By Jan Galletta

Staff Writer

Betsy Bramlett had often ogled a rambling Queen Anne Victorian on Missionary Ridge. In 1985, she and her husband, Mark Rudisill, bought the home that always seemed to be looking back at her.

Built in 1898, the two-story dwelling was long ago dubbed "The House With a Face" because the front windows on its left side lined up like a mouth, eyes and brow, according to Ms. Bramlett, 56.

As with many mansions of the period, the 2,700-square-foot home was erected with a hip roof, irregular floor plan, wood siding and a graceful wraparound porch with a pediment and Doric columns. Its foundry-magnate owners appointed it with fine features such as ornate cast-iron fireplace gates.

But the residence had been rental property for 20 years when the current owners purchased it.

"It was structurally sound, and we could have moved right in," said Ms. Bramlett, a self-employed media and communications specialist, "but we wanted to get the grunt work out of the way first."

For weeks, they scraped off linoleum and industrial-grade carpeting to reveal handsome hardwood floors they then had professionally restored, according to Ms. Bramlett. She said they removed thick paint from stairs and rails to expose such details as an elaborately carved newel post and spindles.

To disguise damage to the original plaster walls, an earlier occupant had applied painted paper, "but it was buckling in places and had to be redone," said Ms. Bramlett, "and the exterior had six layers of paint that had to be burned off. The last layer was milk paint that didn't want to budge."

The pair also sandblasted paint from the exterior's brick foundation, returning it to the natural terra-cotta hue. And some years later, the home's overall gold shade bowed to blue with red paint to accent its dentil trim, as a nod to the Atlanta Olympiad, according to Ms. Bramlett.

She said shortly after their occupancy, Mr. Rudisill stepped through the termite-damaged front porch.

"They (repair crews) pulled out all the columns to replace it," she said. "I couldn't watch."

The couple's remodeling projects have ranged from enclosing a west-facing porch to form a sunny breakfast nook, to transforming a basement-access space into a pretty powder room. Among their most ambitious jobs was enlarging a tiny upstairs bathroom by means of an elevated extension.

"The access to the attic had been in the shower's ceiling, and it was small," said Ms. Bramlett. "We added a pull-down access in the hallway."

She said they derive particular pleasure from their addition of a sun room on the rear of the house. Surrounded by a series of multilevel decks, the new living space affords spectacular views of Lookout, Signal and Elder mountains, as well as panoramic vistas of Chattanooga's nocturnal lights.

All the walls were off-white at the time Ms. Bramlett and Mr. Rudisill bought the home, she said. Tapping a heritage palette, they painted rooms such colors as Windswept Blue and Cozy Apricot.

In keeping with the home's historic integrity, numerous antiques adorn each room, several of which once belonged to Ms. Bramlett's grandmother. In the parlor alone are a treadle sewing machine, a rolltop desk, a pristine Victrola record player and a crewel-work three-panel screen, among others.

An estate-sale junkie, Ms. Bramlett has added to the family heirlooms with such finds as the upstairs bathroom's gleaming pair of brass sconces that she said had their genesis as gas fixtures and a rare Victorian hair wreath that she gave to her husband as a holiday present.

While other pieces have similar antique value, they're also evidence of a whimsical sense of humor.

These include a framed and mounted collection of old black-and-white photographs that Ms. Bramlett calls "mystery pictures" because viewers are challenged to spot quirky composition details. One, for instance, depicts an old Model T seemingly driven on a mountain pass but actually missing any occupants. Another shows a vast horde of 19th-century soldiers, one of whom wears long johns.

Such decorative accents seem right in character for a house that's said to have a face, after all.

"When we first walked into the house and saw it, it was MY house; it had to be," said Ms. Bramlett. "We'll be here until we're carried out."

E-mail Jan Galletta at jgalletta@timesfreepress.com