For the last several years, we have been working with the owners of a recently built contemporary home in Brookline to introduce the traditional, period design features that they prefer. This year, our work involved rebuilding a staircase and remodeling the family room and the living room.

In the living room, we focused on the fireplace, which had been very modern in design. We installed a more traditional stove and added a refinished 100+ year-old mantel, found at Restoration Resources. We also built custom-fabricated shelving and added a new stone tile surround.

The fireplace was also the focus of our work in the family room, where we added new doors to the firebox and introduced a new stone hearth. We also introduced a one-of-a-kind mantel made from a piece of old growth oak, formerly part of a ladder at Boston Harbor that we discovered at Long Leaf Lumber in Cambridge. After cutting the mantel, we used the remainder of the wood to create a coffee table.

Finally, the original modern wrought-iron staircase was removed. In its place, we built a more traditional grand staircase with stained red oak wood and anchored it with a refinished antique newel post found at a salvage yard in New Hampshire. Smaller posts for the stair landing and at the top of the staircase were built and stained to match.