What does a builder’s home look like? We caught up with Deborah Paine to find out

“I grew up always wanting to build cottages, for over 50 years. So when I get the opportunity to build a smaller home or something for myself, I tend to look at it a little bit differently,” Paine explains.  Where most would see an uninteresting box, or even quickly define it as a warehouse or shed, Paine recognized the bones and potential of a blank canvas.  Embracing the existing flooring, the untouched plaster walls and ceiling, Paine saw what most would miss. “It was a beautiful shell,” she says with the kind of contentment a beachcomber might exclaim as they admired what so many others had passed by.

And like an artist pulling memories from a lifetime of experiences, relationships, images and adventures, she applied her collective treasures, thus creating a tableau of her rich existence.

“I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed putting something that was different on the lot and making it different, with the color outside as well as the interior,” Paine explains.

”For where thy treasure is,

there also will thy heart be.”

King James Bible

Saturated colors, tactile textures, unique furnishings and pieces with history and stories all set the backdrop to a life-filled array of art, including photos, paintings and ephemera of a true lover of New England.

“You can only exercise your own whimsy so much with a client, so when you get the rare opportunity to do something for yourself, you jump at it,” Paine says. “The older I get, the less conservative I get with things like color and traditional forms.”