WILMINGTON, Del. — On the kitchen counter of the Bromberg-Josephson household, a voluptuous cremation urn glitters with sequins, glass beads and one very gnarly molar. Nancy Josephson, who bedazzles not just reliquaries but taxidermy, furniture and automobiles, envisions it as both her final resting place and a shout-out to her great-great-grandchildren.

“I like the idea of them knowing where it came from,” she said, meaning the arch worldview that underpins her work and that of her husband, the polymathic folk musician and bluesman David Bromberg, who may get his own urn, she said, or share space in hers. As she recalled, “I asked him, ‘So, David ... cremation?’ And he said, ‘Surprise me.’ ”

And so it goes in the blocklong loft here above Mr. Bromberg’s violin store and workshop, all of which are housed in a four-story, early 19th-century brick building that the city offered the couple in 2002 as part of an effort to revitalize the area. (The mayor was a jazz enthusiast and Bromberg fan.)

But the building was a derelict shell — you could say the same of Market Street at the time, which was riddled with crime and empty storefronts — and Mr. Bromberg and Ms. Josephson spent about $750,000 making it habitable, cobbling together funds from mortgages, a short-term loan from a development group and the sale of their house in Chicago, where they had been living with their two children, Ruth and Jacob, now 26 and 30. In addition, Mr. Bromberg agreed to host weekly jam sessions in the neighborhood and commit to living in Wilmington for seven years.