This Old House

Kevin

Today on "This Old House"...

Mark

Anytime we do a renovation or a restoration in masonry, the main goal is to match what we have.

Tom

I would love to see a barrel vaulted ceiling up here that has an ellipse in it.

Kevin

Think of this as your own personal showroom.

Molly

Can I take it all with me, too?

Laughter

Kevin

What happened to all this plumbing here?

Richard

I've never seen anything like this before.

Roger

There's already rot going on in that trunk.

Kevin

So what have you found up here?

Tom

Well, a bit of a surprise.

Richard

It's really the classic plumber's lament.

Kevin

Nice!

Richard

It's five bathrooms. It's a kitchen. It's a full new mechanical. It's -- It's gonna be a biggie.

Kevin

It sounds like you guys have a plan.

Molly

I think we do.

Laughs

Tom

The money's in the detail.

Kevin

That is beautiful. Hi, there. I'm Kevin O'Connor, and welcome back to "This Old House" and our 1890s shingle style up here on Cape Ann. A lot of work going on, as you can see, and last week, a lot of that work was up here on the third floor.

Tommy and Charlie slid about a 20-foot beam through the gable and into this third floor space. We cut away the ends of the rafters, slid the beam in between them from either side, and then reattached the rafters. That allowed up to take down the collar ties and the low ceiling and end up with a big, open space with about 13-foot-high ceilings. Down here on the second floor, it started with abatement, getting rid of the asbestos and the lead, so that meant pretty much taking everything back to the studs.

But it gave us a big, open floor plan so that we could put in a master bedroom, a master bath, two bedrooms, and then another office off the back of the house. As you descend through the house, this is pretty much remaining unchanged except for a new doorway going to the back of the house that is now lined up with the front doorway right here. And, wow, there are a lot of changes that went on out here. Now, there used to be a garage right here that went up right to about that birch tree.

It wasn't original, and it wasn't very nice, so it went away, as did the deck that was on top of it. And it's going to get replaced with a new covered porch right here with a roof coming off. Posts will come down. It will sit on the existing foundation, this beautiful granite foundation right here.

And, Mark, your job is to make sure

that the new stuff looks old. Mark

Exactly. So, anytime we do a renovation or a restoration in masonry, the main goal is to match what we have.

Kevin

So, how did you get started here?

Mark

We actually dug down, hit the ledge, drilled into the ledge, placed rerod with epoxy. We tied all that steel together.

We poured the concrete. Kevin

Yep.

Mark

But what it did was it allowed us to put a block wall up behind where we're going to lay our stone, so it created a ledge.

Kevin

So, this stuff is obviously granite, Mark. Where did you get this?

Mark

So, luckily for us, we actually got this right off the site. When Charlie tore down the garage, there was a little extra stone, but there's a wall out back that has all the stone we need for this wall and the steps.

Kevin

Our wall?

Mark

Our wall. Don't worry, yep. This is, like, blunt force trauma, Kevin.

Kevin

Yeah, but it's actually a little bit more precise than you would imagine.

Mark

Yeah. And that one's going to work for me.

I'll take that. Mark

Let me -- Now I got to butter the bed. So, I want a fat bed joint so I have plenty of area for the stone to sit. That fits well. I might just back-butter that stone a bit.

Kevin

Oh, yeah.

Mark

And that way, I can wiggle it into place.

Kevin

Look at that.

Mark

The important thing for me right now, Kevin, is going to be my height, which looks pretty good. I want to keep these joints as tight as possible, and again, mimicking the work next to me.

Kevin

Concrete on three sides and then filling in the back.

Mark

And you got to fill in the back. That's what's going to hold it together. Sometimes I like to bounce my trowel from behind. That way, it will fill the joint from the back, which will ensure that I have a full joint.

Kevin

And then your, I forget, jointing tool?

Mark

Yeah, this is just a flat jointer, and again, it's the tool that I have to use because I'm trying to mimic the joints that exist in the stonework now.

Kevin

The mortar whisperer, I love it.

Mark

Yeah.

Kevin

The phone, cable, and power line come from a utility pole overhead to the house. You can see the mess of wires behind me, and the power wire is still going up there. Now, the homeowners don't want to see them, especially from their new kitchen window, so we got to fix that. Hey,

Heath. Heath

Hey, Kevin, how are you?

