Javier Rico and his wife, Patti, bought their three-story Victorian at 70 Albert Ave., in Cranston’s Edgewood neighborhood, in 1991, and have been restoring it, from the rooftop cupola to the laundry room in the basement, ever since.

Rico, a construction manager for the Warwick Community Development Department, said the idea was to retain the home’s Victorian highlights, such as the clawfoot bathtubs and the elaborate sawtooth shingle patterns on the exterior, while still making it appealing to contemporary sensibilities. Rico said he did about half the work himself and contracted for the rest.

“When we bought the house, nothing had been done for 40 years. It was a mess,” Rico said. “I was looking for a Victorian to restore, that was really my goal. … I had no knowledge of the extent of the work until I bought it.” On the other hand, Rico said he has no regrets about the undertaking.

“The place has a lot of things going for it. It’s just got a good feel,” Rico said.

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In 1991, Rico said, the home’s exterior was covered with battleship gray shingles, which the Ricos stripped off to reveal the original clapboard and decorative shingling underneath.

Now the exterior of the three-story house, built in 1895, is painted in five colors, dominated by olive and lavender, with the railings and trim in a pale yellow. Rico said he built a new stairway leading to the front door and converted the L-shaped porch, which had been enclosed when he bought the house, into an outdoor porch. The porch railings and deck are made of mahogany.

Rico said he and his wife decided to convert the three-family house from rental property to condos in 2005. Rico and his wife now live on the third floor, where they added a small rooftop cupola that offers views of Narragansett Bay and Edgewood rooftops. The second-floor condo, which was sold in 2006, was renovated first. Work on the first floor was finished over the summer.

The first floor, which has six rooms along with laundry facilities and two “bonus rooms” in the basement, is for sale as a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condominium.

The first-floor condo includes a private, fenced-in backyard with a stone patio, perennial and vegetable gardens, and its own blueberry bush. The backyard measures about 2,000 square feet.

When he bought the house, Rico said, there were two front doors, each leading to a different apartment. He converted the separate doors into one wooden double door that he purchased at a Providence antique store. Then he tore down an interior wall to create a common hallway leading to the first-floor condo on one side and the stairway to the second floor on the other. The result, he said, is a more spacious and elegant entryway.

Rico placed window frames, taken from reclaimed transoms, around the doorway to the first-floor condo, and installed colored glass panes to match those on an original Victorian window in the hallway.

Inside the condo, there are maple hardwood floors that Rico had pulled out of a house in Brockton, Mass. The rooms appear airy and spacious, with nine-foot ceilings.

The kitchen has been renovated with granite countertops, gleaming Bosch appliances and maple cabinetry. A set of sliding glass doors in the kitchen leads out to the backyard. The bathrooms have Italian tile floors, new tiled showers, reclaimed Victorian-style sinks and the original clawfoot Victorian tubs — a nice mixture of old and new.

The master bedroom is painted a pale green, and has two closets and a ceiling fan, even though the condo has a new central air conditioning system.

The dining room, den and living room are all painted in a pale peach, with lavish new ceiling fixtures (fans and a chandelier) in the Victorian style from a company called Minka. Off one of the rooms, a slender wooden door leads out to the porch. The living room is particularly attractive, with three large windows set into the angled walls to bring in plenty of light.

The condo includes a basement laundry room with washer and dryer and two finished “bonus rooms,” which are serviceable but not as attractive as the rooms upstairs.

Rico said the house has new electric wiring and a new roof. The first-floor condo has its own boiler and central air conditioning. It’s heated with natural gas. There are two parking spaces available in the driveway.

This two-bedroom, two-bath condo in a restored 1895 Victorian at 70 Albert Ave. in Cranston has 1,750 square feet of living space. It includes a private, deeded backyard and a basement with laundry room. Asking price is $299,900. Estimated real estate taxes are $3,200 per year. There is also a condo fee of $150 per month. For information, contact owner Javier Rico at 461-8831. There will be an open house tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 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 Christine Dunn or Andy Smith, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902; fax (401) 277-8250; or e-mail pjhomes@projo.com.

For more information,

call Dunn: (401) 277-7913 or Smith: (401) 277-7262.

asmith@projo.com