Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1142011
93 The barn windows are 7x7, giving the space more of a Scandinavian feel than the Greek Revival feel of the house, but the new large windows help the two structures speak the same language properly. a family, so he took over the house, while the other, a bachelor, converted the chicken coop into a suitable cot- tage for himself.) When Jenn and Darin bought it in 2011, they wanted to update the house and reconfigure most of the layout before they moved in. Many contractors and architects told them it would be faster and easier just to knock the house down and rebuild, but the history of the structure spoke to the couple. "Jenn was adamant about respecting the house and its heritage and preserving as much of the original structure as possible," says Darin. "Walking through, you could almost feel each happy family moment that had occurred here over the past 200-plus years," says Jenn. And so they began renovating, starting with the cottage, which had grown to 1,400 square feet when that bachelor got married and had kids of his own. The O'Briens moved into the refurbished cottage, while a 1,440-square-foot barn designed by Dan Hisel of Dan Hisel Architect in Arlington was built on an original fieldstone foundation. Darin likes to skateboard, so the barn houses a mini skate park with a half-pipe. Then they gutted the main house with the help of Peterman Architects in Concord, Shadrack Construction in Ipswich, and Rock Maple Landscape in Ipswich, who restored the