You’ve spent the last 18 years fixing up old houses for other people.
During that time, you’ve taken a group of talented, everyday folk and turned them into household names. You’ve developed an impressive list of resources to draw on. Even your name has become part of the language.
Hey, “This Old House!” How do you top that?
For the show’s creator and executive producer-director, Russ Morash, the answer was simple: Put the cast and other experts in the role of homeowners, and let them create their dream house–in 18 half-hour episodes.
“It gives us a chance to answer the question we’re always asked– `What would you do if it were your house?”‘ said host Steve Thomas. “It also gives us a chance to stretch our legs through a combination of renovation, dream-spinning and restoration. What we’re producing is the ultimate `cocooner’s residence’ for the next millennium.”
After a three-year search, Morash found the perfect house in Milton, Mass., about 10 miles south of downtown Boston: a 3,800-square-foot Colonial farmhouse with barn on 2.9 acres. Price: $415,000. Budget–excluding donated products and services: $300,000.
When it is finished, the four-bedroom house with three full baths and two half-baths will be sold.
Well, wouldn’t you want a kitchen that Julia Child and Marian Morash–wife of Russ and “The Victory Garden” chef–helped design; a workshop built by Norm Abram, also of “The New Yankee Workshop;” a wine cellar stocked by editors of Quarterly Review of Wines magazine; a state- of-the-art heating system, exercise room with sauna, and media room all packaged nicely into a lovingly restored 18th-century house with landscaping by Roger Cook and Steve Wirth of “The Victory Garden?”
This is not the show’s first foray into the real estate market. Master carpenter Abram, who has been with “This Old House” from the beginning, recalls that the first house, in Boston’s Dorchester section, was bought by the show and then sold when finished.
The second house–in Newton, Mass., designed by 19th-century Boston architect H.H. Richardson–was turned into condos.
“The problem was that when we did the condo conversion, the economy turned downward and it took a long time to sell five very expensive units,” Abram said. “So there was some hesitancy to get into projects like that again.”
Instead, the show began working with homeowners.
“That’s when viewership really took off,” Abram said. “People liked to see themselves doing the work.”
In the process, Abram, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, general contractor Tom Silva, and other regulars and semi-regulars became celebrities.
And so have the houses. Projects in metropolitan Boston and elsewhere are tourist attractions.
Even more people will get to see the Milton house because it will be sold on the market and because it will be a “show house” in the spring. Proceeds of the sale and the show house will benefit WGBH-TV Boston, which produces “This Old House” and many other programs.
The history of the house plays a major role in how the work has been planned and carried out. Thomas pointed out that rather than just paint the exterior, the crew decided to restore it, removing two centuries of rot and wear and making historically correct repairs to its white clapboards and black shutters. That added $10,000 to the project’s cost.
The goal of the project is to get the house ready for life in the 21st century while preserving its architectural integrity.
“Remember, if you own an old house, you are merely the steward,” Morash said. “Others will follow, so respect its history and renovate with great care.”
That doesn’t mean the bad stuff has to stay. No fewer than six additions were grafted onto the original house over the centuries, and even though these are old, they aren’t necessarily worth saving.
To make room for the kitchen addition, for example, a conservatory was razed. The conservatory had been a source of mold and water problems that permeated the rear of the house. A smaller screened-in porch has replaced it.
The building housing Abram’s dream workshop also is new, replacing one that, except for an arched window, was beyond salvaging.
The need for such fine-tuning explains Morash’s belief that “the budget is not the budget” in such projects, because no matter how well you plan, something unanticipated will always crop up.
Abram agrees.
“It’s always hard to sell the homeowner on the thought that you’d be better off than you are by digging a little deeper and doing it right,” Abram said. “Sometimes, when a contractor finds something wrong and a homeowner is resistant, that’s because the homeowner is looking at the short-term and not the long-term. If you don’t fix it correctly, it will catch up to you.”
Silva has been the show’s insurance policy against such disasters.
“Tommy Silva has taught me that a job well done is its own reward,” said series producer Bruce Irving, who has been with the show for nine years. “He does things few people will ever see or truly appreciate, mostly because they are hidden behind walls. But he knows that he’s taken extra steps and no shortcuts.”
The rule for this and other projects is: Spend money where it will do the most good.
“You can spend a limitless amount of money on fixtures,” Thomas said. “But you have to see things within the context of the whole. If instead of buying a $1,000 dishwasher you buy a $300 dishwasher, there probably will be little real difference in performance between the two, and you can take the $700 you save and spend it on landscaping.
“It’s better to have a house that’s an organic whole than one that’s just a bunch of projects,” Thomas said.
The house has plenty of “This Old House” touches. Abram and Thomas collaborated on the media room-library, with Abram building the bookcases. The wine cellar is a joint effort of Thomas, who put one in the root cellar of his own house, and Silva, who is building the arched door from salvaged cedar.
The workshop easily holds a 35-foot boat, but is not as well-stocked as “The New Yankee Workshop.
