This Old House

I've been watching TOH since the early 80's, still Bob Vila days.  I saw a promotion for a Silva Bros t shirt, so I ordered it...failing to notice I was signing up for a year of TOH Insider.  I was a bit pissed when I got the Visa bill, but they have Every. Single. Episode. of the show available to stream, and now it is taking up too much of my life.  I watched the Milton House series from 1997 first, which was good, but funny when they were talking about all the super new high tech DVD's and computers and digital cameras...

The , I decided to start from season 1 episode 1.  Bob Vila, figuring it out.  Second episode, Norm Abrahm as the contractor, with a toque and mustache.  Fourth episode, Richard Trethewey with hair and a mustache, kinda hiding from the camera behind his Dad.

The tech has changed, the tools have changed, (I saw Norm drive a screw by hand) the safety has really, really changed, (The Trethewey bros pushed an asbestos clad boiler over and started knocking the asbestos around) but there is one thing that is constant- The house is always worse than they thought, and it always costs more money than the original estimate.

I think it is worthwhile, for me.  As a matter of fact, I would pay a similar amount if they offered New Yankee Workshop as well.  If you enjoy the show, maybe check it out.

This Old House used to be a Sunday morning tradition for me. Those guys taught me quite a bit about house repair and that it doesn't have to be so scary most of the time. I always enjoyed the fact that they could take a $30,000 house and dump $300,000 into it.

I feel sure I have seen every episode at least once.  If I was a young man, I would apprentice for Tom Silva.  

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I was selling to home builders and remodelers  before  this old house and watched as they slowly caught up with new equipment and technology.  

 Once 2008 happened I could only watch once in a while.  Too painful. I was still doing my own home that I was wildly underwater with and no job or income. 

Still working on it. 

I love This Old House. Their magazine was a waste of money, however. Very little content and the content they had seemed to have come from the show quite a bit. I don't remember seeing any DIY articles either.

In reply to RossD :

They changed editors and policy about ten years ago. I think it used to be pretty good, but became what you describe then.

Remember his helper Norm?  One episode they clearly were pissed at each other, speaking in sharp terse tones and sidelong glances.  Next week, in the credits, Norm was titled as Master Craftsman Norm ______ .

Think he got the raise,

Those early episodes of TOH are fun to watch again.  A while back I found someone had posted the season 1 episodes on Youtube, I don't know if they are still there or not.  If I recall correctly, the kitchen in that house the first year had orange laminate countertops.  

If you've been watching the current season of TOH with the young apprentices working on the project - one of them passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago, he had epilepsy and apparently died in his sleep.  Sad deal.

New Yankee Workshop episodes are pretty easy to find on Youtube, I think most of them have been posted there.

Bob Vila has most of his Home Again show episodes posted on Youtube as well, I was just watching some of them the other night.  

The show I miss is Hometime, with Dean Johnson and his series of female co-hosts.  The show was produced here in the Minneapolis area so I was often familiar with the neighborhood they were working in, and at least in the earlier years had project budgets that were more realistic to the average person (as time went on their houses got more and more extravagant.)  They seem to have pretty tight control over their videos, so it's pretty hard to find anything other than short clips available online.

In reply to stuart in mn :

I remember watching Hometime's Dean cut a piece of, IIRC, window trim. Walked it back to the window. Slammed his fist and said "BEEP! Well I guess I'll have to cut another piece." Cracks me up, and it was a bit refreshing.

I liked Hometime with the rotating cast of "girlfriends".  They always gave the impression they were a couple.  It kinda weirded me out that he rotated women... The longest lasting one was a pretty darn good carpenter.  She had her own home improvement show after they "broke up".

As a teenager in the 80's who had no interest in popular culture and sitcoms TOH, New Yankee Workshop and the Woodright's shop were my shows. 

I started rewatching New Yankee via Youtube last year.  It was alarming to see first season Nahm with only a handful of routers and specialized tools. IIRC by the end he had at least 3 dozen different routers and always had some large, new specialized tool that only performed one task but did it perfectly.  Must be nice to have sponsors.

As far as TOH hosts go I think I actually prefer Kevin over Bob and Steve. Steve just seemed so posh and full of himself for a dude with no discernable talents.

Hometime didn't resonate with me. Especially after it went from realistic stuff like a basement remodel to full builds of McMansions with 100K$ home theater systems. 

I watch a lot of PBS and still watch TOH and the follow-up Ask TOH from time to time.  Once in awhile, there's some good information, but for the most part is just entertainment.  You can definitely tell how well the original contractor guys have improved in front of the camera over the years.  They've even gotten their sons into it as well.

I remember when Hometime was brand new.  It seems the late 80's into the 90's was sort of the hey-day of PBS home improvement shows.  New Yankee Workshop was also a favorite.  I still have a VHS tape somewhere of episodes I recorded from the early seasons.

Used to have Sat. afternoons put aside to watch a 1/2 dozen of these shows in a row from 12:30 PM until 3:30 on a PBS channel out of NW Ind.

Sadly the channel shut down late last year and sold it's bandwidth to the highest bidder. Now all I have is WTTW out of Chicago.

Woodrights Shop was hilarious.  Between the blood and total lack of organisation, it was wonderful.

Somehow I have like 5 PBS channels right now. One of them has all these shows on it, plus the gardening shows. Another has the old cooking shows 24/7 which are a whole other set of memories. 

