This Old House

Kevin

Today on "This Old House," Jeff installs some floating oak shelves. Look, Ma, no brackets. That is rock-solid.

Jen

And our Westerly granite finds a home as our back-door steps. So you want to give it a shot?

Shayla

Sure.

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! How excited are you guys to see that?

Extremely. Kevin

Right? You're gonna have to choke down some dust first, though, before you get into that part,

Scott

Oh,

yeah. Kevin

along the way.

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" here in Westerly, Rhode Island, where as you can see, a lot has happened in the last couple weeks, so the kitchen cabinets, uppers and lowers, are in, and the island cabinets are in as well. Countertops are starting to go in and check out the coffered ceiling.

Look at that beautiful detail. This goes all throughout these two rooms, and then down here on the floors, we have got random-width white oak with beautiful finish on those, again, all throughout the two spaces. These base cabinets once they get doors will also get a wood countertop here. That's going to be white oak as well, and it's going to look a lot like the shelving on either side of the fireplace.

Hey, Chris. Jeff, how are you?

Jeff

Good, Kevin. How are you?

Kevin

All right. So floating shelves -- all the rage these days.

Jeff

Yeah, so we've got 2-inch white-oak floating shelves, and we've got sort of a three-sided section here, and we've installed a cleat on the wall, and that cleat will accept the dado on the back of the shelf so that you don't see any fasteners. No brackets are required.

Kevin

And I don't want to see brackets because we want to sort of keep this clean look,

and you get it with the shiplap. Jeff

Yeah.

Kevin

You know, it's sort of a modern look,

so it makes sense. Jeff

Exactly.

Kevin

This is the shelf right here.

Jeff

Yeah, so what we got is we made two pieces of five-quarter oak, and we glued that together.

Kevin

So you get a nice big beefy...

Two-inch thick. Kevin

Yeah.

Jeff

All right. Then we ran this through the table saw with the dado blade and created that slot all the way through the back and the two sides.

Kevin

Got you.

Jeff

So then after that to conceal the front, we just applied a full-size nosing all the way on the front so it looks like one piece of wood. We've got holes predrilled already.

Kevin

So are you... These are predrilled holes. Are you lined up to hit studs?

Jeff

Actually, no, because we have 3/4-inch poplar on the back wall here attached to 3/4-inch plywood, so we got an inch and a half of material back there. All right. So before we put the shelf in, because these walls are finish painted, and we've got a real tight tolerance, I'm just going to put tape on either side so that we don't mess up that paint. We'll start with the bottom shelf.

All right. So these are labeled. Here we go right here, bottom, and this is the top.

Kevin

Okay, so I'm aiming for that side bracket to go right there.

Yep. Kevin

All right.

Jeff

So this thing is very snug, so we're going to get real close with it, and we got to go in perfectly parallel. Otherwise, it'll bind. Okay. Are you on?

Kevin

I'm on.

Okay. Kevin

Hang on. Hang on. Let me get a little faster. Love how tight that fit is.

It's rock-solid.

Jeff

Looks good, too, huh?

Kevin

Yeah.

Jeff

All right. So that countertop will be the exact same material, same thickness.

Kevin

Wow. That is a great look. Love it.

Jeff

So now we got to do the mantel.

Kevin

All right.

Jeff

So similar idea, we want the floating look, solid piece of oak a little bit thicker, so we're at 3 inches now so a little different technique.

Kevin

This is our cleat, this one?

This is the cleat. Kevin

That's a big cleat.

Jeff

So we have a lot of mantel to hold up, so what we did is we cut out the back out of the poplar there, and we had a lot of solid blocking, so we basically took that cleat and attached it back to a piece of three-quarter, screwed through the back. We actually put 5-inch screws, so we have screws that all the way come to the front of this cleat.

Huh. Jeff

And then we... a lot of glue. We put it back in against the solid block, and we screwed top and bottom all the way across.

Kevin

So you had the space to screw there and space

to screw underneath here. Jeff

Exactly.

Kevin

So that, and now this is the one that's really not going anywhere.

Jeff

Oh, that thing is not going anywhere.

