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Some owners dictate the way they want a home to look, but Garry and Barbara Pyles of Lawrenceville seem willing to listen to what their house is suggesting.

"You have to let the home tell you what to do," says Barbara Pyles says about the ongoing project that has given their row house a "new look" rooted in the old.

"It's never-ending," says her husband, who admits he's one of those homeowners who enjoys the challenge of the job almost more than its completion.

The home along 44th Street is one of those classic Lawrenceville buildings that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with its neighbors. They usually are only a hallway wider than one room but some, such as this one, wander far back from a near-to-the-street front.

Many are "boxes" that held families of millworkers back in the days when the mills puffed out paydays along the Allegheny River. But the Pyles' home is striking with its impressive double-door entrance, an iron fence in front of the steps and artsy address numbers in the dusted glass of the transom.

"We loved it when we first saw it," Garry Pyles says.

But they also realized it needed work. It would have to be transformed into a comfortable home for them and their three sons, twins Sam and Ben, 12, and Sheradan, 10.

Earlier owners had used the house as a two-apartment dwelling. As such, the back of the building was a multiroom mix on two levels.

On the first floor, a small dining room stood between the two front sitting rooms and the tiny kitchen. Next to that was an entrance to the back and a flight of stairs leading to the second-floor apartment. Those steps led to a 15- by 16-foot area that was the site of the second-floor kitchen, a bathroom and a hallway.

No more.

The first-floor area has been transformed into a 15- by 30-foot, one-room kitchen with a sitting area in the rear where the old kitchen was. The front of that room is dominated by a 6- by 9-foot island with a slightly slanted quirkiness.

"It's off-kilter," Garry Pyles says about the work area that is angled toward its left. "When we first had it sitting here, before we had it in place, it made everything so straight, this room looked like a bowling alley." Bumping it out-of-line makes the room more inviting from what is now the dining room, he adds, and it opens space around the island.

The upstairs area has become the master bath -- and "master" is an appropriate adjective. From its days as two rooms and a hallway, the space features a bath with the old crowfoot tub on one side and the commode opposite.

In the center sit the sinks in front of a medicine chest fronted by arched windows made into mirrors. Behind is a shower stall on one side and a washer and dryer on the other.

"A friend found these windows, and they sat in his basement until we moved them to ours, where they sat until we figured this out," Garry Pyles says.

Using old material has been part of the rule in this project. Ceiling lights in the hallway have been cleaned, repaired and hung in different locations. An old wooden screen door shuts off a pantry in the kitchen.

Trim around the doorways is the original from the 1872 home -- and it shows itself proudly. "We like the fact that it's dinged," Barbara Pyles says. "It makes it seem like it's part of this place."

While the house has maintained some of its old look, it is far from being a history showpiece -- consider the deep red walls of the entryway and the jagged-edge multiple colors in Sam's bedroom.

Aside from the two floors of design in the back, however, the rooms generally have remained true to the house's history.

"It's our Christmas room," Dan says with excitement about the front sitting room, explaining that it is where the family sets up the holiday tree. On Christmas morning, all the gifts are closed up in the room behind its pocket doors until breakfast is finished.

The Pyles basically have their own "apartment" in the rear of the house with their bedroom and the master bath. In the front, Sheradan and Ben sleep in one room and Sam in another. The three have their own bath, too, made from a former nursery.

"We could have kept it a walk-in closet," says Garry Pyles. "But an assessor told us it would be wise for resale value to have another bathroom on this floor."

Not that resale is an issue. He says he wouldn't mind living in a loft eventually, but the couple doesn't think they will leave until the boys are grown -- another 10 years at least. After all, the family has a house that was on the Lawrenceville Hospitality House Tour last September.

And they both like "real, gritty" Lawrenceville, too. This is their third house in the blue-collar-founded community. They lived along Woolslayer Way from 1985 to '87, along 57th Street from '87 to '92 and along 44th since '92.

Garry Pyles is vice president of sales and marketing at the Strip District's Franklin Interiors, so he is familiar with restoration and remodeling. The couple does most of the work themselves and with friends and family. Some of the trickier jobs, however, were turned over to professionals, including the wiring, furnace installation and plastering.

All told, the Pyles say they have put about $60,000 into the home to top off the $12,000 buying price. "We don't have a mortgage," Garry Pyles laughs. "We have a heating bill."

He describes keeping the home comfortable as being "a bear" that requires two furnaces. On the other hand, the building with 12-foot ceilings is seldom warm. Their bedroom has an window air conditioner, but his wife says they use it only "when it gets up in the 90s for one of those stretches."

Trying to make airflow more comfortable, the couple is working on what Garry Pyles calls an "indoor cupola." They have opened the ceiling above the stairway and are putting in opening skylights that will draw air and provide light in that hall area.

They added skylights to a third-floor section in the back of the house to use as a "garret" for creating artwork, which the whole family enjoys.

The job has been going on for 10 years and has some years to go, the Pyles admit. But they aren't concerned about it. They can see the progress -- and they say their friends are more than willing to visit a house that is constantly evolving.

With a laugh, Barbara Pyles says, "We've never let it stop us."

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