After the fishing shows on TNN were over, we switched over for Yan Can Cook and Yankee workshop every weekend when I was a kid. I found a bunch on YouTube when I decided to start getting into wood working last year, and is definitely something watching them do all kind of crazy stuff essentially the Amish way. Comes out a lot better for them with antique tools than it does me with modern tools. 

Streetwiseguy said:

Woodrights Shop was hilarious.  Between the blood and total lack of organisation, it was wonderful.

Someone mentioned, IIRC on this forum, that they film each episode without cutting. That's why he's out of breath and cuts fingers and generally looking for things all the time. Now that I know that, watching those shows are way more interesting.

I always watched TOH, NYW and All the sat. morning TNN/Spike automotive shows.  It's actually kinda odd to me that most of those TNN shows are still around in some capacity 20 years later.  It's also probably why I prefer to watch DIY woodworking and automotive youtube channels over normal tv.

RossD said:

I love This Old House. Their magazine was a waste of money, however. Very little content and the content they had seemed to have come from the show quite a bit. I don't remember seeing any DIY articles either.

Agree.  Love the show.  Used to watch it before life got complicated.  Got the magazine for a year and was thoroughly not impressed.

RossD said:

Streetwiseguy said:

Woodrights Shop was hilarious.  Between the blood and total lack of organisation, it was wonderful.

Someone mentioned, IIRC on this forum, that they film each episode without cutting. That's why he's out of breath and cuts fingers and generally looking for things all the time. Now that I know that, watching those shows are way more interesting.

It is a bit like watching Julia Child's cooking show.  One camera, one take, if the chicken lands on the floor, pick it up and rinse it off. 

spitfirebill said:

If I was a young man, I would apprentice for Tom Silva.  

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tommy Silva start out as the tin knocker?  And then somehow he became the master carpenter / trim-and-finsh / main presenter guy.  I never did figure that out.

Duke said:

spitfirebill said:

If I was a young man, I would apprentice for Tom Silva.  

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Tommy Silva start out as the tin knocker?  And then somehow he became the master carpenter / trim-and-finsh / main presenter guy.  I never did figure that out.

I do not remember that.  Actually, I it is the Silva Brothers that is their company.  One must be camera shy.      

I just a did a quick Googles.  The show premiered in 1979!  Bob Villa hosted for 10 years followed by 14 years of Steve Thomas.   Norm was there from the start.   

Once I was working our booth at the largest HVAC show and a familiar face walks by and I ask my coworkers if that was one of our customers but they all shrugged it off.   Then I realized it was Rich T and they shrugged it off again admitting they never saw the show.   I’ve watched since Bob Vila days.

This brings up fond memories and I keep thinking about getting into carpentry and wood working as it should be cheaper and easier than bringing junk cars home to work on. 

In reply to Brian :

hallelujah.  Thank god I don't have a yard. 

In reply to Brian :

In the late 80’s I had some spare time so I decided to build a grandfather clock.  I was astonished at how nice it came out considering I’d failed wood shop class in the 7th grade.  However that gave me the foolish idea to build my own house.  

I’d bought the property as a tear down with the intention of having a house built. Usual stuff 2x4’s & 2x6’s  called stick built.   

My success with the grandfather clock and watching tens of thousands of houses being built in my daily activity of selling Telehandlers  and cranes to the building contractors convinced me I could build my own house, “ How hard could it be?”  

I mean if I could build Race cars and a grandfather clock nothing should stop me.  

Just for reference a new house from start to finish takes 2500-3000 manhours.   If those man hours came from me then all I had to do was pay for the materials.  

Right?    

The next twist in the tale is a customer of mine owned a sawmill.  I noticed when calling on him he had a yard full of black walnut logs stacked as high as his Telehanler could reach. ( 40 ft)   A yard as in 5+ acres.  Now I’d built my grandfather clock out of Black walnut and paid a lot of money for the black walnut. Over $12 a board foot (1”x 12”x12”)    

I had to ask.  He was cutting those Timbers up to turn them into Railroad ties.  17 cents a bd ft is all he could get.   The off cuts that didn’t make a railroad ties went into pallets. 17 cents again!! 

To put that into perspective the current price of Sheetrock is 39 cents a board foot  I was in a dangerous place. I had great credit a poorly built old house to tear down. And a cheap source of wood, not just any wood but hardwood!!  

So I got an interest free credit card and charged 55,000 bd ft of wood. Black walnut white oak Rock maple cherry etc.  came to only $25,000.  Yep! About what Sheetrock costs. 

Rough green and at the mill.  I air dried it for three years while I got the required permits etc. and started working. 

Remember when I said the average house took 2500-3000 man hours? Well I’m at over 31,000 man hours now with a couple thousand more to go.  Nope!  You didn’t read that wrong Thirty one thousand!   That is just my time.  Stuff I did with my own hands.  I probably paid for another 1000 hours or so of helpers time.  So far nothing I’ve done have I had to redo.  Plus I always had access to the latest best equipment possible.  Free!! Cranes telehandlers forklifts excavators skid steers etc  

You see in addition to drying shaping planing and etc the Timbers. I double timberframed it.  

Black walnut Timbers on the outside. White oak on the inside and SIPs in between  that gives me walls that are 14 inches thick.   But instead of grabbing a 2x4 and popping a couple of nails in it I planned the Timbers and put them together with mortise and tenons like furnitures is made. 

Other details?  105 windows. 5500 sq ft   R30 walls R50 roof 14 dormers  28 foot high ceiling 4 bathrooms 2 bedrooms a billiard room a sewing room an upstairs office  the bridge a few walk in closets  27 doors  1800 sq ft shop