer should understand and respect this. Here, there’s a huge amount of preparation area, with plenty of room for two cooks to work in their own space. Apart from the timeless European range and rotisserie, there is no exposed modern equipment, and the combination of pine, oak, and painted wood creates an old-fashioned, evolved feel. The floor is a French limestone with a slate inset.

In an ideal world, every home would have a utility room, a laundry, a flower room, and a mud room. This space, with its travertine floor, beech worktops, and mimosa-colored painted woodwork, looks as if it has served these purposes in an old house for centuries. But it is in the same new country house, leading off the kitchen. Natural sunlight streams in from all sides through large, unadorned windows that open for plenty of ventilation. Drying racks hanging from the ceiling allow laundry to be air-dried.

Even the laundry-room door provides ventilation and light, as its glazed upper section can swing open independently. Deep farmhouse sinks look good and are practical in a utility room.

Book Review: Georgian Style and Design by Henrietta Spencer–Churchill

So many early houses in the United States were built in the English Georgian period; “Georgian” is considered the predominant American style in the years 1720 to 1790 or later, predating the Federal period. With its classical principles, the Georgian period has influenced architecture ever since.

During the 18th century, that influence came directly from England. So studying English Georgian houses is like going to the source for inspiration.

But don’t expect to find museums in a new book by Henrietta Spencer–Churchill. In Georgian Style and Design, she offers instead a contemporary take on Georgian. Classical but comfortable, rooms have an almost spare aesthetic despite rich architectural detail. Many of the houses shown are sympathetic renovations of period houses; several are newly built in the Georgian style.

Whether your house is a true colonial or a 20th-century revival, you’ll find new ideas for paint colors, furnishing, window treatments, lighting, and display in this gorgeous book. Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living by Henrietta Spencer–Churchill, Rizzoli 2008 (US)/ CICO Books/Ryland Peters & Small (UK).

The cedar and log house Andy and Barbara share with their sons Aaron, Nathan, and Matthew was built in 1995, largely with salvaged and reclaimed materials. One wing is a historic cabin they moved and reassembled.

When visitors ask Barbara and Andy Twigg how old their house is, they mean: was it built in the 18th century, or early in the 19th? It looks, after all, like a house firmly rooted, with board walls and stone fireplaces, old doors and well-worn floors. The truth is a surprise: The house, as it appears today, was built in 1995.

“The newel post came from a shop on the Eastern Shore,” Barbara says, explaining that, for years, she and Andy would find odds and ends in antiques stores, kids in tow. Vintage pottery sits on a kitchen wall shelf made up of reclaimed lumber. Almost every one of the doors in the house is antique, to the builder’s chagrin. “Each door was a different size, and had to be custom fit,” Andy says. The double doors came from the church Barbara attended as a child. Vintage lighting fixtures were brought along from their previous dwelling.

The Twiggs had restored an old house, and appreciated quality and character, the wood trim and wide-board floors. But they had missed closets, energy-efficient windows, a finished basement, and an open floor plan. They began to think about building a new “old” colonial house, using vintage and authentic building materials. After a year-long search, they found a verdant plot surrounded by a Civil War-era rock wall. With bucolic views of church steeples and blue-tinged mountains, it was the perfect place to build.

Lucky for the Twiggs a bevy of skilled family members were on call—talented carpenters, stonemasons, drafters, and electricians, not to mention a brother who is an antiques dealer always on the lookout. A neighbor introduced another brother to his future wife on the job site.

Andy and Barbara Twigg enjoy the cabin’s porch.

Andy had a local mill make fluted trim, copied from that in their first home, for this project. Authenticity was important to the couple, who searched out historical reproductions when an antique element could not be salvaged or found. Colonial-period colors—mustard, sage green, brick red, and ivory—run throughout the house. (Painting was Barbara’s job.) Vents, electrical paraphernalia, and some appliances hide behind cabinets or decoration.

It’s the two-story log cabin, a more recent addition, that most creates the sense of history. “I’ve always wanted to live in a log cabin,” Barbara used to lament. Then her son found one, a relic, in a friend’s back yard. Painted yellow, orange, and red, it was being used as a storage shed. “They sold it to us for $750!” Andy laughs.

