This Old House

NORM

Today on "This Old House," we start a new project -- restoring the Victorian charm to an 1895 suburban home.

TOM

That's quite a dip.

RICHARD

We'll trace the history of home heating in this one basement.

KEVIN

And we'll see what other secrets are hiding -right here on "This Old House."

NORM

Hey, Kevin.

TOM

Looks pretty bad right here.

NORM

Are you kidding me? Is this place really worth saving?

RICHARD

We can do better than this.

TOM

Time to get to work.

KEVIN

Nice and easy, nice and easy. Everybody together.

Grunting

KEVIN

Oh, yeah!

ROGER

The right plant in the right place.

KEVIN

Good!

RICHARD

It's state-of-the-art, perfectly square. All in all, a good day's work.

KEVIN

All right, here we are, Norm, a new project in a new town. This one in near Boston, and it's called Belmont.

NORM

Right. It's a bedroom community that sprouted up about 150 years ago along the commuter rail lines. In fact, the old train station is still a central feature in downtown Belmont.

KEVIN

Well, another great feature of this town is the housing stock. A ton of old, beautiful houses.

NORM

Oh, yeah, the architecture here is great. And it really represents the styles of the late 1800s, which is the revival period. So you see a lot of Greek revivals, Italianates, that stuff.

KEVIN

And in the case of our project, Norm, Victorian.

And here we are. -KEVIN

All right. Let's have a look at what we're working with. -Hey, Murat,

good to see you. -MURAT

Hey, Kevin.

KEVIN

So it looks like it is moving day finally.

MURAT

That's right. We're moving out so Tommy can move in.

NORM

All right, can you use some help?

MURAT

Yeah, that would be great.

KEVIN

While you guys do that, I'm gonna go inside, see Katherine, and hear about the plans.

MURAT

Sounds good.

KEVIN

Hello? Katherine?

KATHERINE

Hi, Kevin. Come on in.

KEVIN

Hey, good to see you again.

KATHERINE

Good to see you. It's moving day, so it's a bit chaotic. But we're happy to show you around.

KEVIN

Well, that's a good sign, right? No turning back.

No turning back. -KEVIN

So everyone's going. And I met your husband. The others?

KATHERINE

We have two kids -- 2 and 4 -- we didn't want to be around with all the construction dust.

KEVIN

Well, that makes sense, 'cause it is going to get dusty. So, tell me the story of the house and how long you guys have been here.

KATHERINE

Sure. We've been here six months. It's an 1895 Victorian. Obviously. Shingle style. And it was built by a prominent local lawyer. He lived here with his first wife. And after she died, later, his second wife. The story goes she came up from New York, was excited to move to Boston and live in a colonial.

KEVIN

Oh,

boy. -KATHERINE

When she pulled up and saw that it was a Victorian, she was not pleased. So she set about taking out many of the Victorian details.

KEVIN

Okay. So she wasn't a fan of Victorians, -but how about you and Murat?

KATHERINE

We love 'em.

KEVIN

Oh, perfect. All right. So, specifically, the plan for you guys, what do you want to change?

KATHERINE

One of the first things we hope to do is take down this wall. When you come in through the door, you immediately see this wall, and you don't see any of the house.

KEVIN

Yeah, so this hits you kind of right in the face.

That's right. -KEVIN

So that comes down.

KATHERINE

So that you can see straight from the front door through to the back of the house.

KEVIN

Right, sort of open this all up.

KATHERINE

That's right. And expose some of the nice details, like this carved newel post and the stained glass.

KEVIN

Yeah, I mean, these things are beautiful. So why wouldn't you want to show those off? All right, that seems like a pretty good decision. And throughout the rest of the house, what are you guys thinking?

KATHERINE

Well, let me show you. Take a look at these huge, beautiful windows

with the original wavy glass. -KEVIN

Nice.

KATHERINE

We hope to restore those.

KEVIN

Okay. I like the clipped corners, too, creating sort of a bay out front there -- That's nice.

KATHERINE

Right. And we were thinking we might be able to play off of that with two cabinets here on the sides and make this room octagonal.

KEVIN

So sort of an angular built-in in each corner. Oh, that's a pretty cool idea. I think you're gonna probably want to get to the bottom of the staining, though, before you start putting things back over here.

KATHERINE

This house had a pretty rough winter.

KEVIN

Well, Norm's gonna be poking around later, so maybe get to the bottom of that.

