Salvaged Beauty

A turn-of-the-century Arlington home owes its revival to two garage-sale-loving, charm-chasing do-it-yourselfers.

Bamboo-cloth wall coverings in a guest room add texture and are a nice backdrop for O'Brien's paintings. (Photo by Eric Roth)

When Kevin O'Brien and Peter Kapinos first spotted their future home, they knew it could be the house of their dreams. "We came to the house for an estate auction," says Kapinos, 41, a financial marketing executive. "As I walked through, I thought the place was incredible, one of a kind. It's so structurally sound - the original pocket doors still slid perfectly after more than 100 years." Experienced do-it-your-self enthusiasts, they began fantasizing about removing years of grime and neglect from the 1897 Shingle Style home in Arlington. Kapinos immediately wanted to buy it. O'Brien wasn't so sure.

O'Brien, a 32-year-old interior designer and artist, respected the bones of the 4,500-square-foot house, but he thought it was too much work. "I didn't want it at all," he says. "We had only recently finished renovating our old house [also in Arlington], and I loved how it turned out. We were finally rid of the layer of drywall dust that had coated the place for years."

Six months later, the house came on the market, and Kapinos began lobbying his partner to reconsider. Ultimately, O'Brien was won over by the home's "classic, un-messed-around-with style," its oversize windows, how much room there was for entertaining, and how easy it would be for family members to stay the night. Then they faced the daunting reality of the makeover. "There wasn't a single square inch that didn't need cleaning or painting," Kapinos says. They wanted to preserve the character of the house, but they also wanted it to feel lighter, cleaner, and newer. "This house has unusually great openness to it," Kapinos says. "The main rooms on the first floor are all open to each other with 6-foot-wide single-pocket doors. We wanted to take advantage of all the open space, but in a bright, fresh way."

O'Brien deadpans: "If it killed me, we were going to make this dingy, dark-wood-filled place bright and sunny."

But just after moving in, heavy rains made it hard to see the light, and a severe case of buyer's remorse set in. Says Kapinos: "I took vacation that first week while the floor sanders were at work. Everything was a mess. There was flooding, and every day I trudged in the pouring rain to a neighborhood restaurant to eat the lunch special by myself, accompanied by a few beers. I had a `What on earth did I do?' moment every day."

WHEN THE RAIN finally ended, O'Brien and Kapinos got to work. They tackled just about every renovation project themselves. "We're both cheap, and we both have a fair amount of experience, so doing things ourselves is kind of a no-brainer," O'Brien explains. "Plus, you can get much-higher-quality results if your money goes to great materials and not to paying for services."

Events and holidays proved motivating factors for completing projects. Realizing that they couldn't get everything done at once, they prioritized. Three weeks after moving in, for example, they hosted a party for 60 people to celebrate O'Brien's sister's graduation from medical school. "All we cared about at that point was bringing in light and getting the floors and walls clean enough to live with." After that they focused on major projects like renovating the kitchen, replacing windows, and repairing holes the previous owner had put in the walls to accommodate air conditioning units.

They never had a rip-it-out-and-start-from-scratch attitude. Instead, they took inventory: What should change, what couldn't change, what could they live with? "You have to embrace the style that is there when you get a house this classic," O'Brien says. They cherished original details - the bead board in the kitchen, the crystal chandelier in the dining room, the stained-glass windows in the master bedroom - and found that elbow grease (like using a toothbrush to remove years of grime from that chandelier) could preserve irreplaceable treasures.

It was a strategy that not only kept the historical character of O'Brien's and Kapinos's home intact, it was also a boon for their budget. An upstairs bathroom with retro turquoise and white tiles might have tempted many to tear it all out, but Kapinos says that they "realized that it's kitschy, it's fun, and this was one room that looked like it was never used. Why change it?" Even when they couldn't save an entire room, like the kitchen, which O'Brien says was "really, really nasty," they did what they could to preserve aspects of it. They built new cabinets and an island, but in the butler's pantry they kept the glass cabinets and reattached existing doorknobs and drawer pulls. "New versions of anything this nice would have been very expensive," O'Brien says.

They do draw the line on some do-it-your-self projects. They let the pros handle major electrical, plumbing, and HVAC projects. Says O'Brien: "We're frugal, not stupid."

DECORATING, TOO, WAS AN EXERCISE IN reuse, restoration, and bargain hunting - though Kapinos's and O'Brien's collection of original artwork, stately furniture, and designer touches belie that. "See this desk?" Kapinos says, the second a reporter walks into his home office. He's pointing to a library table from MIT. "Twenty-five bucks at a yard sale!"

The house is decorated with a mix of elegant antiques and colorful, contemporary accents - a reflection of their distinct, yet often intersecting, sensibilities. "Our styles are pretty different, but we both love really unique antique pieces," O'Brien says. "Peter has a tremendous appreciation for authenticity and period appropriateness, and he's good at restoring furniture." Indeed, Kapinos is the proud finder of much of the furniture in the house, hunting it down at tag sales, yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales. "One of the earliest memories I have as a kid is of my mother refinishing children's school desks in our kitchen," Kapinos says. "We used them as end tables. When that's what you grew up with, you look at things differently. I love finding old furniture and thinking about a current use for it."

While Kapinos enjoys treasure hunting, O'Brien loves pulling their exciting finds together and creating the home's stylish look. "I like a more individualized mix - furniture and art that tell the story of our lives rather than simply coordinating with one another," O'Brien says. In the dining room, he paired an antique table with a modern bowl made from recycled bottles. (He bought the bowl at an art show at the Rhode Island School of Design, his alma mater.) He added colorful graphic throw pillows (which he made himself ) in a nook showcasing a collection of old black-and- white photos (he made the frames).

The couple inherited an asset in the wall coverings installed by the former owner, a longtime curator at Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum. The thickly textured grass cloth and bamboo is ideal for hanging paintings and photographs. "You can hang a million different things and never see the holes," O'Brien says. They have one of his paintings in nearly every room and have also hung works by O'Brien's mother and grandfather.

Though Kapinos and O'Brien relish the results of their efforts, the renovation wasn't easy. "For the first year we lived here, every single weekend was all about the house," O'Brien says, although he admits that when they needed it, they would escape for a few days to Provincetown. A house renovation can strain even the strongest of relationships. "Luckily this house is big enough that we can work on separate things in our own spaces," says O'Brien. "And we have figured out who is better at what, so we can divide up the chores. We say, `I'll call you if I need your help.'"

They're glad to have the bulk of the efforts behind them, and they're ready to take a break from house work. Or so they say. "We're not doing it again," Kapinos says emphatically. "This is the second time, and we learned from the mistakes we made the first time, but we are glad it's done."

O'Brien agrees, then, after a moment, counters: "Well, maybe a little beach cottage somewhere..."

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