Kevin

All right. So let's take a look at what you're putting on it. Oh, that's heavy.

Jeff

So you look at it, and it looks like it's one piece of material, and that's because it really is, but we B-folded it, so this piece is actually two pieces mitered, but it came out of the same board, so that gives the appearance that it's the same piece of wood.

Kevin

And what we're looking at on the back...

Jeff

I'll give you a little better example here. You can see that we mitered these corners. We mitered the back, the front. Every which way is mitered so that this will slip right over that cleat.

Kevin

Okay. Come to me about an eighth. Look at that. Love that look right there, Jeff, too.

I mean, three shelves on that side, three on this side, mantel, everything is floating, great look.

Jeff

Yeah. We got two countertops to go, and then we're ready for a TV.

Kevin

Beautiful. Nice job.

Norm

You may recall that our ranch house had knotty pine in just about every room. Jeff and Tom saved some of it, but at least one room in this house will pay homage to that mid-century wall cover.

Man

So it's a little beat up. We've got to clean up the edges and resurface it, but we're going to make it into a wainscot wall

and one of the kids' playrooms. Norm

Okay.

Man

So do you want to give me a hand?

Sure. Man

All right. So first thing, I'm just going to cut it to lengths that we can manage. All right. So you notice that the edges of this are pretty beat-up, so I think the first thing we'll do is run it through the table saw and get a clean edge on each side.

Norm

You're gonna save as much as this width as possible.

Man

Yeah, we'll max it right out.

Great. Man

All right. Now let's run them through the planer.

Right. Man

So, Norm, this stuff has really patina'd

over 50 years. Norm

Right.

Man

So I the best thing is the best way to clean it up.

Norm

You know, flatten the surface a bit if it needs it.

Man

Right.

Norm

Looks pretty good.

Man

Yeah, yeah. That looks a lot better, so the next thing we'll do is we're going to set up on our router table here two different sized rabbets so that when we put them together, we end up with that nickel gap.

Norm

All right. So you have one that's wider than the other one, pretty simple.

Man

Right, so we'll start with the shallow one first. So now we set up for the deeper rabbet, and all we're going to do is advance this board over the thickness of our nickel gap. So, Norm, this is the kids' playroom, and this is the room we chose to do the wainscot treatment, so we've got this set up so that this wall is plywooded up to about 36 inches, so we've got a good substrate to attach to.

Norm

Yeah, right.

Man

So I think what we'll do is we'll just run a couple horizontal beads of adhesive here, and then we'll just rely on the pin nails to keep it in temporarily.

Norm

Narrow piece.

Man

Boy, that just --

Chuckles

Man

It's right on the edge.

All right. Norm

It looks great.

Man

So then to finish it, we're going to put a paint-grade cap right on top there to conceal that, and this will get painted white. The base will get painted white, and then we're going to whitewash the pine.

And then this will be paint. Norm

All right. It's going to look great when it's done. And it's a good use of old material.

Man

Yeah. Man #2: Hey, guys. How are you doing? Man #3: Hey.

How are you?

Kevin

This year's apprentices, Kathryn and De'Shaun, are taking a break from the Westerly project for a 2-week trip up here to Maine, but it's not a camping trip. They've come to a special school that teaches everything from conventional home building to timber framing. The Shelter Institute is a school that teaches how to build smart, energy-efficient homes.

Man

This afternoon what we're going to do is illustrated nicely on page 121 in the notebook...

Kevin

Mary, who apprenticed for us on our last Rhode Island project, became an instructor here last year.

Mary

Here we go.

Kevin

Mary, this is a big treat for us to come up here and find you working at the institute, and you've got a bit of a history with this place.

Mary

Yeah, I do, so I took a 2-week home building course here a couple years ago and took a timber frame course here actually about a month before I came to apprentice for you guys.

Kevin

Right, and then you spent 2,

3 months with us on the jobsite. Mary

Right.

Kevin

How did you end up back here?

Mary

So I actually got an e-mail from Shelter shortly after I got home to Mississippi that they were looking for a timber frame intern, so the timing just worked out perfectly.

Kevin

You jumped on it, huh?