KATHERINE

Well, I want to tell you about the front porch. We're really excited about that.

KEVIN

When you say front porch, you mean the little one going up to the front door?

KATHERINE

This house actually used to have a front porch wrapping all the way around.

KEVIN

Second wife?

KATHERINE

That's right. The town assessor's map still shows it, so we're hoping we can just put it right back on.

KEVIN

Oh, nice. So everything she took off, -you guys put back on?

KATHERINE

Yep.

KEVIN

All right. Oh, wow. Look at this room! -It is huge!

KATHERINE

Yeah, we love it. It was one of our favorite things

when we first saw the house. -KEVIN

Well, I can see why. You don't often see rooms of this size in these old houses.

KATHERINE

You don't. And it actually used to be two rooms. You can see where the molding's been cut.

KEVIN

Oh, yeah. A little patch right there, okay.

KATHERINE

So we were thinking we might put a couple of little dividers in here.

KEVIN

Not a full wall, just maybe some little wing walls?

Right. -KEVIN

One on either side?

Yep. -KEVIN

Okay. And the fireplace, does that work? Are you burning wood in there?

KATHERINE

Somebody's been burning wood in there. But we're going to convert it to gas. And we're also going to reface it with a Victorian mantel.

KEVIN

Yeah, that's not really sort of in keeping with the style of the house. But it will be nice to have a working fireplace in a room that's elegant like this.

KATHERINE

And we're hoping that we can put another one over here.

KEVIN

A second fireplace?

KATHERINE

Right. Wow. This is gonna be the showroom. Terrific. Yeah. And take a look at these medallions.

KEVIN

Yeah, you're lucky to have 'em.

KATHERINE

But you can barely see them with that light fixture covering it up.

KEVIN

So, what's the thought, fixture goes?

KATHERINE

Fixture goes, medallion stays.

KEVIN

Good choice. All right. Some good ideas. And in back of the house? Your current dining room?

KATHERINE

Yeah, using this as a dining room. But the problem is the kitchen's in here, and it's just so cut off 'cause it's only just this little doorway.

KEVIN

So what are you thinking to do about that? We're gonna take this whole wall down and make one large eating and cooking area. Well, we hear that a lot, people want the open floor plan.

That's right. -KEVIN

All right. And what do you think of your kitchen itself?

KATHERINE

Well, it's pretty dated. And look what we're using for food storage.

KEVIN

You can do better than that, for sure. All right, so we've got two walls in play, right? You're saying this wall right here comes down all the way to the back of the house?

KATHERINE

Right.

KEVIN

And then part of this wall comes down, as well.

KATHERINE

Right. So we'll have a better view to the back yard.

KEVIN

Okay, so a couple walls coming down. I see what you're saying about the dated kitchen. Those have got to be 20 years or more. So when you take the walls down and you get ride of cabinets and appliances, too?

Yep. -KEVIN

You're talking

just a clean slate back here. -KATHERINE

Clean slate.

Fresh start. -KATHERINE

That's right. So, I have a little surprise I want to show you.

KEVIN

All right, I like surprises. What do you have?

Take a look at this. -KEVIN

Little cabinet or -- -Oh, no,

it's a staircase. -KATHERINE

Hidden staircase.

KEVIN

Well, that is very cool.

NORM

Hey, Kevin!

Chuckles

KEVIN

Norm! What are you doing up there?

NORM

I'm checking out the second floor.

MURAT

So, Norm, what do you think this is for?

NORM

Well, you know, it wasn't unusual in houses of this era, these Victorians, to have a servant staircase. The servant would have a separate space upstairs, and they would go down that stairway, generally into the kitchen, to start preparing for the day. But looking at the condition of that stair, I don't think it was used very much. It was closed in a long time ago.

MURAT

Interesting.

NORM

So what's the plan for the second floor?

MURAT

Well, let's start with the bathroom. This is the only bathroom we have on this floor. As you can see, there's no shower, so we're going to add another bathroom.

NORM

So you're thinking of a total rehab here?

MURAT

Yeah, that's the plan. But we do want to save a couple of these items. One is this beautiful tub.

NORM

Yeah, these are nice and very popular. And we know how to do that. So I think that can happen.

MURAT

That's great.

NORM

But the fixtures, they're very modern. So you might want to change those to period fixtures.

MURAT

Okay. And the other one is the marble vanity top.

