From the TOH Job Site Building on the past

After an extensive renovation, a timber-framed relic of the Revolutionary War era emerges with its spirit renewed and with comfortable new spaces that showcase pieces of its 300-year history

- JILL CONNORS

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.