Building on the Past

A Pennsylvania couple’s home curated with cherished heirlooms, diverse collectibles and handmade reproductions will rekindle your affinity for the country idyll.

Making handcrafted reproductions to complement their family heirlooms prompted a Pennsylvania couple to design custom pieces for others in between their own DIY projects.

The dust never settles at the

Pennsylvania, home of Trena and Willie McElrath. He loves woodworking, and she loves recreating the past. Since their marriage in 2009, the couple have been making improvements to the two-story residence that Willie originally built in the 1980s, adjusting the space to fit their collections of primitive goods and antiques acquired from their grandparents and teaming up to design and construct primitive reproductions. When Trena speaks of their home, she says, “It’s always a work in progress.”

The biggest change the couple made was in 2009, when Willie converted a carport into a sunroom. The cheerful space has become a favorite family gathering area and features rustic elements, including walls faced with fieldstone gathered from the property and hand-hewn wainscoting, brackets, posts and beams made from lumber salvaged from an antiquated barn.

Never bashful about tackling DIY projects, Trena used paint to give the kitchen a makeover. She revived the cabinets and beadboard backsplash with a fresh coat of white paint and used a budget-friendly sponge-painting technique and sealer to give the old laminate countertops the look of earthtoned granite. Elsewhere in the home, she primed and painted the living and dining room paneling a subtle shade of umber and selected a coffee-colored hue for the sunroom’s beadboard wainscoting and mantel for emphasis against offwhite walls.

Trena’s artistry also transforms furniture gathered from yard sales, consignment shops and online marketplaces. She uses a simple method to give pieces the aged look she loves. She sands the piece and then applies two coats of matte black paint. When the paint is dry, she sands the edges and brushes on walnut stain, wiping away the excess with a rag. Her makeovers often include replacing existing hardware with wooden knobs painted with the same distressed finish.

Trena creates a country aesthetic by combining these black furniture pieces with heirlooms, carefully grouped collectibles and new textiles. Sentimental touches are especially important to Trena, who fondly recalls spending time with her grandparents at their Pennsylvania farmhouse and weaves their treasures into her own decor. For example, she displays her grandmother’s metal canisters in the kitchen and provides a place of honor in the sunroom for her grandfather’s rocking chair. Many other family relics, such as a quilt, crockery and kitchenwares, are woven throughout the home in cupboards and on wall shelves.

Trena recognizes the importance of creating focal points that set the tone for each room. For example, a robin’s egg blue and white wood-burning stove

distinguishes the kitchen, a Hoosier cabinet defines the dining room, and a mantel from her grandparents’ farmhouse graces the sunroom.

As an advocate of traditional decorating principles, Trena believes in mixing old and new items and adheres to the rule of three: “I arrange decorative pieces, like crocks, candles, textiles and flowers, in groups of three,” she explains.

Trena also cautions other collectors to resist impulse buying in favor of careful consideration to ensure everything has a place in your decorating plan. “Before making a purchase, picture where the item will go in your home,” she advises.

When she can’t find just the right piece, Trena works with Willie to produce a reproduction. A self-confessed magazine junkie, she often sifts through back issues searching for primitive items for Willie to construct, noting, “If I show him a picture, he can build it.”

Many of his handcrafted reproductions enhance their home, and when friends sought to purchase some of the custom pieces, Trena and Willie established a Facebook enterprise called Timeworn Primitives. Their inventory contains a variety of handmade goods, including cupboards, shelves, dough boxes, candleholders, canister caddies and appliance covers.

Working on projects for themselves and others continues to provide the couple with a creative outlet, and Trena says that fine-tuning her surroundings and honoring the past are part of the reason she loves her home. “Your home should always be a place of comfort and inspiration,” she explains.

“Your home should always be a place of

comfort and inspiration.”

“I arrange decorative pieces, like crocks, candles, textiles and flowers,

in groups of three.”

In the kitchen, Trena’s treasured collections become wall art, including breadboards, kraut cutters, wooden bowls and bonnets exhibited above the chair rail. She dresses her table with a primitive-style coverlet and sets centerpieces on a riser.

Left: A shelving unit was designed to fit the space between the stairs and kitchen doorway in the dining room, where it showcases crocks. The stenciled sign and peg rack above it echo the brown and beige color scheme.

Above: On a chest in the dining room, an old beam acts as a base for a candelabra, doll bench and a pewter sugar bowl elevated on a pewter candleholder.

Right: The sunroom’s recycled barnwood posts and beams give the new addition character. The hues of the structural supports, sofa and baskets pair beautifully with the dark wood furniture. A bit of red, introduced via fabric elements and other accents, enlivens the space.

Above: Trena and Willie contemplate their next project—the couple design and build primitive furnishings for their own home and for sale through their Facebook page. (Photo courtesy of Kristin Fike)