Old-house appeal powers the redo of a young family's home

'Our kids have lots of energy," Stephanie Nicholson asserts. Fortunately, her son and daughter are growing up in a child-friendly twin in Overbrook Farms.

They hide and seek on the back stairs and play with their corgi on the bay window's wide sill in the dining room. Their backyard jungle gym is a trellis with ladders and a swing that their father, Ben, built. In the summer, the children pick beans off the trellis vine and help their mother tend to other vegetables in the raised beds. They also have the run of their neighbors' yard.

The Nicholsons were looking for family space when they moved from Manayunk in 2008. Their son, Hugh, now 10, had already been born. Daughter Abigail, now 6, arrived a few years later.

The three-story Colonial Revival with six bedrooms and 21/2 baths appealed to Ben, an architect, and Stephanie, an artist. Previous owners had already stripped paint from the oak trim, the pine floors were in good condition, there were two working fireplaces, and the bay windows in the foyer and dining room "were a selling point," Stephanie recalls.

Ben liked the "hybrid" Victorian-Federal architectural features of the home, built in 1898. There was one drawback though: the yellow-and-red kitchen.

"It looked like a McDonald's," he says.

The Nicholsons lived with the kitchen for several years, until Ben completed a remodeling of his parents' kitchen in Ardmore.

Using his design skills at home in Overbrook Farms, Ben repurposed the old white wood cabinets, some of which had glass doors. He and carpenter friends built "gallery" shelving above the cabinets, to showcase Stephanie's collection of glassware and crockery.

Impossible-to-keep-clean white tile countertops were replaced with honey-hued granite. The tile was retained as a backsplash, and the stainless-steel stove was repositioned and vented. Ben's parents' Sub-Zero fridge, sheathed in white cabinetry, was installed, and a new double sink, gooseneck faucet, and dishwasher were purchased.

A center island was created from a butcher block and a slab of cherry wood from a tree cut down in Ben's grandfather's Yeadon yard.

The pass-through from the kitchen to the dining room was enlarged so Stephanie can watch the children as she cooks. A laundry area by the back door was expanded and became a mudroom with the addition of a pine coat rack and bench.

The Nicholsons kept the kitchen's red quarry tile floor and an exposed brick wall.

A touch of red also remains in the ceiling molding in the dining room, whose walls had been painted a deep crimson.

"It made the room too dark," Stephanie says. The new peach shade complements the oak trim and the Arts and Crafts table and chairs, and contrasts with the dark Jacobean sideboard.

The wrought-iron chandelier in the foyer and many of their furnishings and oriental rugs were acquired from local antiques markets or in Lancaster County. Gracing the walls are Stephanie's pastel portraits of the towheaded children, Ben's watercolor renderings of buildings, and his grandmother's abstract floral oil paintings.

Upstairs, the master bedroom is decorated in high Victorian style with a silk upholstered settee, a burl walnut wardrobe, and an ornately carved bedstead Ben found on eBay. Local artisans designed the stained-glass insert in the doorway.

Ben's office and Stephanie's studio are on the third floor, as is a bathroom he remodeled, installing a clawfoot tub and pedestal sink appropriate to the age of the house.

In the studio, Stephanie's easel faces a bank of three windows: "I always have plenty of light." She creates commissioned portraits while earning a master's degree in art education at Moore College of Art and Design.

Stephanie, 36, and Ben, 37, met at Delaware County Christian School and started dating while at Syracuse University. Together, they studied abroad in Florence.

When it's time for Hugh and Abigail to come home from school, Stephanie stops work in the studio. They bound up the steps of the front porch, which is furnished with hand-me-down wicker furniture from Ben's parents.

Tucked under the recycled park bench: a child's scooter, idle, at least for now.