Sara Tucker whipped out her cell phone and dialed her husband, Bruce Curtis, saying, “You’ve got to come and see this place!”

They weren’t even shopping for new digs in the summer of 2007, but Tucker liked old houses and couldn’t resist looking one Sunday afternoon.

When Curtis joined her inside the blue-gray bungalow with discreet white trim at 220 Kenwood Ave. in Ann Arbor's Old West Side neighborhood, he immediately understood the appeal. “The tile in the kitchen is what drew us,” he says.

Indeed, black-and-white tiles engulf the kitchen floor and protect strategic sections of the room’s wainscoting. “You don’t see a house with this much tile in the kitchen,” Curtis says. The upstairs bathroom is copiously tiled as well.

By Halloween, the bungalow belonged to Tucker and Curtis. In the months before move-in, which occurred on Aug. 8, 2008, they undertook strategic top-to-bottom renovations that will be apparent Sep. 27, when the house is offered as one of six attractions on the 37th annual Old West Side Homes Tour.

“A lot of the things we did seemed to us like an unfolding,” said Curtis, who is president of Washtenaw Woodwrights and brought his own hard-won expertise to bringing out the house’s full character and potential. He also brought some of his own carpenters to the job, along with familiar faces in the plumbing, electrical, painting and plastering trades.

Wallpaper was removed and the walls were painted from a palette of contemporarily neutral to periodically intense colors, chosen in consultation with designer Paul Hickman. (During this process, a testament from the original wallpaper hanger, penciled on a wall in 1926, was uncovered.) The oak floors, French doors and other trim received new finishes as the interior was freshened. New double-hung windows went in upstairs and downstairs.

Structural alterations began with the addition of a cathedral ceiling and skylights to the master bedroom, and the alterations extended all the way to the reinforcement of supports that allowed a family area to be opened up in the basement. Insulation and a new climate-control system improved comfort and boosted energy efficiency.

On the main level, an odd bit of closet space off the guest room was converted to a bathroom. Granite countertops and a central island helped bring the kitchen up to date. Upstairs, a dressing room off the bathroom was converted to a second walk-in closet for the master suite.

A screened porch that was erected off the kitchen allows Tucker, Curtis and family to dine alfresco.

“It suits us so well—it’s a good example of a not-so-big house,” Tucker says of the 1800-square-foot dwelling, which is a reduction from their previous 2200-square-foot house on Ardmoor Avenue.

And in the original glass doorknobs, there is a glimmer of history. Curtis’ research indicates the bungalow was built in 1925 by William F. Eddy, a contractor who installed sewers from 1912 until at least the late 1960s. Eddy had an equipment yard on State Street for a span of 50 or 60 years. At some point, possibly in the 1940s, he put up the house next door at 222 Kenwood Avenue and used the original house as an office after moving.

More recently, the bungalow’s owner was the sister-in-law of Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who is thought to have visited.

If so, the governor was no doubt charmed, as were Tucker and Curtis.

And those who take the Homes Tour will understand why when they see for themselves.

Tour information: www.oldwestside.org