NORM

Well, this countertop is in great condition, and I don't see any chips on it. It is a little bit dirty, but that can be cleaned up. And I would suggest some new fixtures.

MURAT

Okay. This is our bedroom. As you can see, it's a pretty small room. So we want to turn it into a master suite. We're gonna start by taking advantage of this sleeping porch that we have here.

NORM

Okay, so originally, back in the days, this would have been an open porch. When it was hot inside, people would come out and sleep here

where it was cool. -MURAT

That's right. You can still see the shingles, which we want to keep. But we want to see if we can add some air conditioning and heating to this area.

NORM

Right. You want to condition the space. And how would you use the space?

MURAT

We'd like to use it as a sitting area right off the bedroom.

NORM

Nice idea. Great.

MURAT

So we're going to open up this wall here and put in a walk-in closet and a master bath.

NORM

Hmm. Well, that wish list is definitely gonna give you a master suite.

MURAT

We're gonna convert this bedroom into a part of the master suite. This is where the walk-in closet will be.

Nice closet right here. -MURAT

That's right. And the rest of this room will be the master bath.

NORM

That's gonna be quite a bathroom.

MURAT

We hope so. The tub, if we can salvage it, will be right here.

NORM

Under those windows -- perfect.

MURAT

Uh-huh. And this will be the rain shower where you're standing

right now. -NORM

Shower.

MURAT

We'll have a double vanity right in the corner.

NORM

That will be nice. Are you gonna keep the hardwood floors in the bathroom?

MURAT

No, we'll have tiles, but they're so beautiful that we'd love to repurpose them if we can.

NORM

Oh, believe me, Tommy will save every bit of this flooring, because there's gonna be patching to do elsewhere.

MURAT

Great. Now, the floors are great, but let me show you a problem we've been having. So, what do you think?

NORM

Oh. Well, this is a clear sign of water infiltration. And we just came off a record-breaking winter here, lots and lots of snow. And this is caused by ice dams. Now, ice dams are formed when you have an attic that's not very well insulated or a roof that's not very well insulated. And what happens, the heat loss starts to melt that snow. And the water runs between the snow and the roof. And when it reaches the eave, which is generally cold in an old house like this, it freezes. And it does that over and over again until it creates a dam, a thick piece of ice that's actually pitched back on the roof. And then the water starts to run up under the shingles. And if there's nothing to stop the water... this is where it goes, right down into these walls. So I can't tell you the exact solution to that yet, because we'll have to explore it a little bit more, but we'll try to take care of it during the course of the project.

MURAT

Sounds good.

NORM

So, what's gonna happen on the third floor?

MURAT

Well, it depends on our budget, but the plan is to open up the whole space, and we are going to create a guest suite and probably update the bathroom we have on that floor.

NORM

All right. Well, overall, I think you have a good plan.

MURAT

Great.

KEVIN

Hey,

Richard. -RICHARD

Hello there.

KEVIN

Couple good homeowners. We got an old Vic, looks pretty good upstairs. What are you finding down here?

Welcome to my museum. -KEVIN

Museum, huh?

RICHARD

Look at this place. It's so cool.

This house was built in 1895. -KEVIN

Right.

RICHARD

And a lot of this stuff is still in place. In 1895, there was no electricity.

KEVIN

Okay.

RICHARD

So to light this place, it would have had gas lighting right here. You turn this on, there would have been a mantle right here. Somebody had to light it. It would have given nice light right here.

KEVIN

The hardware is still in place.

RICHARD

This is long-abandoned. They went to knob-and-tube electrical right here. You can see that. It's also abandoned.

KEVIN

Yep, gone. And modern-day wiring right next to it. So, literally, the evolution of lighting for this house.

RICHARD

That's right. But what's still in evidence is the original heating system right here. You can see these two big pipes right here. These are still in play, still sending heated water up to radiators that are still in the building.

KEVIN

So those radiators that are upstairs are using hot water and they've been there since 1895.

RICHARD

Absolutely, absolutely. So now that original system, though, remember, no electricity. So it would have worked completely different than the modern one with a pump. It would have heated up that water. When you heat water,

it gets lighter. -KEVIN

Right.

RICHARD

So now it would want to rise up through the supply pipe, gently go up through all the radiators. Once it got up there, the heat from the radiators would be given up to the room. That would make the water cooler.

It would be heavier. -KEVIN

Right.