Mary

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin

Now that you're here, what are you doing every day? What are your responsibilities?

Mary

So a lot of days, I'm here in the shop. We build custom timber frames. We also teach timber framing, so we build structures like this one here.

Kevin

And what am I looking at? How do you describe this?

Mary

So this is a 24-by-24 post and beam structure that we build during a 5-day class built by students.

Kevin

Very cool, so do you love it? I mean...

I love it so much. Kevin

Do you?

Mary

It's perfect combination of artistry and building, so...

Kevin

When we met, you had your cake business.

Yes. Kevin

Very accomplished, very successful in that, but you told yourself you wanted to be in the trades. How does it feel to have sort of met that goal?

Mary

Yeah, really fulfilling. It's really nice, too, that teaching has been a part of that. I never dreamt I would have gotten the opportunity to do that as well, so...

Kevin

You had mentioned that one of the first things you did when you got here was ended up on a jobsite

for a timber frame addition. Mary

Yes.

Kevin

How well did Jeff Sweenor prepare you for that?

Mary

You know what, very well. It was nice coming from 2 1/2 months on the jobsite in Rhode Island to the jobsite here. I definitely had the gear for it, and...

Mm-hmm. Mary

...the knowledge.

Kevin

Did you have the attitude?

Mary

I did. I did. You know, working with all those Yankees, they toughen you up, so...

That's awesome. Mary

Yeah.

Kevin

And now we've got two new apprentices, Kathryn and De'Shaun.

They're here. Mary

Yeah, yes, yes.

Kevin

You'll see them. I mean...

Mary

We're thrilled to have Kathryn and De'Shaun here, yeah.

Kevin

And you're now part of that sort of continuation of the whole thing.

Yes. Kevin

How does that feel?

Mary

Great, great. It's definitely fulfilling.

Kevin

You're going to treat them well for us, teach them hard?

Mary

Oh, absolutely,

absolutely. Kevin

Awesome. Well, congrats, Mary. We're glad you found your place.

Mary

Thank you so much.

Kevin

Gaius, you have located the institute in a beautiful spot. This is awesome. Tell me about what you've got here.

Gaius

The institute started in 1974 during the first oil crisis, teaching people to design and build energy-efficient homes. And that was the real emphasis at that time. We've evolved quite a bit through the years, and today, we take a more holistic look at the entire building. We start with building driveways, move into foundations, framing systems.

We talk about wiring and plumbing, all of the details that would culminate in a house that someone would love to live in.

Kevin

And who are you teaching, and what's the curriculum like?

Woman

I'm giving you an overview, and then we're going to dig in here.

Gaius

We have people that have just retired that are looking to move into the next phase of life. We have people who are between jobs. We have people who are thinking about building a house, and they are from all walks of life and all different parts of the country, all different ages. It's amazing to me every class, the range of people that are there and also the reasons that they're here.

Woman

Do be conscious of how much these building materials are obviously going to cost you.

Gaius

They want to understand what's going on in their house. You know, when the lights go out, they want to know why and what to do to fix it. When they get an ice dam in the wintertime, again, what's going on there? What can we do to fix that?

Kevin

So you have two of our apprentices with you. What's their curriculum like?

Gaius

It's very busy, so they'll be starting

each day around 7

30

and not finishing until about 7

30 p.m. Usually we start out in our shop with a more hands-on setting, and then we'll move back up into our classroom.

Kathryn

It's definitely intense, but I like it because it's not just, like, a A-B-C, one, two, three on building. It actually forces you to analyze things a little bit more when making your decisions and building a property or a home.

Gaius

All day long, you are creating something, and you get that feeling of instant gratification, and at the end of the day, you have created something that's very real.

De'Shaun

When I came to the first day, they gave me the feel that I can already accomplish what's coming to me, like, telling me that everything that I'm going to build is going to be something amazing. It's going to be something spectacular, but there's rules.

Kathryn

I've been waiting for this course. It's very important to me and just because it's in my field, and wanting to expand what I know in the building industry, I want to be able to take as much as I can from this and leave filled with, like, 100% competent that I could go out and do this myself.

Kevin

Thank you for what you do here at the institute and have done with your family for so long, and thank you for the invitation to join you...

