A House Rescued Simplicity Restored

Fake siding and popcorn ceilings didn’t faze restoration veterans who saw the inherent charm of this rural bungalow in northwest Oregon. They set about making it right again.

- Brian D. Coleman

This couple had meticulously restored a Colonial Revival house in Portland, but the time had come to simplify. Jenny Harmon–Scott and her husband, Shay, no longer needed three storeys and six bedrooms, and they’d gotten tired of city traffic and congestion.

Shay was raised in an old Craftsman-era farm house; his memories led them to search for some thing similar, beyond even the suburbs. Both of them love old houses and don’t mind restoration work. But they wanted a house with character, in a tranquil setting. | This 1925 house in rural north west Oregon fit their dreams. Set on three acres that had once been part of a dairy farm, surrounded still by fields and gardens, the house came with an old vineyard, remnants of an orchard, and a barn with a resident owl. They could hardly resist the spreading black-walnut tree with a wooden swing already tied to its largest branch.