RICHARD

Would fall right back down here, and the cycle would just keep going around and around.

Without any pump at all. -RICHARD

No pump.

KEVIN

Wow. Kudos to the guy who designed that.

RICHARD

They had to do it right the first time.

Sure. -RICHARD

That's right.

KEVIN

So when I see gas for the lighting right there, does that suggest that we were making the hot water using gas, as well?

RICHARD

That was only for lighting. Actually, the first fuel in this building was coal. This is a coal bin right here. And somebody would shovel coal in through this window. The coal supplier would come in here, he'd close the door, and the dust would be unbelievable. There are still some pieces of it here.

KEVIN

I mean, you really have just a big mound of this stuff.

RICHARD

And that's what coal looks like. We don't see much of it nowadays.

KEVIN

No. Okay.

RICHARD

So now... Now the coal is here. Now we have to get it to the boiler. So somebody had to come with a shovel, like this, carry it here. And then dumped it into the bottom of that boiler and stoked it up and heated that water.

KEVIN

How long does a shovelful last? -A day? Two days? Half a day?

RICHARD

You might have to stoke it twice a day -- once in the morning, and once before you go to bed at night. And you hope that there's still some embers the next morning when you get up and do it again.

KEVIN

Sounds like a lot of work to us, but for them, I mean, this is the height of modern convenience, right?

RICHARD

Really beat a fireplace. So, then electricity comes. And now, with electricity, you can think about a thermostat but still with coal. There might have been a thing called a stoker. And that had a been right here, a hopper. You'd fill it with a day or two or three's worth of coal. And now a thermostat comes on, a worm gear drops coal down into the bottom.

KEVIN

So you're not shoveling coal

as frequently. -RICHARD

That's right. So then the next fuel I can see evidence of is right here. This is an oil tank, number-two fuel was available. Now it would have fallen down into a burner -- same boiler, but instead of having the coal grate at the bottom, it would have had a burner right here that would be working off that thermostat.

KEVIN

When does the oil show up to replace the coal, do you think?

RICHARD

I got to guess it was post-World War I, probably in the '20s and stuff like that. And that was really the time when innovation was starting to happen.

KEVIN

Okay, and then what comes after oil, or are we still working off of oil?

RICHARD

No. The next thing, there was probably a gas line running down the street. "Oh, here's the next newest thing." Here's the gas line here. And now this was fully convenient 'cause you didn't have to store coal, didn't have to store oil.

KEVIN

It just keeps coming, pumped into the house, feeding this whole thing right here. All right, pretty cool. So that is the past, right? That's a little lesson there. What does the future hold? -What are you thinking of doing?

RICHARD

Well... This is a cast-iron boiler, gas fired, four zones -- four individual circulator pumps with radiators still upstairs. If we were not touching those radiators, we could just leave everything the way it is. But I am told the homeowners want the radiators to go,

and they want air conditioning. -KEVIN

Okay.

RICHARD

So if we do that, now we'll have ductwork up there and now we could actually put the equivalent of an automobile radiator in the air stream of this ductwork, still use hot water to heat the air -- called HydroAir. I think that's what we're gonna do.

KEVIN

And that's the future, cool. Good little history lesson.

RICHARD

Thank you. I'll be here in my museum.

KEVIN

So is this a pump, or this is a tank?

RICHARD

No, this is the tank.

NORM

Well, Katherine and Murat chose Mat Cummings as their architect, and he has a lot of experience in designing remodels for houses even older than ours. -Hey, Mat. -Hey, Norm. So you've been chosen as the architect, and I know the homeowners want to restore the Victorian flair

to their house. -MAT

Absolutely.

NORM

How are you gonna do that?

Mat

Well, what we decided to do was to add a porch at the first-floor level, and that's certainly what was on this house at one time.

NORM

Right. There's no porch here now, but you look down the neighborhood, and every other house has a porch.

MAT

Absolutely. That's one of the first things we look at when we work on historic homes -- at least at the exterior -- is what's going on in the neighborhood itself. And almost every one of these homes not only have towers and beautiful shingled gable ends, but they have porches of all different types.

NORM

Right. So that's the cue to what you want to do. So, what happens next?

MAT

So, in this particular house, what we did is we studied every one of the moldings, both interior and the exterior of the home. And what is for certain is this is a shingle-style Victorian.

NORM

So you want to match the style. And then, what comes next?