Gaius

Thank you.

Kevin

...and for taking care of our apprentices.

Chuckles

Gaius

Been a pleasure.

Kevin

This was the house of Joshua Babcock, a businessman, a doctor, and a major general in America's war for independence. Babcock was a friend of Benjamin Franklin, and his house is one of those special places where you can accurately say, "George Washington slept here." Linda Chaffee is one of the trustees here at the house. Linda,

nice to meet you. Linda

Good to meet you.

Kevin

I'd love to hear about the house, built when?

1734. Kevin

Mm-hmm.

Linda

You know, when it was built, George Washington was only 2 years old.

Kevin

Wow.

Linda

So it's been around a long time.

Kevin

And built for who?

Linda

It was built for Joshua Babcock. He is one of our very famous early citizens. He was a founding fellow of Brown University, the first Rhode Island graduate from Yale. He did a little bit of everything, so we're very proud of Joshua.

Kevin

And does the house that he built reflect his stature in the community?

Linda

It does. It qualifies as a mansion in this era, has very high ceilings for the time, you know? Anybody who could afford enough fuel to keep these big rooms warm had to be wealthy.

Right. Linda

We have high ceilings. We have wide board floors. We have lovely woodwork. Our corner cupboard is beyond compare, and the front hall is just gorgeous with its railing that goes up, and the newel post is just a work of art in itself.

It's just excellent. We like this house because it captures the history of Westerly in the 1700s, the 1800s, and with our new granite museum, it takes it into the 1900s, so somebody who comes here gets a broad view of history in Westerly.

Kevin

Right, so good construction has lasted

over the centuries. Linda

Yeah, it has.

Kevin

And it's still telling stories thanks to your guys' efforts.

Linda

Yeah, we're trying.

Okay. Linda

We're trying.

Kevin

Well, thank you very much for giving us a tour.

Linda

Thank you for coming to see us.

Kevin

Absolutely. 130 years after the Babcock House was built, Westerly became known for something else, tourists. Victorian homes sprouted up, and celebrities escaping Newport's spotlight hid behind Westerly's hedge rows. Clark Gable and Henry Ford were residents, and today so too are Taylor Swift and Conan O'Brien.

Jack, nice to meet you.

Jack

How are you?

Kevin

I am well. I appreciate you picking me up and showing me around. Well, this is a little gem of a car you have here.

Jack

Yeah. I used to take people from the train station to the hotel.

Kevin

And what is it?

Jack

This is a 1913 Model T depot hack.

Kevin

Wow, so train station to hotel, which says a lot of people came here as tourists to visit this area.

Jack

Watch Hill went from having a lighthouse and farming to large hotels, steamboats, and then it became a cottage colony.

Kevin

And what are we at now?

Jack

We're coming down to Watch Hill Point, and in front of us is the lighthouse.

Kevin

Well, Jack, you've got a beautiful spot right here. I really appreciate you showing us around and bringing out the old beauty for it.

Jack

Well, thanks. Thanks for coming.

Kevin

If Watch Hill is for the upper crust, Misquamicut Beach is for the rest of us. This 7-mile stretch of sand attracts people from all over New England. I think I know the answer, but what's the attraction?

Amy

It's the water. It's the beach. It's the great times. It's the memories.

It's the experience. It's a great section of Rhode Island and coastal Rhode Island.

Laughs

Kevin

Our project house is 2 miles directly up the hill from here, a nice bike ride in the summer.

Jen

Hey,

Jon. Jon

Hey. Good morning, Jen.

Good to see you. Jon

Good to see you, too.

Jen

So we're starting the steps today.

Jon

We are starting the steps today. This is the front entry to the house.

Okay. Jon

A little more formal than the steps that are going to happen

in the back of the house. Jen

Right.

Jon

Here we start with the landing. There's going to be a couple of steps here. We've laid out the rest of the walkway. We have three more steps in this location that'll match those, and the walk continues to this side door and then to the front door.

Jen

I like how you sprayed out the white lines that's going to indicate where the walkway goes.

Jon

Exactly. It's 4 1/2 feet wide. It's about 7 feet wide here, creates a nice entry space.

