Sparky the wirehaired fox terrier takes a load off in front of one of the cherry-ply cabinets with sanded acrylic doors that Azevedo built for the kitchen.

There are many ways to judge a room—its size, its shape, its furniture. But as these dogs of Dwell homes would likely attest, all it takes is good instinct.

With a presence in three centuries, Christi Azevedo’s Victorian survived the quake of 1906 and served as a laundry before its rebirth as a well-lit hybrid of old and new.