Sunday, November 15, 2009

By Leslie Linsley Special to The Citizen

There is something wonderful and romantic about an older home, one with timeless character that exudes the feeling of being "lived in for generations."

The gracious houses constructed in colonial times, for example, were classic in style and often built with techniques and materials that are no longer employed. We love visiting someone who lives in an older home built in the 1800s, but living in one is quite another matter.

People often romanticize an old home, but buying one may require renovations like putting in a new kitchen and bathrooms and upgrading plumbing and heating systems, which can be costly. Similarly, the rooms in older homes were often built small and interior walls must be removed to make the house more livable by modern standards.

New houses often offer more space and features than older homes, but they lack the character of an older home. Furthermore, the rooms in newer homes might not have any particular architectural details to make them interesting.

Fortunately, it is easy to bring the charming characteristics of an older house to a new home. Think of your new home as a blank canvas just waiting for you to give it an infusion of "older home appeal." Architectural details such as chair rails, exposed beams, floor and ceiling moldings, window and door trims, window panes of leaded glass, and worn, wooden floorboards all can give a new house the character of an older house.

Another way is how one decorates a home to make it ooze charm and the feeling of having been lived in for a long time. Almost everyone has something they've inherited from relatives. Some of this furniture might have been accepted because it helps the new homeowner save money. Some of it might be cherished. Either way, old furniture will keep a new house from seeming, well, new.

And if you haven't been the lucky recipient of heirloom furniture, there are ways to get it without breaking the bank.

The trick to making your new house look old is finding ways to personalize piecemeal collections of furniture. Paint and fabric are the tools of the trade. Decorators know that an eclectic mix of furnishing is the most interestingm, and any chair, table, sideboard, armoire or sofa that is inherited can be integrated into a room with modern pieces to give your home character.

If the furniture you inherited isn't in good shape it can be made over if it has basically good structure. Where there's a good design there's a way to make it outstanding. Buying smart is another way.

Comfort comes from using old pieces. There is so much value in giving old pieces new life and, in fact, a modern home furnished with older pieces of furniture is far more interesting than a matching set of anything.

The trick is to make the old look fresh with up-to-date paint colors or stain, wallpaper or fabric. As most Key West homeowners know, walls don't have to be white. There are so many wonderful colors to make rooms exciting, elegant or "other worldly."

Architectural details can actually be purchased and added to rooms without these details. Window treatments offer another opportunity for making a new house old.

The goal to making a new house old is to give traditional pieces of furniture a youthful energy so the house doesn't look tired and slapdash or decorated by accident with odds and ends of collected pieces. To make old pieces seem fresh, it's important to mix in new accessories such as modern lamps and art, for example. You might use an old, four-poster bed but cover it with linens as fresh as tomorrow with colors that reflect contemporary tastes.

Aside from architectural details, recycled furniture, collections, and salvaged materials, the right choice of colors might be all that is needed to make rooms exciting or elegant. This applies to the walls and trim around windows and doors, but furniture too can be reclaimed with a paint color most often found in old homes.

Historic paint colors reflect not only the natural pigments colonists worked with but also how colors were perceived in earlier times: by candlelight, through small or heavily draped windows, and browned by smoke and age. In the colonial era, paint was scarce, so walls were often whitewashed, with color reserved for the trim.

Colonial green was popular for wainscoting, or the bottom half of a wall. Barn red was a shade associated with wealth and typically found in public rooms. It shows up on cupboards and other pieces of furniture as well. Earthy pigments of gold were more common and, in the 18th century, used mostly in private quarters. Federal blue was an important interior color in the 18th century as well, used in living or dining rooms. Today it is often a favorite for the bedroom.

In Key West there are so many different architectural styles to draw upon, and this is what makes the community so unique. Most of the houses here are renovated from old to new rather than the other way around.

Here, for example, a shotgun or small conch cottage with symmetrical little rooms is made modern by the removal of walls and the replacement of tiny windows with sliding glass doors that create glass walls.

And what is it that makes these houses inordinately charming? The basic bones of its original structure. The bungalow, the sea captain's mansion, the eyebrow and the Bahamian house are some of the styles one can look at for inspiration when building or buying new. By adding some of the details from these homes, the styles of early Key West houses prevail.

Leslie Linsley has written more than 50 books on crafts, decorating and home style. She resides on Nantucket with her husband, photographer Jon Aron, and has a store on the island that specializes in her one-of-a-kind creations. Her latest book is "Key West: A Tropical Lifestyle" (Monacelli Press), with photos by Terry Pommett.