When John Davenport retired, he dedicated himself to the task of restoring his great-grandmothers house on Catawba Island. Now this 28-room bed and breakfast makes use of a centurys worth of attic finds and basement bonanzas.

If You Visit  SunnySide Tower Bed and Breakfast Inn has 10 guest bedrooms, nine bathrooms and two complete working kitchens. Guests taking over the entire inn may bring their own food and do their own cooking, if they like. Davenport, an accomplished chef, will provide dinner for guests, on request, or put on cooking classes for anybody who wants to learn. Hell also play the guitar and sing, whether you ask him to or not. Room rates range from $79 to $149. Cost for renting the entire inn for a night: $890 to $1,550, depending on the number of guests, and the number of meals provided. 3612 N.W. Catawba Rd., Port Clinton, 888/831-1263. www.sunnysidetower.com.

Remember when shabby chic was all the rage? Maybe you rushed out and bought the book. I know I did. The photos made it seem so simple. The idea was to turn your grandmas trashy old stuff into cherished treasures just as the pictures showed by accentuating the shabbiness with such panache that it became downright elegant. I tried it with a beat-up dresser, slapping on a coat of whitewash paint, and whacking the corners with a rubber mallet for a charmingly distressed appearance. I plunked down the dresser in front of a bedroom window that Id draped with yards of gauzy muslin for a breezy, summery effect.

But when I was done, it looked pitiful. Id achieved the shabby, but none of the chic.

I gave the book to Goodwill, along with the dresser. I wrote off shabby chic as another one of those impossible dreams like sure-fire diets that book publishers love to hype.

Then I saw SunnySide Tower, and I changed my mind. This big bed and breakfast on Catawba Island is shabby chic to the nth degree. And it looks terrific. Whats more, it was done by a guy. A big manly fellow who has never let the words ambience and color swatch fall from his lips, and wouldnt know a period piece if he tripped over it.

John Davenports decorating skills are purely instinctual born of necessity during a time when he was knee-deep in construction debris, transforming a basket case of a house into an inn. Nothing in his background hinted that he possessed such talent. For most of his adult life, hes been flying planes for the U.S. Air Force over combat zones from Mogadishu to the Persian Gulf.

When he neared retirement a few years ago, he decided to turn his great-grandmothers derelict house into an inn. When he started the project, he had never heard of shabby chic. And he never thought to consult a how-to book. For inspiration, he looked to his great-grandmother instead. He couldnt have picked a better role model.

Marie Rhodes was a free spirit. She drilled for gas and oil when Victorian women seldom did those things. When she struck it rich, she used the proceeds to build one of the biggest homes on Catawba Island, a 28-room beauty with a four-story tower attached, so she could see Lake Erie without walking down to the beach. She bought 10,000 fruit trees, establishing one of the largest orchards on Lake Eries southern shore. She made a bundle and lived like a queen. Her tower is still the focal point of the B&B her great-grandson runs today.

Everything ties together at SunnySide Tower. Family stories. Family stuff. Especially the stuff.

Davenports remarkable whole-house restoration makes use of a centurys worth of attic finds and basement bonanzas, neatly wrapped up into one gigantic package.

Guests cant help but giggle at some of Davenports decorating schemes: In one of the guest rooms, he turned his grandmother Elbas piano into a headboard for the queen-sized bed; in another room, Elbas kitchen sink is the centerpiece of a charmingly weird Victorian powder room. Other guest rooms have old-fashioned kitchen cabinets big heavy wooden ones with pretty windowpane doors as curio cabinets. Ship models from all over the world decorate a guest room with a nautical theme; the orchard room is filled with antique baskets, ladders and lopping tools. The Tower Suite has shiny lapstrake siding, like an old wooden yacht, and a hatch you can pop open if you want to sleep up on the rooftop, under the stars.

Thats what makes John Davenports creation so appealing. Its all done with such flair, and so much love. Inn guests cant help loving it, too.

When Davenport took on the challenge, his great-grandmothers mansion was unfit for human habitation. It had stood empty since the 1960s, when the last family members moved away. A squatter was using the building as a kind of nursery where he raised rabbits (for market) and earthworms (for fish bait). The roof had been leaking for years; the interior walls were as mushy as oatmeal. Marie Rhodes landmark tower leaned so badly it swayed in the wind whenever a storm blew through.

Everybody said it was hopeless, but I needed a place to retire to, and I needed a way to pay for the restoration, which would be a monumental task, says Davenport. Making it a B&B seemed like a logical step, since the area is a favorite with tourists.

It took Davenport three years to gut the place. He did much of the grunt work himself. The bones of the big house were salvageable, but the interior walls were too decrepit, and most of the old lath-and-plaster walls had to be ripped out and replaced. He managed to save the fancy lintels that once capped the windows. These he restored by hand and brought inside, where they now cap the interior doors, giving the place a great Victorian flair.

Its a wonderful mixture of old and new, with lots of startling adaptations. In the kitchen, great-grandfather Edwards enormous wooden ladder he once made a living as a house painter is suspended across the full length of the kitchen ceiling like a gigantic rack, from which antique pots and pans are hung. The brass and copper pans are themselves a marvel of adaptive re-use. They were made in Turkey, sometime after World War I, fashioned out of old shell casings scavenged by Turkish villagers after the fighting stopped.

The house has loads of public rooms for guests to use, including a den thats specially equipped for kids, with an incredible selection of video games. Grownups gravitate to the oversized parlors and the sunroom thats cozy all year with a wood-burning, potbellied stove. Most rooms are painted in cheery primary colors reminiscent of old milk-based paints. Sofas and chairs are deep and comfy.

In the main parlor, the native-stone fireplace is the first thing you notice. Next is the piano bar, which is a purely unintended whimsy of Davenports invention. He had planned to use the 1896 Beckwith in the conventional way, as a musical instrument. But on moving day, the movers dropped it. The big piano split down the middle, rendering it permanently silent but architecturally intriguing. Never one to throw away a useable object, John had the backboard and keyboard bolted onto the wall, where it makes a cheery space for guests to stash their liquor and mix their drinks. You get the feeling that great-grandmother Rhodes would have loved it.