Kevin

Alright. So, you're the guy with the fix for us.

Heath

Yeah, I think we have a solution for this.

Kevin

Which is?

Heath

So, we're going to take everything underground and get rid of the overhead wires that we have now.

Kevin

Okay.

Heath

For the start of it, though, first thing we have to do is dig a trench.

Kevin

And how deep do we need to go with that trench?

Heath

So, for this, we typically want to be deep enough to get the conduits about 18 inches from the top of the conduit to the top of finished grade.

Kevin

How did the digging go?

Heath

Not good.

You know the site. Kevin

Exactly.

Heath

A lot of ledge, really couldn't dig down too far. But what we have to do when we're not able to dig down far,

we have to bring grade up. Kevin

Alright.

Heath

Then we put in 3 inches of sand to soften up everything around the conduit. So we'll start at the pole, put a piece of rigid up there for protection. We'll come down with Schedule 40 PVC in the ground. When we got over here, we still had some issues trying to get through the original rock wall and through everything in here because of the ledge again.

So we actually had to heat some pieces up, do some custom bends, and get this to fit.

Kevin

Beautiful, and so I'm looking at the Schedule 40 pipe right there...

That's it. Kevin

...coming up

into your box. Heath

Yep,

coming up to the meter. Kevin

And then, so, you guys have already got a rope through there. How'd you get that?

Heath

We did. So we start -- Once the conduit's complete,

we'll use a mouse like this. Kevin

Mouse, huh?

Heath

And instead of using a vacuum, we use a blower. We'll actually push this mouse through the line to kind of help clean it out and pull the string through, and that gets attached to the conductors right over there.

Kevin

Big box. What are we pulling to the house?

Heath

So, we're pulling 400 amps to this house.

Kevin

What?! What did we have originally?

100 overhead. Kevin

Wow.

Heath

Yeah, so, quite a difference. 400 amps, we're pulling THWN conductors that are ready to be underground. There we go.

Kevin

So, how much wire do you think we just pulled?

Heath

Well, we have about 85 feet of conduit in the ground. I'd say we probably pulled a little over 100 feet the whole way by going up the pole.

Kevin

Times three, so 300 feet of wire.

Yep. Kevin

That's a lot of copper.

Heath

Yeah, and a little over a pound a foot, you know, we're looking somewhere around 400-plus pounds that we just pulled through this.

Kevin

Whew! And what does it cost?

Heath

For all of this was about $2,400 for the copper.

Kevin

Alright. So, next steps for you guys?

Heath

Next we're going to leave these wires where they are. We're simply going to disconnect what we pulled through with on the rope, and then we'll go inside and make the determinations on the panel. When that's all set, we can have an inspector call it in, and the utility company can tie in the overhead.

Kevin

Love it. Thank you, Heath.

Thanks. Kevin

Good job.

Richard

So, plenty of progress up here. They're already wallboarding on the top floor. They've got all the foam in, so I thought it'd be a good time to sort of catch up on the progress on the mechanical side. We're here in the master bathroom.

Couple of lavatories right here. We've run PEX piping up to it, and we've got a shower here, big generous shower, but doing it the conventional old way for our pan. This is a copper pan. It's been soldered together here to make a nice watertight seal, and then there will be mud and tile over top of that.

Now, in this house, we've got this style of toilet. Now, I want to show it to you before it gets covered up. The toilets will not sit on the floor like conventional North American toilets. It will be hung from a carrier.

This is a carrier made out of steel, you can see right here, and the weight of the toilet will be carried from these bolts right here. And all the workings will be hidden inside of the wall beautifully with a nice cover plate, and the toilet will be here in a private alcove. Here in the laundry, they're about to close the walls in, but I wanted to show you one really good practice. Now, we're going to have a gas-fired condensing boiler down in the basement to make some radiant heat on the first floor.

Now, you could just vent that thing out through the sidewall, but when you do that, you're going to leave a big plume of exhaust coming out through the side of this beautiful building. I would prefer always to vent up and through the building. So here you can see the exhaust that's been run up through. It's going to go out through the roof, and this is an important material.

This is polypropylene. This is plastic that's designed to be used for the higher temperatures of a gas appliance, so I love that. And now we'll also need fresh air to be burned in the boiler, so we're going to use the PVC to bring air back down to that combustor appliance. Really good practice.

