Issues → September/October 2009 → Home and Garden →

Boatbuilder's House

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A few choices were direct offshoots of his background. Where windowsills had to be replaced, for example, he sorted through scraps of mahogany, a popular planking material that can withstand the elements, to make a new piece. Gutters are made of fir, another favorite nautical wood. "You just have to treat them once a year with linseed oil," he notes.

Other choices, such as the layout and the look of the home itself, demanded more thought. The biggest change concerned the kitchen, which was moved from one end of the house to the other, giving it a more central location. On the second floor, the couple added more dormers to open up the space, allowing for more natural light and making it a prime studio for Stephen, who paints on the side. In the bathroom, the two rebuilt the large window just above the clawfoot tub for a pleasant view of a side meadow.

"What helps a building last isn't just the materials you use," Stephen explains. "It's how comfortable it is and how the spaces relate to one another as you move around the home."

These days, the couple has settled into the house in such a way that they seem to have lived here for a lot longer than seven years. Sarah has her gardens; Stephen has a new barn where he can build and restore boats. And even though it's brought them out of the woods, being so close to town, to the harbor, to the community has proven to be a good thing.

"It's been wonderful to discover how much this house means to people here," Stephen says. "Especially when we first started work on the house, people stopped in all the time and said, 'Thank you for restoring it. Thank you for taking care of it.'"

Detail: Copper Countertops

When it came to the kitchen counters, Stephen Florimbi opted for thin over thick: "I wanted something that had a classic New England look with a slightly modern touch." This boatbuilder found his solution in a material he's more than a little familiar with: copper.

He cut out two sheets of the metal (one for either side of the stove), glued each section to a piece of Durock cement board (a special tile backer that can withstand the metal's heat), and laminated them onto matching pieces of medium-density fiberboard.

From there, he created a jig to carefully bend the edges of the copper around the backing before screwing the new countertops to the cabinet frames. "It's hygienic and boaty," Stephen says. "And it can handle anything that's hot."