This Old House

Tommy creates an arched shingle design for the front porch gable. Kevin learns the process of creating a custom floorcloth for the kitchen. Tommy builds the porch railings. Kevin begins a labor of love: a tree house for the kids.

Kevin, Norm, Roger, Richard and Tommy are back in Arlington - this time at an early English-style Arts and Crafts house built in 1909. Kevin meets the homeowners Nick and Emily, both originally from Arlington, and gets a look at the first floor to see what has been preserved and what has been altered over the years. Meanwhile Norm goes upstairs to check out the plans for the second and third floors. Outside, Roger and Emily take a walk around the property with landscape architect Kim Turner to learn how the homeowners envision using the space. Down in the basement, Richard shows Kevin the inefficient boiler and talks about plans for future mechanical and plumbing systems. Back upstairs homeowner Nick is up for his first task: demolishing the outdated kitchen.

The design process begins at interior designer Jill Goldberg’s shop in Boston’s South End. Homeowner Emily sorts through colors and wallpaper ideas for the living room. At the house the plaster walls are carefully demolished. Landscape architect Kim Turner presents her first landscape plan, and Roger brings in an arborist to begin tree removal. Kevin and Tommy bring down the exterior back wall.

Tommy and Kevin replace a 100-year-old wooden beam with a new steel beam to provide support for the new addition. Norm visits local examples of Arts & Crafts style houses with historian Richard Duffy. The old oil tank gets drained and removed by a specialist. Digging for the new foundation begins and the old concrete pieces from the patio and foundation get transported to a recycling center. Tommy shows Kevin what happens to the material once it is there and how it is used for future construction material.

Kevin meets Tommy in the old playroom, looking out over the work on the new foundation. Tommy shows Kevin the ICF’s (insulated concrete forms) that replace traditional foundation molds. They discuss the high efficiency achieved with this system. Then Tommy introduces Kevin to Kent Reusswick, who supervises the installation. Kent’s crew finishes the job and is there when the concrete is poured. Homeowner Emily, joins Roger Cook and Landscape Architect Kim Turner on a shopping trip to find mature specimen trees for the yard. Back at the addition, a precast concrete bulkhead is installed. The old rubble foundation that was exposed during the excavation for the addition needs reinforcement. Mason Mark McCullough erects a concrete wall next to it to keep the house standing for another century. Before backfilling, the old foundation that’s exposed outside gets waterproofed with a synthetic rubber spray.

Tommy and Kevin take a road trip to see how the steel beams used in our house are fabricated. The beams are trucked to the site and Kevin finds Tommy supervising erection on the back of the house. The third floor has been demo’ed and now Richard can start an HVAC plan for the second floor. He’s looking on the third floor for a location for an air handler and duct work to provide air to the floor below. The front porch must be demo’ed to make way for a new design. With the help of heavy machinery, Tommy’s crew does the job quickly. Then Tommy walks Kevin through the process of placing footings for the new porch. Kevin finds Mark McCullough working on the firebox. Kevin wants to learn the dark art of figuring firebox size and chimney height.