Where others might have seen only rotted sills, sagging floorboards, and windows so drafty the kitchen cabinets blew open in a gale, Bill von Ochsen and Helen Moore von Oehsen saw beauty, history, and potential. They fell in love with the 1720 house sited along the Ipswich River and committed to its renewal, enlisting TOH home builder Charlie Silva for the 16-month renovation, which This Old House documented as part of its 44th television season. "Our main goals when we started this project were to bring this house back to its original beauty and to create a functional living space for today," says Bill. That meant making room to host four adult children, extended family, and friends, as well as home offices for Bill, an attorney, and Helen, a biologist, who both work remotely.
For the oldest part of the house, the guiding principle was to honor the integrity of its 1720 structure. Fortunately, the original timber frame was sound: Exposed oak and pine timbers form the framing, with pegs still holding the mortise-and-tenon joinery in place. To highlight those bones, the homeowners opted to gut walls, ceilings, cabinets, fireplaces, and woodstoves that were added later, to reveal as much of the original work as possible.
Today, the first-floor living room is the most authentic room in the old house, featuring exposed gunstock posts-narrow at the bottom and flared at the top-original pine floorboards, and a summer beam that is part of the 1720 timber frame. By contrast, the first-floor den ended up needing more work than anticipated to turn it into a comfortable office for Bill. It's now his favorite room in the house: "I walk in and see the gunstock posts and old pine floors, and I feel like I am stepping back in time," says Bill. "It's inspiring." The couple turned a space between the living room and Bill's office into a pantry-bar, with cabinets made from wood salvaged from the attic.
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