Homestead
A Massachusetts couple update their 1980s home with a series of hand-built additions adorned with furnishings and handicrafts they made themselves to transform it into a primitive masterpiece.
A custom-made tavern sign crowns Elaine and Richard Kunicki’s family room fireplace, which features a spacious mantel that hosts plates, pitchers and vases of varying heights, colors and sizes for dramatic effect. An oversize raised-brick hearth provides ample room for additional display. The commanding Dutch cathedral ceiling and wideplank pine flooring create contrast with the mantel, hanging cupboard and furnishings. Baskets made by both Elaine and Richard hang from the structural beams.
while looking for a new home in 1983, Elaine and Richard Kunicki of Billerica, Massachusetts, discovered a gambrel-roofed structure with an unfinished second story. Though tiny, the home had a charming look that struck their fancy. “When we saw it for sale, we said, ‘That’s the house,’ and we bought it,” Richard recalls.
Originally, the home had just 816 square feet of livable space, with two downstairs bedrooms. Over the years, however, Richard designed and built a breakfast nook, large family room and four-season porch, expanding the building’s footprint to a much more comfortable 2,327 square feet.
The couple began the remodel by ripping out the wall and coat closet between the living room and front bedroom, which opened the central staircase and allowed them to make that bedroom into a spacious dining room. Next, they replaced the home’s dated wall-to-wall carpet with wide pine flooring.
“We repainted everything, did some stenciling and added the fireplace wall in the living room,” says Richard, an industrial engineer who also replaced all the interior trim with decorative molding and wide baseboards. Later, he constructed paneling in the adjacent dining room and, in the Colonial tradition, added a paneled wall around the fireplace.
The couple’s style grew more primitive after they joined a Revolutionary War reenactors group in 1991. Elaine’s twin sister, Cindy, and brother-in-law Dick Hawes also joined. In their enthusiasm to replicate Colonial craftsmanship, the twins took up the art of rug hooking.
However, Elaine, who has been doing crewelwork for 46 years and rug hooking for 25, says her passion for primitives dates back to her childhood. “As a kid, I always liked the primitive style, having visited many historic 18th- and 19th-century homes, which are readily accessible in this area,” Elaine notes.
Elaine’s crewel and rug-hooking handiwork adorns the breakfast nook, which Richard built using materials from a local mill. The painted paneled walls and exposed-beam ceiling provide an apt backdrop for Elaine’s collections, including crocks, pitchers and treenware.
For the kitchen, Elaine told Richard she wanted primitive-style painted cabinets with raised panels, and he set to work making her vision come to life, offering his own creative input along the way. “Back in the 18th century, they might have picked up an old table
and repurposed it as an island,” says Richard, who fashioned their island out of wainscoting painted with mustard milkpaint for visual contrast. On the cabinets, acorn reproduction hardware adds an authentic touch.
“I’ve had more people ask me how I design,” Elaine admits, “but I just do what I see in my head, based on 18th- and 19thcentury design. I even helped a friend whose style is diametrically opposed to mine to choose her furnishings because I could visualize how they would look in her home.”
Things don’t always go as she envisions them, however. A case in point is the primitive fireboard the couple commissioned for their family room fireplace. They planned to use it as a fireboard in summer and a wall decoration for the living room during winter, but it has never been used for its original purpose. “It never left the living room because it looks so beautiful there,” Elaine explains.
From the baskets hanging from the family room ceiling beams to the custom-crafted baseboards, the couple’s home is filled with their handiwork and craftsmanship. Some of the reproduction gear and clothing from their reenacting hobby is used as decor as well. Both of them bring their distinct vision and talents to their home, resulting in a character-rich environment that reflects their unique personalities. “We complement one another well,” Elaine says. Editor’s note: More great decorating ideas from this family are in store for you in our March 2019 issue, when we take you on a tour of the home of Cindy Hawes, Elaine’s twin sister.