The master bedroom of the house, built in 1882 for workers at the nearby Herreshoff boatyard.

Built in 1882 for employees of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., a business that made boats in Bristol from 1863 to 1945, the cottage at 4 Howe St. is located in a quiet corner of Bristol’s historic downtown residential district.

The Herreshoff legacy is also honored in town through the Herreshoff Marine Museum, founded in 1971, and the America’s Cup Hall of Fame, founded in 1992.

The current owner of 4 Howe St., textile designer Dawn Oliveira, has updated the storybook Victorian cottage, which is decorated with some of her modern fabrics.

Oliveira, who is from Tiverton, said she had lived in lofts in New York City for many years with her late husband, who was an architect.

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Walk through the House of the Week

Upon returning to Rhode Island with her twin sons, she fell in love with Bristol’s historic downtown neighborhood. But at the time she was house hunting, in 2004, the housing bubble was fully inflated, and it was hard to find anything for sale.

The house at 4 Howe St. was in need of a facelift, but “I loved the construction of it,” she said.

Oliveira has renovated the kitchen, the full bath upstairs, and the half bath downstairs. French doors at the rear of the kitchen lead to a new deck in the back yard.

From the exterior, it looks like little has changed. A picket fence borders the lot, and wide steps lead to the front porch topped with decorative period woodwork.

The double front doors have panels of etched glass in a hydrangea design.

But Oliveira has altered the layout of both main living floors of the house. On the first floor, a wall between the living room and the kitchen was removed.

“I didn’t like that it was very closed off,” she said. “I was used to the open space of a New York loft.” The change gave the space “a much lighter, sunnier feeling — much more contemporary.”

The kitchen itself was renovated, with new white-painted cabinets with glass doors, butcher block counter tops and new stainless appliances, including a gas cooktop. There is a wood table with six chairs in the center of the kitchen.

The walls in the kitchen are painted a soft yellow; and walls in the adjoining living area are painted pale green. Two large built-in bookcases in the living room are painted white.

On the first floor, a small room off the kitchen functions as Oliveira’s design studio. An entirely new half bathroom was built on the opposite side of the first floor from where an earlier powder room had been located.

Oliveira said that much of her work is sold to the trade from a design center in Boston and that she enjoys the freedom of working from home.

“I’ve always lived in loft-type settings; we had live-work situations,” she said.

The renovations were accomplished with help from Oliveira’s family. She said her brother, who is a cabinetmaker, made the custom cabinets, and her brother-in-law is a builder.

Oliveira’s textile design business also has a family connection; she works with her twin sister, who lives in Massachusetts.

On the second floor, one larger bedroom was divided into two smaller rooms to give her sons their own bedrooms.

The house at 4 Howe St., Bristol, is priced at $429,000. Annual property taxes are $4,995. An open house is planned for Sunday, Oct. 25, from 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, contact listing agent Dory Skemp of Harper, Ramos & Sheridan, (401) 524-2369.

cdunn@projo.com