An ancient floor joist makes a mantel over the stone fireplace in the main house.

Friends and family helped move the cabin piece by piece. It took two years to reassemble it. “We were in a constant work zone,” Barbara recalls. Every board had to be power-washed, hand-stripped, and sanded. Badly deteriorated logs were replaced with reclaimed timbers of cedar, oak, and even American chestnut. Fresh chinking was added between stacked logs, an arduous task: “My sons helped me on that one,” Barbara says.

Every year in late fall, the Twiggs open their doors as part of a craft-studio tour. Barbara sells her own utilitarian creations, including the same kind of hooked and “penny” rugs made from wool strips that her great-grandmother once made. What’s ahead for this industrious family? Andy grins. “A timber frame barn, vintage, for antique cars,” he says. They’re on the lookout.

A newly reproduced list (rag) rug in the boys’ bedroom at Locust Grove (1792) in Louisville, Kentucky; S and Z twists in the stripes are common design elements. By The Weavery

It wasn’t long, though, until affordable rugs were available, and you will probably choose to cover your floors for color and comfort today. So let’s start with the most affordable grades and move up.

Cost-Effective Carpeting in the 18th Century

First, remember: The oriental carpet placed on a burnished wood floor dates to after 1880 and is a Colonial Revival convention. When carpets were used in the 18th century, they generally covered a room’s floor from wall to wall. Smaller rugs, or loose floor coverings, were in use, too, particularly for secondary rooms and in modest households. Folks wanted wall-to-wall carpet: With no central heating and single-glazed windows, houses were cold, and carpeting helped. Carpet also “warmed up” an interior aesthetically and dampened noise.

An original Venetian striped carpet (on top) with its wool reproduction (still on the loom) for the 1825 Beall-Stibbs House in Wooster, Ohio. By Thistle Hill Weavers

The invention of the Jacquard loom in 1801 permitted the automatic creation of repeating pattern by programming the loom with punch cards. (Before that, any change in pattern had to be done painstakingly by hand, with the weaver selecting the pattern and color of the yarns with each pass of the shuttle.)

Venetian
Venetians were woven in narrow strips between 27″ and 36″ wide; these were (and still are) hand-sewn together and the resulting carpet tacked down around the perimeter of the room. The stripe might be “broken up” with an alternating repeat known as a ladder stitch. Venetians and rag carpets remained popular through the first half of the 19th century, when they were eclipsed by a patterned version of flat-woven carpet termed ingrain.

Affordable Patterns in the 19th Century

Reversible ‘Flower Garden’ ingrain from a house in Cazenovia, New York, along with red ingrain from Waveland in Lexington, Kentucky. By Family HeirLoom Weavers

Luxury Carpets

The ca. 1810 Brussels carpet ‘Floral Roman Tile’ is a document reproduction at Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts. By J.R. Burrows & Co.

The Brussels is a loop pile that reminds many of needlepoint, while Wilton is a cut pile with a velvety feel. Wilton cost much more than Brussels, due to the labor-intensive process of cutting and finishing the pile.

Pile carpets were so expensive that even most affluent households placed them only in the best parlors. It was quite exceptional to find Wilton or Brussels carpet throughout the first floor, let alone in the bedchambers. Instead, flat-woven carpets (and eventually, after 1840, machine-made Axminsters) were used in secondary rooms.

Yellow-ware bowls are stored in the pantry off the kitchen; scented geraniums fill windowsills.

A country doctor named Rufus Ward, with “blue eyes, neatly combed hair, and a frail constitution,” in 1855 purchased a two-story, double-pen brick home for his rural practice in southern Indiana. The vernacular country farmhouse was built in 1840 of local materials: limestone for the foundation, local brick for walls, common poplar for mantels and trim. The house is rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad; the Wards were vocal abolitionists. When Rufus Ward passed away in 1861, his wife, Clementine, remarried, but the farmhouse remained in the family for more than a century.