This building will have a series of what we call microzones, individual units that will provide cooling and second stage heating in different places of this building. We're in this office, which is this weird space which is away from the main part of the second floor, separated by a stair hall, so we decided to put a separate unit right here. Now, we could have put a high side wall unit you've seen before, but this is actually a picture frame. So this picture frame, it can be changed to have any picture you want in it.

And when you turn it on, this is going to provide all the heating and cooling in this space. You turn it on. These side flaps would come out, and this would tip down and would provide the heating and cooling in the building. Now, in this case, we wanted to put it in during the rough-in, but we wanted to make sure it actually survived to the finish line.

Only the Silver Brothers would build a custom cover that fit like a glove. Love these guys. So, down here, you can see the supplies that we need to get to each of our eight microzones. All we really need are these small refrigerant lines that are insulated and a condensate line.

Instead of a big duct, we have to get these to the individual units. That's pretty good, and these have been tested. They're under full pressure, so we're safe to put the walls in. The other thing that I love is this.

You see this? It's a piece of cast iron. Now, right above us is that master bathroom, and it has a toilet that when it's flushed, if this was regular PVC, you would hear it here in this living room. So they transitioned it to cast iron to make it quiet.

Good plumbing should be not seen and not heard.

Kevin

With our floor plan now open and our interior framing nearly complete, it's time for our homeowners to finalize some decisions on their kitchen. So we've come to our idea house here in New Cannan, Connecticut. It's an 1840s Greek revival that has been beautifully restored, and it's also an opportunity for us to try out new ideas and new products, so it's the perfect place for Molly and her designer to get some inspiration. Hey,

Molly. Molly

Hi, Kevin. How are you?

Kevin

Hey,

Michelle. Michelle

Hey, Kevin.

Great to see you again. Kevin

Yeah. So, we worked together about 5 years ago, so it's great

to have you back on the team. Michelle

It's good to be back.

Kevin

You ready to show us around?

Michelle

Absolutely.

Kevin

Where do you want to start?

Michelle

I think we should start in the kitchen and this open living space, because, Molly, we just opened up your kitchen and figured this is a good place to start.

Molly

I love it, and I love the bank of windows, which we're going to have in my kitchen, as well.

Michelle

Yes,

you are. Kevin

So think of this as your own personal showroom, okay? Look around. Grab some ideas.

Molly

Can I take it all with me, too?

Kevin

Well, you can take some of it with you, for sure.

Michelle

I think starting with countertops is good, because I know you're concerned about durability of counter surfaces. This is a man-made quartz material, and look how they've mitered the thickness. Much thicker than standard.

Molly

Yeah, it looks like one big piece of stone.

But it isn't. Molly

That's the beauty of it.

Michelle

That's the beauty of it.

Molly

Really like that. Looks really good.

Michelle

And this, I want to show you, is a freezer column.

Ah. Michelle

So, in your kitchen, I believe we should split up the refrigerator and freezer.

Kevin

Which is kind of what you mean by a column, right? They're not adjoining, separate.

Michelle

They're completely separate units.

Look at all that space. Molly

Look at all that space. We do a lot of cooking.

Kevin

That's a lot of ice cream.

Molly

Yeah, ice cream, exactly. I love this panel. I love how the panel is a lot taller than the actual refrigerator or freezer, so you wouldn't actually know that

there's a freezer behind there. Kevin

Yeah.

Michelle

It does integrate nicely into the design a little bit nicer.

Molly

Yeah. Very well done.

Kevin

The list is starting to grow. Got it.

Michelle

And here's your big window with your main sink. And I wanted to point out the style of the cabinetry here to you, because these are inset cabinets. Do you know the difference?

Molly

Remind me again.

Michelle

Inset cabinets are set flush in the actually frame of the cabinet box, so you're looking at the frame of the carcass, and the door is set flush within it.

Kevin

And overlay would mean that the cabinet front or drawer front would sit on this frame right here. And just so you have an appreciation, that detail, when it's inset, that's a very fussy operation, so that's a high quality, almost furniture-like cabinet.

Michelle

And now this is the range. This is a 48-inch dual fuel full range.

Kevin

Gas up top, electric for the ovens.