Jen

Okay, so this is a nice, level landing, and this is going to be the bluestone walkway all the way down. It looks like you used a couple less steps

than I had on the plan. Jon

Right. We had to take into account the grading at the bottom of that step.

Mm-hmm. Jon

Then 7-inches risers, the grade at the street, and from there, we determined how many steps we need.

Jen

And in the design-build process, things do change on site, so it's always important to take grades, and this story pull is really great and showing us and telling us the story of what's going to happen here. This line indicates the top level of what that's going to be, the bluestone landing at the top...

Jon

Right.

Jen

...where we were just standing. This indicates the pitch of the slope, so the walkway is going to pitch about 3 1/2 inches over 62 feet, and then as you continue down, each of these indicate the top of each riser of steps, and they indicate the number of steps we have.

Jon

So now we're moving the stone into position. The guys are going to put some mortar on top of...

Of the block. Jon

...of the block here...

Right. Jon

...to create a setting bed, and we score the bottom of the tread in different directions. There's no particular pattern. What we want to do is create some depth so that the mortar will push up into this and help it from shifting laterally in the wintertime.

Jen

That makes sense. It's just like pottery.

Jon

So right now we're getting ready to put the glue on the bottom of the tread, and that's a thinner mixture than the thicker setting bed.

Jen

You could really see the difference. It's more liquid.

Jon

Right. They're setting it. They bring it to that line we talked about. It's going to go right in perfectly.

Jen

So what about that granite?

Jon

That's out back. Let's take a look.

Jen

All right.

Jon

Hey. Good morning,

Shayla. Shayla

Hi, Jon. Hi,

Jen. Jen

Morning.

Good morning. Jon

Hey. We're installing steps for you today. We started out front. Now we're going to start in the back here with the Westerly granite steps.

Jen

And these are the ones that we saw in the quarry being cut.

Shayla

Right.

Jen

Nice, smooth top tread surface, the rock face front, they're beautiful.

Jon

The way we install these steps is we dig out the native earth. We backfill with gravel. We compact that gravel. We add a little sand so that we can shim the bottom, get the pitch correct, set the first step, so now that we're ready to install the second step, we're going to use this contraption here.

This is a vacuum lift. It's a new way that we use to install heavy steps like this instead of the old way which would have been to use a couple of slings, and what happens is this is connected to our excavator, and we swing it into place almost like a crane and set it down. Now, it uses a vacuum suction system, and if there's a problem with the stone, or it needs some kind of adjustment, we can very easily pick it back up, add a little more sand, level it out, set it back down.

Jen

But I have a question, so you said the stone piece is about 500, 600 pounds?

Shayla

Yeah. When they were delivered, they said they're each were about 600 pounds.

Jen

Okay, so how many pounds does this one lift?

Jon

So this particular unit will lift 1,400 pounds, so we're well...

Jen

Oh,

okay. Jon

...within the range. This is a lot safer, too, because no one is going to have their fingers underneath the stone as we're pulling straps out like we used to. Okay, and that looks perfect. Great.

Thank you.

Jen

It's deep enough that it's comfortable, but it's not too much because you want the right cadence...

Okay. Jen

...walking up the step, so you want to give it a shot?

Shayla

Sure. That's perfect.

Jen

Yeah, and it's more of a relaxed entry,

informal entryway. Shayla

Mm-hmm.

Jen

So we had to do from point A to point B. The slope also dictated the length

that we had to stretch it to. Shayla

Right.

Jen

And you wanted Westerly granite.

Shayla

We did. I absolutely love these.

Jen

Yeah, so I am excited about this, and the front is going to look great, so let's keep on going.

Jon

Sounds good to me.

Kevin

Next time on "This Old House"...

Man

It's time to whitewash our old knotty palm all the way down from the top to the bottom.

Kevin

All of this activity, well, it's got the homeowners thinking about furnishings for the house and, in particular, a coffee table for right here in the living room.

All right. Roger

Wow. Look at that.

Man

How do you like that? Man #2: Awesome. It looks great.

Tom

And today, we put up a pergola on the back deck.