Hi.
I'm Bob Vila.
Welcome home again to my 100 year old house in Cambridge.
And as you can see from the dumpster in the driveway today we're beginning demolition.
We're going to be giving you lots of tips on what you should do if you're demolishing parts of your house, to protect those elements that want to stay there.
Also, we'll be getting together with our architect Greg Rocklin who's got plans for some of the changes we're making here, and I'm going to take you on a little tour of another shingles style house here in Cambridge.
Stick around.
It's good to have you home again.
Our floor plan is pretty simple.
We've got a front vestibules that is open to the main stair hall.
Then we've got a living room and a library, a dining room and a kitchen area.
Hi Riley.
Hi Bob.
One tip that I want to show you is we started demolition here, and one thing that's been done already is, to protect all the hardwood floors, we took the wall to wall carpeting that had to be discarded from upstairs and we simply have it upside down here, and that means that during the process of remodeling, we won't damage these floors.
and we closed the opening to the dining room here.
With a temporary wall that's really just polyethylene, and one of the salvaged doors so that we have a safe place to meet Gregory Rockland, our architect, and to...
Hi, Bob.
How are you?
Good.
And to the work get without having construction dust get in here.
You've got plans to show us, so let's get started with the first floor here.
Now, what are all these colors?
Well, the colors, we have three colors here.
Green indicates those elements that are going to be removed or demolished.
Black is whats existing and new construction we've shown in red.
OK, well lets go back to the front of the house here 'cause I just came in through the front door and I see a lot of action happening out here.
What's the point of this?
The green, which is the existing steps, we're going to take out and replace with a new set of front stairs that are tucked in underneath the porch and the eave, to keep the rain, snow, and ice off of it.
Okay.
I think that's a good idea in New England, with all the snow that we get out here.
Now, We're in the dining room, right next to this area and there basically are no changes to this room except what whats this little stub here?
Well, originally, this room had a pair of pocket doors and a cased opening which was removed probably during the 70s restoration.
We want to put that back, not the pocket doors but at least the cased opening and align it right with the center line of this window which is where it was originally.
Because, the house does have an axis, like, in this direction, and in this direction, through it.
That's correct.
So, that you want to line things up symmetrically.
Yup.
I like that thinking.
What's this?
Well, the original entrance to the house was here, the original front entrance, and that was moved to here.
Now we have a new front entry, which we need to really set off from the main stair hall.
We're going to add two pairs of columns here with a flattened arch above.
We are going to use the same columns that are out here, only slightly smaller, so when you come in and see these, you'll walk in here and be reminded of those columns out there, and that will set off this entry way from the main stair hall.
Interesting.
I like that idea.
Okay.
So you still have your front vestibule and closet.
You walk into the stair hall.
You go to the right to the left, dining room or living room, and then what are you doing here?
You're switching the swing of that door, there?
Yes, we are.
This door now swings from this side, and we want to swing it from here.
Because we're going to put a new pantry in and a sink which could be used.
on occasion, from this room.
And when you swing the door, you don't want to have the sink behind the door.
So we're recreating a wall of butler's pantry storage here, and then functional areas here.
Which, which even has what, an under counter fridge there?
The under counter fridge is here and then this is a service closet for brooms and mops and vacuum cleaners and things like that.
I see.
And then the kitchen will be, basically gutted, so that it can be re-done.
Explain to us what we've got.
Obviously, this is an island with a sink in it, right?
Yes.
The existing kitchen, all the cabinetry is pushed up against the walls.
We want to take that out, move the island so it's ninety degrees to the front wall.
Mm-hm.
Behind this island there'll be another counter with a cooktop in it.
And then we zoned the kitchen into four areas.
There's the sort of cooking area here.
A pantry here, which is very much like the kitchen was originally.
Yes, it's reminiscent of a 19th-century kitchen to have a pantry.
With a service sink, refrigeration.
And we've got more cabinets here.
And we have a new rear entrance, so when you come in, on the rear of the house, you're right where you can put your groceries down.
You can put things in the refrigerator.
And you got another coat closet here.
Coat closet here.
Pantry shelves here.
And this is the home office?
This is the home office.
So.
And we opened up this whole wall to the south.
So now we have a lot of light pouring into this kitchen.
Oh that's great.
And the fourth zone is, of course, the eating zone over here, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
OK.
Well, the library is the last room I wanna touch on, 'cause we spoke last week about trying to improve the depth of all these shelves that are in there.
What does this indicate?
We're taking out the existing casework, which is modern, and reproducing casework which probably would have been there, but making it very deep, sixteen inches.
We are going to take the same details that you see in this hutch.
This pilaster...
The fluted pilaster.
the dental moldings and these sorts of things.
Really?
Use those elements, but do it in mahogany, in a natural finish which is more appropriate to a library, in the face of this case-work here.
And now the doorways blend into all of this case-work right.
That's right.
The doorway to this will be part of the case-work,
so it'll look like one whole wall of books.
Well we've got to think about that, because I know Riley just discovered one of the old pocket doors boarded up in there.
Listen, I'm going to check in with him, and why don't we meet again on the second floor and we'll review your plans up there.
Okay.
Great.
All right.
As part of our research about this house we got an article from the Cambridge Chronicle of 1897 that mentioned that this house was being built for a professor W.H. Pickering.
And one interesting sentence was a large back entry is connected with a rear porch, and then it said sliding doors will be used between the main rooms.
You know, we started looking at the thickness of the walls, around here.
And we determined that perhaps we had them, and in fact Riley just discovered this one yesterday.
And it's one of the original pocket doors which has been basically boarded up since that renovation of the early seventies.
Hi, Bob.
So you've already got... you're salvaging this.
Right.
This is just half inch stock that was used back in 1970 something when they remodeled the house to cover this up.
Yeah?
But now we've got this other connecting doorway that goes from the living room to the den.
And we're about to find out if there's a door there, right.
Right, we're gonna take the same piece off.
So what we're gonna start with is this very wide stop.
So that the first thing you do is to score the paint.
That's right, yes.
Because if we don't when we pry it off it's liable to split the wood, and we're trying to save as much as we can.
Yeah, and you know, typically when you going after moldings and removing pieces of wood like this, you want to use a flat bar or a very very sharp tool such as a chisel.
He's got an old chisel that is not really good for cabinet making, as it were.
No, I carry this around just for this purpose and I like to use because it's not blunt at the end.
And then an old putty knife.
This makes them stiff.
Which is stiff and acts as a spacer also.
And by keeping the putty knife behind the pry bar, you won't put any dents or marks into the other wood that you're prying against.
Right, right.
Let's pull it out.
This is exciting.
Yeah.
Just like the other one I guess.
Yeah.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Look!
Aw, look at that .
So it goes back further than what this opening is.
And now, this is confusing.
Yeah, lets see, from the center , this piece.
This is a four foot door that's been closed down at one point to this size...
Right.
...which would indicate that at one point, the opening here was a four foot opening, right?
It's got to.
I'm confused.
It's got to be a four foot opening.
Huh.
Now, we're really challenged because the architect's plan was to close this up entirely.
And I didn't even think there was a door there to begin with.
Oh, fun.
Gotta break for messages.
Don't go away.
