A baby’s room, at left, has been created on the second floor of the guest house.

NARRAGANSETT -- For 35 years Joyce Caprio has lived in this large and stately house on Ocean Road right across the street from — you guessed it — the ocean. But lately, almost daily, for the last two months Caprio has been coming home and feeling a little disoriented.

“When I walk in the front door, I feel like I’m visiting someone else’s house.”

There’s good reason. Rarely are things as Caprio left them.

One day, Caprio came home and found her ceilings and walls had been painted. Another day, the floors had been resurfaced. And another day, the furniture had been replaced. Every day it was something, and impressive.

“It’s like I’m entering a design fantasy.”

Actually Caprio’s disorientation doesn’t wait for the door. It begins outside. Caprio passes border gardens she doesn’t remember being there the day before, and a front walkway that to the best of her knowledge never previously existed.

Yes, something’s happening at this house, inside and out. And in a place this old, circa 1900, you suspect ghosts, poltergeists or redecorating demons with a penchant for picking fabrics and a flair for combining colors.

But you’d be wrong. They’re real people, a couple of dozen of them, all professional designers, all participating in the Newport Showhouse Guild’s 14th annual Designer Showcase. It began yesterday and runs through June 8. And it is as advertised: a showcase for designers.

“We want people to appreciate interior design as an art form,” says Joy Sawyer, vice president of the Guild and chairwoman of the tour. “It’s like creating a painting. The rooms are the blank canvases.”

The Guild wanted many canvases, and big ones. So last fall it extended an open invitation to homeowners. Thirty volunteered. And after reviewing all the submissions, the Guild chose its first showcase house not in Newport or East Bay.

“This house has a main house and a carriage house so that gives us lots of design space,” Sawyer says. “It has extensive grounds and gave us an opportunity to invite landscape designers. Normally we just focus on indoor design.”

The 10,000-square-foot house and adjoining carriage house is owned by Joyce and Frank Caprio, the chief judge of the Providence Municipal Court and host of the Channel 6 reality court show Caught in Providence. He’s also the chairman of the Board of Governors for Higher Education in Rhode Island, which factored into his interest in offering his house for the showcase.

“It affords educational opportunity for youngsters,” he says. “That was the attraction to me.”

Proceeds from the house tour go toward charity, including a scholarship fund.

Take the tour. Come on the 3.5-acre property with its gated, circular driveway, a tennis court, tiki bar and pool, alongside of which is now a new koi pond and a fire pit. Actually, there was a fire pit before, built years ago by the Caprios’ son David, a state representative who still lives in the house. Improving upon his pit was a thought, but David Caprio says, replacing it was a better idea.

“A friend of mine said, ‘Don’t turn your Volkswagen into a Mercedes.’ Now we have a Bentley.”

The bluestone front walkway with border gardens leading to the front porch is new. And beyond the front door, so is most everything else.

The Caprios vacated their house and their belongings for two months while the decorators did their thing, at their own time and expense. The Caprios have been staying in their house in Providence. And their furniture and furnishings, which fill 174 moving boxes, are stored in their garage.

For each room in the Caprio house about a half dozen designers submitted redecorating proposals, which included sketches, swatches, etc. A committee of the Newport Showcase Guild then reviewed the submissions and selected their favorites. The decorators brought in furniture and furnishings at their own expense, which the Caprios will have first right of refusal to buy, and then the offer will be extended to tour takers, who are encouraged to take decorating ideas, or avail themselves of the services of the decorators, who in the showcase guidebook provide information about themselves and their participation in this project.

The project’s more permanent additions and alterations — the landscaping, front walk, koi pond, etc. — required the Caprios’ approval and payment.

Open the wide front door. Step into the foyer, with its 10-foot ceiling and its newly installed oak parquet floor with its inlaid copper elements and central medallion beneath a newly installed ceiling medallion.

In the richly appointed living room to the left, a repeating gold stencil pattern covers a green ceiling with a brown border. Beside the windows, hang muted and slightly metallic drapes in evolving shades of peach and green. Plush couches create a conversation pit.

In the room beyond, the sun room, a once blue-painted floor has been stripped revealing the natural grain of fir planks.

The kitchen is by far the most changed room, which the Caprios had a lot to do with. They were in the process of renovating the room when they were informed their house was selected for the showcase tour. The original glass-front cabinets were kept; much else was changed, and the room was bumped out in the back to create a breakfast bank. The ceiling’s now coffered. There’s an upright refrigerator, and a couple of drawer ones. There’s green granite counters, with a farmer’s sink fashioned from the same material. And there’s also a state-of-the-art circular console lazy Susan prep sink with a series of chopping surfaces and draining trays surrounding a 360-degree rotating faucet.

Beyond the kitchen is a small, eclectically decorated correspondence room, which includes art by the family (a work by their son Paul, an artist) and art for the family (a painting David purchased for his mother). There’s a media room, the focal point of which is the Caprios’ five-foot TV; earth tones — in the carpet, wallpaper and furnishings — dominate. And off that room is another living room, lighter in color with grasscloth wallpaper.

Upstairs, via the foyer’s open and grand staircase with a landing about three-quarters of the way up, one finds a hallway has become a gallery, with 117 black-and-white family photos transferred and plastered to the walls, seemingly set in place by faux buttons of a painted padded wall. A pull-down attic staircase is painted to appear as though it was a panel of stained glass.

“There is so much to see in every room. It is a feast for the eyes.”

In the master bedroom, a substantial iron chandelier once in the dining room now hangs at the end of the bed, which is also made of metal, and flanked by marble-topped side tables. A cream-colored star is painted on a tan ceiling.

In David’s bedroom, muted off-white and silver wallpaper has been torn and attached to the wall, creating the interesting appearance of an ancient stone wall.

Connected to the main house is a carriage house, which was converted from a garage several years ago, which made news. Proper permits and variances hadn’t initially been sought, but were later acquired as part of a court settlement.

Where the main house is grand and formal, the carriage house is casual and cottage-like, with an understated kitchen and connecting living room decorated with a subtle beach motif, including sail fabric fashioned into a wall hanging and a throw-pillow cover. There’s a bedroom with white lattice panels on the ceiling, and a nursery with sound-absorbing ultrasuede wallpaper. A den on the top floor offers windows in all directions, and a focus on nature as art, which begins on the stairway up with real leaves plastered then painted to the wall.

“I gave the designers a great palette,” Joyce Caprio says. “They rose to the occasion.”

The Newport Showhouse Guild’s 14th annual Designer Showcase at Southwind runs daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., through June 8 at 545 Ocean Road, Narragansett. Tickets, which are $25, are available at the door. For more information, call (401) 366-0500 or visit www.newportshowhouse.org.

brourke@projo.com