The Milton House - 1
The show opens in the historic town of Milton, Massachusetts, founded in 1662 and the site of the c. 1725 Colonial home the show purchased for renovation and eventual sale. The This Old House crew looks the old structure over, including the massive post-and-beam barn on the property. The diagnosis: questionable room layout for modern life, some rot, but a remarkable sound house with a lot of potential. Jinny Devine, owner for the past 38 years, recalls raising her family of four boys in the home.
More from Season 19
Episode 2
The Milton House - 2
Our host arrives to find excavator Herb Brockert preparing to knock down the rotting ell off the barn. The crew salvage a few valuable bits before it goes, including the cupola and an arched window. A group of young men, from a program that acts as an alternative to juvenile detention, work to dismantle the brick patio in the back of the house and haul in fiberboard to protect the house's delicate old floorboards. Architect Rick Bechtel and our host discuss some ideas about reworking the house's floorplan, including moving the kitchen from the dark northeast side to the sunny south. Our host goes to New York City to visit the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club Decorators Show House, which has been going annually for 25 years, to get ideas for turning the Milton house into a similar showcase at the end of the renovation. Richard Trethewey checks out the the house's aging heating system, complete with solar collector.
Episode 3
The Milton House - 3
The show opens with a visit to the top of Great Blue Hill and its historic weather observatory (built in 1885) to view the sights: the town of Milton, downtown Boston (8 miles northeast), and the 7,000 acres of parkland that comprise the Blue Hills Reservation. At the jobsite, the crew takes up planks in the front part of the barn in preparation for turning it into a garage; the structure reveals various areas of rot and poor construction. Forms are in place to accept the concrete coming to make up the new workshop's foundation, and landscape architect Tom Wirth assesses some of the site's challenges, including a lack of proper accesss to the front prospect of the house. Historic photos shows a gravel or shell drive that once passed by the home's front, and Tom thinks a similar scheme would be appropriate. Insulation specialist Graeme Kirkland shows us the results of a blower door test he's conducting: the house changes its interior air 11 times an hour in a simulated 15-mile-an-hour w
Episode 4
The Milton House - 4
Our master carpenter lays out lines for subslab ductwork in his workshop, and the crew strips off the barn's old shingles. They will use a shingle panel system when they replace the siding. Tom Silva shows us his new jobsite trailer, leased complete with office and secure storage room. A surveyor works to put together a certified plot plan, while we see the excavation work around the main house for the kitchen foundation and for a perimeter drain along the front rubblestone foundation for years. In the barn, our master carpenter puts in one of the new post to make room for the garage to come - earlier he used new one-piece footing forms and a waterborne lazer level to provide solid bases for the new posts, poured by a small-batch concrete delivery truck. In the future media room, the crew removes the lally column, holding up the building with jacks and a cripple wall before inserting a flitch beam of laminated veneer lumber and steel.
Episode 5
The Milton House - 5
Our master carpenter's workshop continues to take shape, as Richard Trethewey lays out radiant floor heating tubes over a layer of rigid insulation. We meet audio/visual systems contractor Steve Hayes to get a preview of what the new media room may look like, and visit a showroom to see the range of equipment options. We see a virtual walk-through of the new workshop put together by Randy Levere, while the crew tears down the old kitchen addition, which has revealed itself to be woefully built. Paint stripper Brooks Washburn uses a paraffin-based paste to remove dozens of layers of old paint from the front staircase, and our host suggests trying it out on the historic front facade. Finally, the concrete arrives to complete the floor of the new workshop.
Episode 6
The Milton House - 6
A big day on the site: the structural insulated panels for the new workshop are hoisted into place - they, along with a massive ridge beam of engineered lumber, form the entire workshop structure, complete with window, door, and sklight openings. We are introduced to a range of metal roofing available to top off the workshop, while our host meets furniture and finishes restorer Robert Mussey in his shop, brings him back to the house, and gets some advice on the care and feeding of the historic pine paneling. Landscape architect Tom Wirth checks in with Milton town civil engineer Jim Greene about moving the driveway and any wetland issues involved.
Episode 7
The Milton House - 7
The house's new spaces are framed and sheated, giving us a chance to tour the new kitchen and media room. The front facade is now completely stripped of its burden of 200 years' of paint, ready for primer and a new color. Architect Rick Bechtel and window specialist Mike Roach discuss the new windows they are specifying for the new work (all wood units, double hung, insulating glazing, applied six-over-six muntins), and decide that, rather than being replaced, the historic sash of the front part of the building should be restored and weatherstripped. At the workshop, we see now, low-cost, breathable building wrap, then watch as the crew installs one of the new skylights. Then a roll-forming machine spits out metal roof panels for the building's new standing-steam roof. Finally, we see the engineered wood product that is being used to trim out the house - it's very stable, warpfree, consistent, and cheaper than clear pine.