MAT

Well, now it's time to design it. So Murat and Katherine really like the idea of shingled piers. They have seen some of that in our other projects, and also there's some in the neighborhood itself. There's one down the street, as well. So we have wonderful shingled piers on top of the porch deck, and they flare out, and they match the architecture of the house at the second-floor level.

NORM

Right, and by that, you mean that area just above that molding at the second floor that flares out.

MAT

That's right. And that flare is also a detail that wraps around the house to break down the scale of the house itself, as well.

NORM

How about the base, the footings for this?

MAT

Oh, yeah. So masonry -- Masonry is a big deal. So, today, we just pour concrete. Back then, they made a thing out of the foundation. And the brick is what we selected for this house. It's far more decorative than stone at that time.

NORM

Right. So put bricks, shingles, and the flare. How about the columns?

MAT

The columns are decorative. So, typically on shingle-style homes or Victorians, the houses get more decorative as they get to the top. And the porch, that is a central piece, and that'll be the piece that people notice more often. So those columns are in a colonial style with a detail that's called an attic base.

It's just wonderful. -NORM

Mm-hmm. Now, I was looking at some of the details, and the railings have that nice deep drop, which is beautiful. But that's not off-the-shelf millwork. I mean, we're gonna have to have that custom made.

MAT

Absolutely. And every one of those details are really, really thought out, and they match the architecture of the home.

NORM

It's all about details, and I'm sure it's gonna look good. But you're also gonna do a little bit of a footprint addition on the side, right?

MAT

Well, yeah, absolutely. So, in the Victorian era, people didn't have 29 pairs of shoes, 9 jackets, and 16 umbrellas, which is the reason and the need to have a mud room on this Victorian home.

NORM

Right, so we're gonna put a modern idea on a beautiful Victorian. How do you do that?

MAT

Well, the best thing to do with this Victorian is to take a mud room and put it outside the footprint of the existing home. And what we're gonna do to make that happen is to have a rear entry at the end of the driveway and off the backyard. That's gonna enter a porch. And that porch will be enclosed on three sides, and of course, the house side, the door you'd enter. But on the driveway side, that would have glass. So although you're enclosed on three sides, it'll be very wonderful, cheery space to be in.

NORM

Right, and I imagine it's great in the winter when the snow is blowing or it's raining, you're protected in that space.

MAT

Absolutely. And then from there, you'd enter into the mud room. Of course, there'd be a seat, a place to hang your jacket, and a place to put your shoes.

NORM

And you also included a powder room. Sure, that powder room not only allows people to use it, of course, from inside the home, but also from the yard space from the exterior without entering the home. On the exterior of the mud room, there are some wonderful details. There's a stained glass window, some trim that matches the architecture of the house, and a custom trellis that's on the facade of the mud room to break down the scale and fit into the architecture of the landscape of the home. Without taking up any extra space in the house, you've created a whole new area that's gonna function very well.

MAT

Thank you.

TOM

All right,

good. -KEVIN

Tommy, homeowners have moved out, so I guess the house is yours.

TOM

The house is mine, and work begins. It starts right here with this gentleman -- Dave Greenwood.

DAVE

Nice to meet you.

TOM

And we are gonna save all of our old windows and recondition them.

KEVIN

All of them?

TOM

All of them. The homeowners love the glass, and they love the look of them.

KEVIN

It's been a while since we've done that. That's your job, Dave. I assume you love this idea?

DAVE

I'm a big fan of restoring the windows.

KEVIN

These things are worth saving, right?

DAVE

Very much, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's an old house. You put in new windows, they don't look the same as the old ones. These are great windows. I mean, this is an old house. The house is 100 years old. These windows are gonna be reconditioned. You can see all the putty's coming off 'em. It's got the old gray lead putty on them. So that's where air is getting in. So we'll take all the glazing off and restore and prime and paint them.

KEVIN

But nothing beats this original look. I mean, and you can even see the wavy glass, right?

DAVE

Oh, no, you get a new window and you put it here, it's not gonna look just like an old window.

KEVIN

Okay, so, that's the case for keeping them. The case against it, though, is the work that goes into it.

DAVE

It's a lot of work.

KEVIN

What do we have to get you to do?