Their son, Thomas Jefferson Ward, and his wife, Addie, lived in the farmhouse for their entire lives. They modestly updated the place, adding a Victorian front porch with decorative wood balustrades, and a kitchen/keeping room at the rear. Old windows got new six-over-six sash. But original details were kept, and today the house still has a finely carved poplar mantel in the front parlor, beaded trim, and wide-plank floors. Thomas Ward’s daughter Haidee was married here in 1927 and lived in the house for another 50 years. She maintained it well, making few alterations besides the introduction of electricity and indoor plumbing in the 1920s.

It was from Haidee that Linda and Phil Stafford purchased the house 1978. Haidee even left a few pieces of furniture, which have been conserved, including a cherry corner cabinet in the parlor. (A hot-water pipe runs through it!) The sound house needed only cosmetic work, so Phil and Linda spent a decade of weekends stripping wallpaper, plastering, and repainting. Inspired by the historic Bump Tavern at Cooperstown, New York, Linda tried her hand at stenciling a decorative border on the parlor floor. To keep the house simple and provide a backdrop for their growing collection of antiques, the couple painted walls Sears’ ‘White’ and used a medium brown called  ‘Pearwood’ from Old Village Paints on trim.

Painting your early home? Read more about choosing historic interior paint colors.

A bedroom is papered with country-style wallpaper and furnished modestly with a child’s rope bed and a walnut nightstand.

The couple’s love of old things dates to both their childhoods. Phil grew up in an 1850s German farmhouse not far away; some of Linda’s fondest memories are of family vacations taken at historic sites, including Civil War battlefields. They furnished the house with a combination of family pieces (the cherry rope bed, a curly-maple rocker in the library, a mid-19th-century oak cupboard that stores quilts), along with country antiques they have added over the years. After seeing tealeaf ironstone displayed at Lincoln’s home in Springfield, they took to collecting it, as well as other ceramics: salt-glazed jugs, pale yellow-ware mixing bowls, earthen redware platters. The period rooms are warm with an old sugar chest and breakfront, simple candle tables of mahogany, and early drawings by Indiana artists.

The couple extended the house in 1990, adding a second story over the dining room and kitchen. The footprint is the same, and the new second level has a master bedroom, a den, and two needed baths (which introduced the very first shower to the house). The knob-and-tube wiring was finally updated, and a new HVAC system installed. The addition was built with salvaged materials, including bricks that came from an old jailhouse. They discovered usable old doors in the barn, including the original back door, still with claw marks from a farm dog trying to come in.

The country living room is furnished with red-checkered curtains made from a Waverly fabric, wingback chairs (authentic reproductions from The Seraph), and a simple colonial-style chandelier, also a reproduction. The chest, with original red paint, is ca. 1820.

Another discreet addition went up in 2008, for a family room and garage; it’s capped with an old cupola and weathervane. These rooms were designed for accessibility, given the couple’s desire to stay in the house as they get older. Phil laid a brick path to the door of the addition, setting the herringbone pattern himself: “a backbreaking experience.”

Phil, a cultural anthropologist at Indiana University, used his own experience when writing his book Elderburbia: Aging with a Sense of Place in America (Praeger, 2009). In a fast-paced time of constant change, stewardship of an old house can be reassuring, and provide a sense of place and belonging.

The tavern room, which serves as the main entrance, is also the breakfast room. Clusters of drying herbs hang over antique furnishings.

In a tale of adaptation and evolution, our central characters are Bob and Carol LeBeau, Massachusetts transplants who moved to coastal Maine in the 1980s. They had to adapt as they looked for the perfect plot of land and built their dream house. Ever since, their tastes as collectors have continued to evolve. “We live with and use everything,” Bob says, as the couple’s grandson runs freely around a house filled with antiques.

“We built the house in 1984,” Bob recounts. “We wanted to reproduce an antique gambrel. We salvaged the posts and beams from a 250-year-old timber frame barn and planned for that in the design, incorporating the structural elements—they span the entire width of the house.” The residence includes the house and a garage arranged on a single axis; these are separated by a one-story breakfast room that steps back, as if the house had a wing.

