This Old House

Arlington 2014: Part 1: A New Project (35x9)

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After many months on the Jersey Shore, Kevin meets up with Tom Silva at Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, Massachusetts, a family town that also has a cool vibe thanks to its proximity to Boston. The new project house, an 1872 Italianate, is just down the hill. Kevin meets homeowners Heather and Malcolm Faulds—they love their house, but know that it needs some updating. The dramatic two-story foyer, covered with a sea of little kid shoes, reveals the need for a mudroom. They want to open up the floor plan, and they definitely need a bigger, better kitchen. Upstairs, the plan is to renovate the full bath, make room for a laundry, and create a real master suite with a second full bath. Outside, Tom shows Kevin how the addition will look, as well as the challenges of foundation work, bricks that need repointing, and badly patched holes from previous insulation. To make the basement into finished space, Tom and Richard need to deal with moisture getting in, a matrix of pipes at the ceiling, a boiler and two sets of stairs that need to be relocated and an unappealing crawl space where they may have to dig for footings. Clearing out first will give them room to work on everything else, so the crew gets to work removing the old boiler and heat pipes. Roger arrives to protect hardscape and landscape from damage during construction. By the end of the day, as the old kitchen and office get demolished, our latest homeowners can already see the improvement.