DAVE

Well, first of all, my guys will come here. I'll have a couple guys come in here, and they'll start. What they'll do is they'll score the window stops, take all the glazing out of it -- not the glazing, the caulking out of there. And take the screws out. Pop the stops off. And then once the put the stops off, then the thing is we'll lift up the windows. We'll cut the ropes, get the ropes out of there. And then we have a weather stripping here -- an old galvanized weather stripping that has to come off before the window comes out. So once we take out those there we pop the windows out, pop the bottom sash out. Then take out the parting bead which separates the two windows. We'll take that there out. And then the top sash will come right out, it's all done. Probably 15, 20 minutes' worth of work.

KEVIN

And there's a lot of windows -- 15, 20 minutes per window.

DAVE

Yeah, probably have 40 windows in the building. Then back to your shop, and that's when you get into, really, the hard work, which is the new putty. Once we get 'em back to the shop, we mark them, we get them over to the stripping room, and then we start to restore them.

Sighs

KEVIN

So, Tommy, I mean, honestly here, what are we talking about in terms of the work that we have to do to save these windows versus putting in a new window?

TOM

Depends on the window that you replace it with. You could put in a low-end replacement window, a fraction of the cost. But if you put a good quality replacement window and the cost to refurbish these windows, about the same.

KEVIN

Okay, so that's one reason to save them right there. And in terms of efficiency? We know a new window can be nice and efficient, nice and tight. What kind of efficiency are we gonna get out of a refurbished old window?

TOM

Well, if you look at this window right here, now, here's a window that hasn't been done yet. It's loose. It's drafty at the meeting rail. It's drafty at the bottom because of the weather stripping. When Dave brings the window back, it's gonna have new bronze weather stripping on the side, it's gonna have beads across the bottom. When you lock this together, that meeting rail is gonna be nice and tight, and it's gonna seal.

KEVIN

We're gonna have a nice, tight window. We're not gonna have a lot of air leakage.

TOM

Not gonna have a lot of air leakage.

KEVIN

All right. Well, I love when we can save the old stuff. Are these ready to go to the truck?

Those are ready. -DAVE

Tommy, if you want to take a walk upstairs, we got an issue with a couple windows.

TOM

Oh, great. All right. All right, Dave, you don't even have to tell me. I can see it right away, as soon as I walked in the room. Space here on the window tells me that this window is sagging right down. Pretty common with bay windows and bow windows. Let me see this ball. Oh, look at that. That's definitely dipped. All right. So, what's your plan to fix this?

DAVE

Well, I think the best thing to do, I mean, you can take out the outside, but it would cost a fortune to fix this. So I don't know if the homeowner would want to get into that. So I say the best thing to do is just put a shim on the top, from like about one inch to nothing, epoxy it, dowel it in. Then we prime and paint it. You won't even know it. And that will square it off, 'cause even if you push this up now, you still got a big gap there.

Same thing for the bottom rail. -TOM

Yeah.

DAVE

Do the same thing and same thing for that window over there. So if we do the both of them, they'll be...

TOM

All right. Well, we have a couple of good options. I'll tell the homeowner each one, let them make a decision.

I'll let you know. -DAVE

Perfect.

KEVIN

Thank you. Hey, Roger. So, what do you think of our newest project?

ROGER

Beautiful old Victorian, but not a lot of land to work with here.

KEVIN

No, there isn't, is there?

ROGER

No, but next week, I'm gonna come in, gonna take all the plants out of the front so that porch can get built.

KEVIN

Perfect. Tom, what are you thinking about for next week?

TOM

Next week, demolition begins.

KEVIN

All right. So, until then, from Belmont, Massachusetts, I'm Kevin O'Connor.

I'm Tom Silver. -ROGER

I'm Roger Cook.

RICHARD

And I'm Richard Trethewey.

KEVIN

For "This Old House." Get 'em in the truck. Ready to go? -What can I do?

ROGER

Take the heavy ones.

TOM

You're kind of a pain. You stay here.

ROGER

Ooh!

KEVIN

A pain?!

ROGER

Ooh!

KEVIN

Next time on "This Old House"...

ROGER

We'll decide which plants to save to complement our new porch.

TOM

Demo starts on the first floor so we can open up the kitchen. This wall right here is a bearing wall for the interior of the house. This wall right here is a bearing wall for the second floor of it.

KEVIN

Whoa,

two bearing walls. -TOM

Yes.

KEVIN

So when they're both gone, what's gonna hold the house up?

NORM

And I'll dig into features that attract buyers to Victorian homes. That's next time on "This Old House."