Right. Kevin

Nice.

Molly

But you know I'm an induction fan, so we're going to be doing induction.

Michelle

So we are going to do that in your kitchen.

Yep. Michelle

The other thing to note here is this backsplash is the same material as the counter. What do you think about that?

Molly

I really like that.

Kevin

So, Molly, off of the main kitchen, there's a little transition space and a couple things for you to think about -- the built-in coffee maker.

Molly

My husband would love this.

Kevin

Okay, and then, you know, it's a show house, so we played around a little bit.

The water dispenser. Molly

This is really fun. Yeah, and it even tells you how many plastic bottles you saved.

Kevin

Yes, it does. But what we're getting to is what we're calling the working kitchen. So if that's the public space out there, maybe you're entertaining, and the caterer's in here. Extravagant, we know, but it is an idea house.

And note up top, no upper cabinets. Open shelving.

Molly

The open shelving always scares me, because I love it in concept, but in reality, I just feel like it's a little impractical for --

Kevin

Yeah, it leaves you exposed, doesn't it?

Exactly. Kevin

Well, it's a trend now, but, you know, you can decide.

Michelle

Now, there's one more thing I want to show you that I think you're going to love. This could be for Caroline.

Oh. Molly

I love that.

Kevin

Yeah, absolutely.

Molly

I love how it's all built-in.

Michelle

And it doesn't take up much space at all.

Molly

No. That's fantastic.

Kevin

Get her in on the work, yeah.

Molly

Exactly.

Kevin

So, I heard a lot of things added to the list at least to consider. Do you guys feel that way?

Michelle

Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin

Yeah, and so do you think you've got everything you need? Anything else that needs to be decided on?

Michelle

Well, we have to select appliance models.

Kevin

Ah, okay.

Michelle

So that's another shopping trip.

Kevin

This is the Seaport District of Boston, and that shopping trip brings us to this showroom. Molly, Michelle, are you guys okay shopping in a place like this?

Molly

We are. We love it.

Laughs

Kevin

So, we're going to start with refrigerator and freezer?

Michelle

Yeah, so, just like in the idea house, we're looking at a column refrigerator. This size is 30-inch, so that's what we're going to use for the refrigerator, and it's going to be separated like it was in the idea house.

Kevin

So not side by side like we're seeing here. Okay, and what are we looking at there?

Molly

This is the cabinet style that we'll be using to panel the refrigerator

and all the drawers with. Kevin

Okay.

Michelle

And this is the color.

Kevin

Three decisions. I love it.

Michelle

Now, Molly, we have to work this into your project.

Molly

I love this piece. As we've talked about, we want the butler's pantry to be multi-purpose. And so I see it as a place where we can also mix drinks.

Michelle

Yeah, lots of wine storage.

Molly

This is amazing, more than enough.

Michelle

And then this drawer is refrigeration for drinks.

Molly

Fantastic.

Michelle

And the bottom is freezer.

Molly

Oh, so we can have ice all ready to go for cocktails. Hi, Sean,

good to see you. Sean

Hi, guys. How are you?

Molly

Good.

Welcome. Kevin

Sean, are you in charge of the cooking demonstration for us?

Sean

I am. We have an induction cooktop here,

which I understand you have. Molly

Yes. So, I've had induction for the past couple years now, and I absolutely love it. I find that it's easy to clean. We all know that when you cook, things splatter.

You make a mess sometimes, so you can easily wipe it down. There are no knobs, so for small children, you don't have to worry about small children moving the knobs or turning on the oven automatically, and it is very fast.

Sean

Yeah, the precision that you just saw there for delicate sauces, like Barnaise or hollandaise or even simmering rice, really, really good results, and it happens to be the most energy efficient cooking product you can get.

Molly

I didn't know that. That's an extra bonus.

Kevin

Alright. Well, thank you, Sean, and Michelle, thank you. Looks like we made a lot of good decisions today.

Michelle

Yeah, a lot of progress.

Nice. Sean

Good work, guys.

Thank you. Molly

Thanks.

Kevin

Off of this front entryway, off of the front staircase is this hallway right here that leads back to the family room and over to the mudroom and garage. But, Tommy, the homeowners don't like the ceiling. What's wrong with it?

