The Victorian at 190 Church St. in Pascoag as seen from the front yard. It has four bedrooms and 2,700 square feet of space. Below, the kitchen. The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

John Patterson, who works in construction, never shied away from a challenge, especially when an old house was involved.

“It has been his fantasy to live in an historic home,” said his wife, Elizabeth LaDuke. “He wanted to take charge of restoring one.”

Patterson’s dream came true four years ago when he and LaDuke bought the four-bedroom nearly 2,700-square-foot Victorian, circa 1900, at 190 Church St. in Pascoag, which is one of the larger villages of Burrillville. The house is along the town’s parade route, and LaDuke said that they often sat on their porch and enjoyed the marching pageantry.

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Patterson said that he remembered the first time he stepped through the front door. He said that he saw lots of potential despite the fact that the dwelling had been carved up into apartments, and the period accoutrements of hard-wood floors, textured ceilings and decorative fireplaces had been covered up during 1960s and 1970s renovations.

“I was positive wonderful attributes lurked just below the surface,” he added. He became devoted to uncovering as much as he could.

On the main floor, he said he rejoiced in finding under the carpeting hardwood floors with decorative borders of geometric-shaped wooden inlays. He uncovered and restored 100-year-old molding, and re-invigorated the fireplaces in the dining room, den and living room.

He found the ceilings in those rooms to be textured and made out of tin. He painted them white, emphasizing their unique swirl-like patterns. “My wife and I think the ceilings’ patterns look like frosting on a wedding cake,” he said.

The house’s pièce de rÉsistance is the kitchen that Patterson redid with granite counters and ash cabinets. He turned it into an eat-in kitchen with a large island that fits four chairs. He restored the wood floor, and custom-built the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The top quarter of each cabinet has a lighted glass enclosure that the couple used to display decorative items.

“We added the lighting inside the glass cases and ones under the cabinets just above the counters to brighten up the room,” LaDuke said. “We wanted to keep the house as bright as possible.”

Off the kitchen is a mud room entry and one of two porches. A butler’s pantry contained the original stained-glass window, and in the back of it is a roomy full bathroom with storage space above the shower.

In restoring the house, Patterson said that a major challenge was the exterior. He had old photographs of the house to guide him in his effort to return it to its original form.

“I enlarged the photos and realized how much was missing from the house,” he said. “I recreated the columns, balusters, spindles and moldings.”

Of note is a decorative piece at the peak of the house, that, he said, he spent hours recreating. “It was a challenge to rebuild it,” he added. “But I wanted everything to be authentic.”

He even redid the chimney, and added a little character by creating a soldier course, a row of the bricks stood upright, and a slab of granite facing the front with the house’s date, 1900, carved on it.

One of the biggest challenges was returning a second-floor bedroom into a work-out/guest room. It had been converted into a kitchen. Linoleum was glued directly onto the hardwood floors.

He spent weeks carefully removing the glue to avoid scratching any of the vintage floor boards. He then restored them to their original form.

“I knew the quality of the floors in this house,” he said. “I didn’t want to destroy any of them.”

The four bedrooms on the second floor boasted large walk-in closets, high ceilings and large windows. At some point, each room had a fireplace. But, during the home’s more than century-old history, someone decided to build walls around them. Protruding walls in each room offered the only evidence of what’s behind them.

The second floor has a full bathroom that still had the original cast-iron tub, black-and-white wall tiles and matching basket-weave-looking tile floor. In addition, there was a linen closet with a slanted ceiling where there was once a staircase leading to the downstairs room with the front entrance. (Patterson-LaDuke use it as the dining room.)

Next to the bathroom was a staircase leading to a semi-finished third floor.

All in all, Patterson said “restoring the home became a labor of love,” he said. He added that they are moving because they are planning to start a family, and wanted to live closer to LaDuke’s mother.

The 2,625-square-foot four-bedroom Victorian, circa 1900, at 190 Church St., Burrillville, is for sale at $349,900. Taxes are $3,380 with a fire district tax of $447.55 Rita LaDuke, of Hunting House Associates, (401) 647-5020 or rita.laduke@verizon.net, has the listing. How to submit a House of the Week

A different House of the Week appears each Saturday in the projoHomes section of The Providence Journal. The feature tells the story of the house and the people who have lived in it. If you would like us to consider a house for sale as a subject of this news feature, send a photo, information about the house and why it is of interest, to Faye Zuckerman, real estate writer,

75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902; fax (401) 277-8250; or e-mail pjhomes@projo.com.

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