On a tree-lined street in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, among houses of similar size and vintage, stands the gray Victorian that has been Sunita and Shankar Chaudhuri’s home for nearly 30 years. From the start, the three-story house, built in 1887, warmed their hearts, with its once-grand front porch, bay-windowed living room, and fluted casings with rosettes. The couple raised their two children in the 3,200-square-foot home, with Shankar’s mother in residence, too, instilling an appreciation for multiple generations living under one roof and deepening their commitment to the area; the couple moved there from a smaller 1928 house in the same town, which is filled with well-preserved late-19th- and early-20th-century houses.
But after years of taking care of family first and house repairs second, the owners saw the issues facing the gracious old Victorian becoming more apparent, from uneven floors that hinted at structural problems to