Tom

Well, I don't like the ceiling, either, Kevin. I think it's too sharp. It's just a simple gable ceiling. Alright, but the reason for the ceiling is to hide the stringers right here for the stairway that leads up to the second floor.

Kevin

Yeah, it was sort of built right up to them, and that set our angle.

Tom

So this angle of the stringer is matched on this side right here, so it's like the underside of a pitched roof.

Kevin

Yeah, we got an "A" frame. You got a little flat part right there.

Tom

Right, and that flat part is what we tried to soften, so we made a radius to fit underneath it, but it still doesn't look right to me.

Kevin

What would you like to see?

Tom

I would love to see a barrel vaulted ceiling up here that has an ellipse in it.

Okay. Tom

Alright? Now, if I do the math and I do the ellipse, which means I want to gain this point right here, the widest point, and I would like to get the highest angle right there. But if I draw out the ellipse, and you see it drawn right here on the side of the stringer?

Kevin

I do. I can already see the problem with that. You're digging into those stringers.

Tom

Going to dig into that stringer, and it's a lot of work that's already been done, so we're going to work with what we have. I'm going to make a radius that fits in between from this point over to that point.

Kevin

Alright. How do we do that?

Tom

Alright. Well, the simplest way to do it is to make a template first of the rafters. There's that side. Now I mark this side.

Rafter there at the bottom and the top. So, here's our template made of the rafter angle right here, okay? So now I need to find an arch that's going to fit in between this location right here.

Okay. Tom

So I just take a nail, and bring that right over there like that. Going to take a nail, and I'm going to put it right here... like that. I'm going to take another nail, going to put that right there.

And then I'll put another nail right there. Okay, so that's the widest part of the ceiling in relationship to the arc that we're going to draw.

Mm-hmm. Tom

Alright? So I also want to make sure that the arc that I draw doesn't interrupt this line or plane of the roof. To do that, I'm going to take a stick that I've nailed together. And the stick has to be long enough so that it sits on one end here and makes it all the way over to this side right here.

Kevin

So one side has to be long enough between those two points.

Tom

Right, and the same with this side. Okay?

Kevin

So what does that stick do for you?

Tom

Well, this stick here tells me that when I swing this arc, I won't interrupt this plane of the rafter. And you can play with this, make it steeper or shallower. And the higher I make it, the more it's going to cut into the rafter. So now if I take this and I bring it over here like this and gently keep it right on that, and I bring my pencil here, I'm going to slide the stick along, keeping it down on the nails, right in the V.

Bring it around. Yep, just like that. Bring it right around. I just keep going right around following that, keeping the nail and the stick together.

Bring it right around, bring it right down, and now I have my arch that is going to fit in between the two rafters without cutting any of the rafters or the stringers.

Kevin

That is pretty slick, there, Euclid.

Both laugh

Kevin

I like it.

Tom

Now all I want to do is cut these two straight lines above the rafters. Then we'll cut this arch out here, and then we can make a template. Put it up here. Come to the wall.

Now we're going to slowly push it up.

Kevin

Good.

Tom

Nice, nice. Not too deep.

Okay. Tom

Not too deep, now. Good. Nice and slow. Alright.

Here we go. Last screw.

Kevin

Get this out of here and have a look at how we did.

Tom

Yeah, I think that's going to make a big difference.

Kevin

You happy with that?

Tom

I am very happy with it.

Kevin

I'm happy with that, too. Alright. So, that is it from us here on Cape Ann. Next week, we have got what coming up?

Tom

Well, I'm going to be installing

some of those custom windows. Kevin

Nice. Well, while you're doing that, Roger is taking me fishing. We're going for some cod out of Gloucester.

Sounds like fun. Kevin

So until then,

I'm Kevin O'Connor. Tom

And I'm Tom Silva.

Kevin

"This Old House" here in Cape Ann. Next time on "This Old House"...

Tom

We're working with actually six individual sash that are all mulled together to make this nice unit right here.

Kevin

And we try out some new shingles that are supposed to make this roofing job easier.

Tom

If you look right here in the plan, you can see...

Kevin

Oh,

yeah. Tom

...we've got a diamond here, a diamond up there. That pattern is established by the height or the coursing of the shingle.

Kevin

Look at that. Subtle, like we said, but that makes a big difference, Tommy.

Tom

Yeah, it does make a statement.