When Jennifer Chambers decided to upsize in the coastal town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, she wasn’t after grandeur. “I didn’t want a big house,” she says. “But I wanted a real house with an upstairs and a downstairs.”

It was a tall order in a zip code known for sprawling Gilded Age estates. But Chambers eventually landed on a 1900s cottage that had two stories and a pint-sized footprint of 1,183 square feet. Unsure of how to maximize the compact floorplan, the homeowner brought in designer Kate Daskalakis of KSD Designs, who came up with a renovation plan that was equal parts architectural and atmospheric.

The vibe check for the project came early: Chambers didn’t want anything remotely nautical. Luckily, the house’s offbeat history gave Daskalakis plenty to work with. During demolition, they uncovered vintage circus posters still glued to the rafters—evidence that the original wood had likely been salvaged from a barn once used to advertise the traveling circus. With that delightful detail as a starting point, Daskalakis leaned into the home’s existing character, making smart layout edits and bold design moves to match

One of the surprises of the renovation? In addition to knocking down walls, they added them. “The biggest move we made was taking down the wall by the stairs and creating a banister there, so that when you first walked in, you had a visual of the staircase,” says Daskalakis. Next, they added a partial wall to define the living room, creating the perfect spot for Chambers’s grandmother’s upright piano. And just like that, the home had a real front hall and separate living room. .