tone chimney needed repair. It was propped
up and made thoroughly safe, and the old roof was entirely-rebuilt, but
the original lines were closely followed. Viewing the house as it stands
to-day, one realizes what attractive apartments can be evolved from ugly
interiors, and what interesting results ingenuity and good judgment can
bring about.

The interior showed coat after coat of vivid tint and layer after layer
of atrociously colored wall-paper. The rooms, originally large and
square, had been divided and partitioned off to meet the needs of
growing families; many of them were small and hopelessly unattractive.
But there were latent possibilities.

When the house was first purchased, the owner went over the inside
herself to discover the original lines. As in many houses of the kind,
it was easy to restore the size of the room by following beams and
knocking out partitions. It must be remembered that the usual plan in
houses of that period was to construct a large, square room in the
center with small rooms opening off from it which were used as chambers.

The work of decorating, and, as far as possible, the remodeling itself,
was done by Mrs. William Otis Kimball and her brother. Along the front
of the house a screened, outdoor living-room has been added. The
original building consisted of four rooms on the first floor. The front
door opened into a small hall, to the right of which was the great
living-room, and to the left the dining-room. Back of the former was a
guest room, and back of the latter the old kitchen.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Two Views of the Living Room]

In the living-room, the flooring, which was composed of boards often two
feet wide, was in such good condition that it was left intact, treated
to a black walnut stain, and shellacked. The height of the ceiling was
but seven feet; so the heavy beams of swamp oak were boxed in and
painted white, and the space between whitewashed. The walls, which were
covered with ten tiers of paper, each one uglier than the last, were
cleared to the boarding. The last one was found to be a wonderfully fine
landscape paper, which showed that an early owner of the house must have
been a person of means, who probably had it brought over in one of the
merchant-ships during the time of commercial prosperity, when
Newburyport had a lively trade with foreign lands. The walls were
treated with a water paint colored a creamy pumpkin tint that makes the
room se