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ATTLEBORO - A simpler, cozier lifestyle is what Michael and Natalie Metallo say they have enjoyed most about the 1940s Cape style home they purchased eight years ago.

In fact, in this 65-year-old home, the Metallos have managed a nice balance of adding modern renovations and maintaining original charm and character, just as they had hoped to do.

"We walked in and we just felt that it was a warm, inviting comfortable home," Natalie said. "It had this beautiful back yard and gardens. We didn't have any outdoor living space in our condo, so we knew in the summertime it would add a whole other part of the home that we could enjoy."

In addition, Mike said the home exhibited a kind of Nantucket lifestyle, which the Metallos are partial to. "We saw that when we originally came, and we could see how we could keep that same feel but kind of update it and initialize it to our particular style and the way we like to live."

As such, the Metallos have put a great deal of effort over the past eight years to maintain as well as enhance what they think of as the "island cottage charm" of the home. Much of that charm begins outside, where Mike has surrounded the front of the property with white picket fences, complete with a center arbor, along the main street, and a lattice work trellis between the house and garage.

The front fences not only adds an extra touch of country charm to the home but enclose a cottage garden that the Metallos have created, based on the gardens they saw and became very fond of while visiting France several years ago.

Expanding on the home's outdoor living space, Mike also created a crushed bluestone patio, with large overhead pergola outside the sunroom.

The patio is furnished with several Adirondack chairs, situated around a chimenea. From this vantage point, the Metallos enjoy viewing other gardens and patios that surround the back yard as well in a courtyard setting.

One such area is the small brick patio, which leads to the sunroom. This patio has an angled roof to which Mike had a large fixed skylight added to allow more sunlight into the adjacent kitchen.

The sunroom, bordered by both the brick and bluestone patio, is a favorite place of the Metallos to enjoy the Nantucket atmosphere of the home, when they can't actually be outdoors.

The sunroom was added on to the home by previous owners, according to Mike, who says the addition also allowed for a third bedroom on the second floor, which the Metallos use as an office.

The Nantucket atmosphere is very evident in the sunroom, with its white paneled ceiling, white French doors, two sets of white-paned bay windows and wicker furniture. Set against these furnishings and a gray ceramic tiled floor, Mike has painted the walls a spring green using what he calls a "wash" technique, similar to sponge painting.

The sunroom steps up to the kitchen, where the Metallos have done most of their renovations, transforming a very dark room, of mostly brown colors into a brighter room that enhances the Nantucket atmosphere.

To make the brightened transformation, Mike painted the brown paneled ceiling and brown raised panel cabinets white and added a light-oak style of Pergo floor. He also removed the existing wallpaper, as he did in several other rooms, and painted the walls, including the cabinet backsplash, a pale blue. The Metallos also brightened the room with new stainless steel appliances, as well as a stainless steel bakers rack, which adds a bit of charm to the room, situated in front of one of the home's steam radiators, which are all covered with white decorative panels.

For additional touches to the kitchen, Mike added white crown molding above the cabinets, a decorative tile border to the backsplash, WilsonArt laminate countertops, which offer the look of black granite but require less maintenance, and a double black composite sink.

For that special Cape feeling, Natalie has adorned the two white-paned casement windows with blue and yellow gingham valances. Existing undercounter lighting and recessed lighting, as well as a cozy lower level peninsula, add a special touch as well.

Open doorways from both the kitchen and the front foyer lead to the dining room, where the atmosphere is still Nantucket, but with a bit more elegance.

In this room, Mike replaced the existing wallpaper with lower white walls, topped with a white chair rail and cranberry walls above. The elegant wall decor is set against the home's original oak floor, which along with several other oak floors in the home, the Metallos said were in very good condition when they purchased the home.

For that special atmosphere in the dining room, Natalie has adorned the white-paned windows with red and white French toile valances over white sheers and furnished the room with the white French country dining room set that belonged to her mother.

From the adjacent foyer a larger open doorway leads to the front-to-back living room, which features a brick fireplace that Mike has repainted white, as it was when they purchased the home. The fireplace also offers a green marble hearth, bordered in white molding, and a white crown molding mantel.

The living room also offers an oak floor, set against walls that Mike has painted sage green, and five white-paned windows that Natalie has adorned with green and white floral valances over white sheers.

On the second floor, the Metallos have added more wicker chairs and other Nantucket features in both their master bedroom and their 4-year-old son Nicholas's bedroom. They have also added a Cape theme to the second floor bath, which Mike has completely renovated.

The home also offers character of a 1940s style home, with cutglass door knobs on several doors, white built-in furniture in second-floor closets and rooms, and heavy knotty pine paneling in the basement family room.

The property is listed for $369,900 with Art Hillman at Bristol County Realty in Attleboro at 508-226-5516.