In the Zytnicki home, willow wallpaper and restored lighting fixtures and sconces fit the period and style of the dining room.

"A lot of houses we saw were from this vintage," Pamela recalls, "but you couldn't really tell when you walked in. It was difficult to find houses without remodeled kitchens and bathrooms, but we tried to at least look for main rooms that hadn't been modernized to the point that they were unrecognizable as older houses."

Their search ended when they walked into a 1907 residence on Queen Anne Hill rumored to have been built for a Seattle shipping family. It is an airy house, with windows that once had a panoramic view of Elliott Bay but now only peekaboo views of the city skyline through the trees that have matured to the south. A broad, covered porch wraps around the south and east side of the main floor.

The Zytnickis purchased this house in August 1997 and began remodeling that fall, with help from Larry Johnson of the Johnson Partnership and Laurie Taylor of Ivy Hill Interiors. Contractor Al Thorslund of Northwest Housewrights directed the work; Jeffrey Tritt & Associates were responsible for refurbishing woodwork and painting.

The couple has taken pains to update the home without affecting its appearance. The main rooms show off a lovely rhythm of wide and narrow pillars that rise to beams, dividing the upper wall with vertical posts. Seating is built in over radiators in the living room and library. The woodwork of the main floor has never been painted, but there were places where previous owners had used brown paint to mask damage to varnish around the radiators.

The profile of the house is largely defined by the broad, covered porch that wraps around its south and east sides. The dining room is behind the bay window at the northeast corner.
Oak pillars frame the room within a room; cushioned seating is on either side of the brick fireplace.

The walls of the main rooms have no insulation, and there was no way to put any in without destroying the profiles of the wood panels. Ceiling plaster needed attention, so the box-beam molding was removed, plaster wallboard was installed and the molding was put back. The inglenook fireplace has a hollow beam that hides the plumbing from the second-floor bathroom.

An interesting structural innovation is hidden beneath wood posts: steel ties that extend all the way to the attic roof. It is possible that this was a precaution inspired by the devastating San Francisco earthquake a year before this house was built. These structural supports in the living room and another system in the dining room must have determined where the designer put the doorways.

The house was wired for gas and electric lighting and the bases of the present sconces may be original to the house, although most of the original fixtures were missing. The couple has bought period-appropriate replacements.

Pipes for radiators were exposed rather than hidden in beams, perhaps a reference to the pride people took in having and showing off up-to-date plumbing.

Pamela describes their seemingly endless chore of pulling up all the old carpet, with its accompanying staples and nails — their one contribution to "sweat equity." They also spent hours researching and finding appropriate doorplates, hardware, weights for windows, lighting and bathroom fixtures, including toilets.

Pamela had her heart set on locating a bell that was originally set in the dining-room floor so the lady of the house could call the kitchen help with the tap of her foot — without "lifting a finger." After what seemed like an eternity of checking with Hippo Hardware in Portland, she finally got one, to the consternation of her contractor. "He really doubted I would find it. We hooked it up to the kitchen doorbell." Now she can tap her foot and ring it. Unfortunately, in this non-servant household, "no one comes."

Gerard had his heart set on a bidet, a familiar fixture from his French upbringing. Clearly this was not the kind of antique fixture one would find in the Northwest. He turned the mission over to his parents, who found the perfect one in Paris and shipped it to Seattle. That was the easy part. "It needed to be retooled for American plumbing standards," Gerard says. Now installed in their newly refurbished bathroom, it is quite probably the only bidet in their neighborhood.

	Vintage fashion prints decorate the wall at the head of the bed in the master bedroom.

The kitchen dates to the late 1930s and retains its vintage linoleum and cabinets. Upper cabinets have been rebuilt in the same style to extend storage space to the ceiling. A Heartland range and refrigerator, manufactured in Canada, are state-of-the-art yet are most like vintage fixtures in their appearance. The couple chose not to return the back porch to its original open state because it is much handier as a protected vestibule leading into the kitchen.

The garage has become the "folly" on the property. It was doorless and decrepit, and Pamela took it as her mission to see it restored. She sheepishly admits, "I never measured the depth of the garage, but it actually isn't big enough for a car. At least it's good for storing my garden equipment."

Elsewhere, the couple have replaced picture railing that was removed earlier from the stair hall and second floor, installed art wallpapers and upgraded bathrooms with period sinks, toilets and the salvaged bidet. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are on the second floor. Furniture spans the years 1890 through 1940.

Looking back at the work that has gone into restoring and upgrading their home, "We liked the process, but it was never-ending," Pamela says. "Unless you've done it before, you have no idea what you're getting into, particularly if you are trying to do things that are historically correct."

Lawrence Kreisman is program director for Historic Seattle and author of "Made to Last: Historic Preservation in Seattle and King County." Barry Wong is a Pacific Northwest staff photographer.