The LeBeau family’s efforts went on long after 1984, for they’ve continued to experiment and improve the interior and landscape. “It was a learning process,” Bob says. “When we moved in, we wallpapered, but eventually decided to strip the paper and stencil the walls.” Now almost every room includes decorative painting. But the treatments, too, evolved. “When we first stenciled, it was too bright, so we went back and glazed the walls over the stenciling with a wash to give it ‘age’.” Bob also painted geometric stenciled designs on the floors. Carol and Bob then commissioned local artist Tony Castro to paint the stairwell walls in the manner of the old itinerant painters, such as Rufus Porter and Moses Eaton.

The three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house is home to inveterate collectors. Stoneware, spongeware, and redware fill shelves, and pewter is artfully displayed. As with their embrace of decorated walls, the LeBeaus came to their appreciation of painted furniture over a period of time. “When we moved in, we furnished in Ethan Allen pine,” Bob admits. “As we went antiquing, we started by collecting refinished pine pieces. We spent our weekends going to shows and auctions, and as we gained more knowledge, we began to appreciate the original, early paint on the better pieces, so that’s what we began to focus on.”

With a minimal use of standard cabinets, the kitchen blends in nicely.

Prominently featured in the couple’s collection are three tall-case clocks. “Two are from Connecticut, and the third is from Ireland—that one has wooden works.” The couple’s favorite pieces are a blanket chest with a false upper drawer in the dining room, and a six-drawer chest in the master bedroom, both with their early finishes. Antique chairs, cabinets, and tables have been carefully chosen to create the historical interior.

The LeBeaus labored to ensure that modern systems are unobtrusive; they concealed electrical outlets wherever possible and selected lighting fixtures that could be electrified with minimal impact. “In fact,” Bob says, “the dining-room ceiling doesn’t have electricity; we just use candles!” In the design of their kitchen, the couple chose to downplay the presence of appliances and concealed the refrigerator. The black range, from a restaurant supplier, blends seamlessly in its fair impersonation of a 19th-century cook-stove, complementing the simple cabinets.

The six-drawer chest, in its original finish, is a cherished possession of the LeBeaus. The couple hired a local craftsperson to make bedhangings like those that would have been found on their antique bed.

Just recently, the LeBeaus purchased an 18th-century paneled wall and fireplace surround with old paint, and will install it as the central focus of their parlor. Care has been taken so that the old work won’t need modification.

Outside, the grounds and gardens are the result of years of painstaking work. The sprawling back yard is framed by stone walls, which the LeBeaus built themselves. “Whenever we had some free time, we’d go out and build a section,” Bob says. The couple also created a pleasing array of beds in the yard, along with a vegetable garden surrounded by a picket fence to deter wildlife.

Even though their home is furnished with an abundance of antiques, Bob and Carol refuse to be held prisoner by them. “We live with and use everything,” Bob says, as the couple’s grandson runs freely around the house. Although they don’t see themselves as Luddites, the LeBeaus “don’t have a computer, cell phone, or fax machine . . . we don’t need them. The television is hidden in a cabinet,” Bob says. “But we do buy candles by the gross!”

Well into the 19th century, only the wainscot and trimwork were painted in many American homes. This early-19th-century interior has been treated to a palette of earth tones from Olde Century Colors, whose shades include Olde Mustard and a brown called Savannah Red.

Consider for a moment that many colonial householders were lucky to have plaster walls at all. Then thank your stars and garters that today, paints and palettes that replicate or simulate early colors are widely available for different authentic effects.

Well into the late 1700s, most of the colors that went into paint in America were imported here from England as blocks of pigment, which were then mixed with a binding medium like linseed oil. Since both pigments and binders were scarce and expensive, especially in rural locales, paint was applied sparingly: on door and window surrounds, or wainscots (sometimes only as dots or commas of color, as they are most famously at the Peter Wentz farmstead in Pennsylvania). Traveling painters sought out and ground colors from such alternative sources as local earth pigments, plants like indigo, and even dried animal blood.

For a binder, many of these itinerant painters and householders turned to something produced on site: buttermilk. Mixed with the available pigments, milk paint produced a palette of crayon-soft colors in shades from warm to cool: pale pink, ochre, dark red, red browns, cane yellows, and occasionally a copper green. All were country approximations of the high-fashion colors imported to the wealthy in cities: Prussian blue, red lead, vermilion, and verdigris.

Only in the early 19th century, as paint became more widely available, did white become the signature color of the Greek Revival.