Beauty on a Budget Jonesport renovating team creates fresh look with low-cost vision

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When you hear the words “interior decorator,” you usually think New York City, Los Angeles, Miami – and expensive. But that’s not the case when Carol Vose is on the job.

As in her nickname, Bob – Beauty on a budget – Vose believes that you can redecorate without spending a lot of money. The 48-year-old Jonesport resident is primarily self-taught and descends from a line of creative women.

“I love to shop well and wisely,” she says.

Vose lives with her partner and carpenter, Anita Ellis, 39, in a house that the two have been working on for the past two years on the Jonesport waterfront.

The circa-1860s clapboard house belongs to Ron and Sharon Rogowski. The couple’s primary residence is in Chicago, but they also have a home on Beals Island where they spend a great deal of time.

Sharon Rogowski is originally from Hartland and visited Jonesport as a little girl with her aunt and uncle in what she described as a coastal adventure. When she returned to the area with her husband, she was surprised to find that there was now a bridge spanning Moosabec Reach to Beals Island.

“I think that when you go and you’ve been away a long time … it becomes very compelling to come back,” Rogowski says. The couple purchased the Jonesport house in 1990. With its cross-gabled roofs and English and gothic-style gardens surrounded by a white picket fence, the house is now a picture-perfect coastal scene rather than an eyesore.

“We didn’t steal it, but I made an excellent deal,” Sharon Rogowski says. With the help of Vose and Ellis, the couple has put about $200,000 into the house, including the cost of furnishings, thanks to Vose’s careful spending.

Originally from Teaneck, N.J., Vose spent summers as a child in Ogunquit, Owls Head and Harrington. Later in life, she lived for 27 years in southern Maine where she worked as a nursery school teacher, but pursued her passion for home design and renovation on the side.

Two years ago, Vose and Ellis moved to Jonesport with the intent of making home and garden restoration their full-time pursuit. Vose had already chalked up considerable experience in the field, having worked as a decorator for private clients and for Coastal Living magazine on Maine shoots. She also has been on the television show “Country Style” and recently made an appearance on “Restore America.”

On the Rogowskis’ house, Vose redesigned the cottage’s interior and gardens while Ellis was the lead carpenter on the project.

“There are lots of fun things tucked everywhere,” Vose notes. Walking through the garden, nautical trinkets poke out between shrubs and flowers. Seashells line one flowerbed, while sailboats and buoys add colorful touches in others.

“Absolutely everything had to be done to the entire property,” Vose recalls. “It was a wreck.” When she first saw the house, garbage littered what is now the garden area, the well was buried and had to be brought to the surface, and it needed to be rewired, sided, and insulated – as well as decorated.

“We followed the rules of restoration, but this is really more of a renovation,” Vose says.

Walking through the house, Vose pointed to and priced objects she had purchased.

In one of the two small sitting rooms, she gestured to the antique sofa and chairs – $75 for the couch, $138 for the pair of chairs. She had them recovered and they looked like a million bucks.

“I really enjoy making do,” Vose reflects.

Taking her cue from the sitting room, Vose had original Greek-revival-style raised panels replicated and continued as a theme throughout the rest of the house.

The house served as a lifesaving station in pre-Coast Guard days. The Coast Guard base can be seen from the front porch. Mindful of the house’s former function, Vose adorned the porch’s walls with antique lifesaving rings and painted the floor in early Coast Guard colors. In keeping with the area’s rich seafaring past, the second sitting room is decorated with many Far-Eastern pieces including a stool, trunk and chinoiserie boxes that are often found in seafarers’ houses.

“What I wanted to show was passage over time,” Vose explains. All the colors used in the home are original hues discovered by Vose and Ellis during the renovation process.

The house also is filled with paintings of the sea and ships that continue the underlying nautical theme. The paintings are done by “people with an enjoyment of art, but who don’t necessarily have an artistic background,” Vose says. You won’t find any Picassos or Van Goghs hanging on the walls.

“It’s not like it’s full of very fine or fancy things,” Vose says. She wants people to recognize what was in the house and feel comfortable there, not be intimidated.

“What I wanted to create was something that had a classic feeling to it, but wasn’t a cliche,” Vose adds. “I did not want it to feel stodgy.”

However, there is one especially remarkable piece of artwork that steals the show.

A three-story-high mural painted by local wallpaper designer and mural artist Donna-Lee Kettering stretches from the hallway at the base of the stairs and winds all the way up to the third-floor attic, which Vose and Ellis turned into a bedroom and office space with a large bathroom.

The mural, which features the Rogowskis’ renovated house, also depicts ocean scenes, ships and old-time Jonesport.

“There’s a lot to see in here,” Vose says. “It’s a small space, but it’s very graphic.”

On the third floor, a majestic chandelier hangs from the center of the house where the gables cross. Standing there, the water is visible from windows on all three sides. The fourth window at the back of the house overlooks the road, providing a peek at who is coming and going in town. These views are what make it plain that the house was part of Jonesport’s working waterfront at the time it was built.

Both Vose and Ellis have done almost all of their work in Maine, and plan to stay in the area as long as they can make a living. The two have a five-year commitment with the Rogowskis to continue work on the house and gardens, as the upkeep consumes a lot of time.

“Our emphasis is really on trying to do things as beautifully and cost-effective as possible,” Vose says, walking back down the stairs.

“You have to be patient and look and you’ll find things,” she says.

Carol Vose and Anita Ellis can be reached at 497-2170.