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Our Rating Methodology The This Old House Reviews Team is committed to providing comprehensive and unbiased reviews to our readers. This means earning your trust through transparency and having the data to back up our ratings and recommendations. With that in mind, we created an objective rating system to score each home insurance company. Here’s what that review process looked like: We analyze the information on each company’s website. This allows us to determine what products and services are offered by each home insurance provider....

CONCORD, Mass., DEC. 19, 2019 —The Emmy Award-winning series This Old House and Ask This Old House are now available to stream in the new This Old House app on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV and Fire TV platforms. Fans of the show will be able to watch over 1,400 episodes of This Old House and Ask This Old House on demand, the “best” episodes via a programmed live channel, and more than 1,000 short-form videos....

Steps for Building a Rustic Table: Use the circular saw to cut all the wood slabs to a rough, workable length. Rip off any live edges or other irregularities with the circular saw. Pass the boards through the table saw to straighten the edges. To do this, pass the board through the table saw multiple times and flip the board each time it’s passed through. Do this multiple times until the board is straight along the fence of the saw....

There’s no doubt about it. It’s tricky to fasten something to drywall when it has to go between studs. Plaster walls and hollow-core doors are no picnic to work on either. These surfaces separate space, not support weight. But, fortunately, there is an anchor for just about any hanging job you can think of. Why Use Hanging Hardware? Put together your own collection, and you won’t need to run to the store every time a hanging job comes up—or worry about your wall art crashing to the ground....

Steps: Project details Skill Cost Estimated Time Tools & Materials Drill/driver Power grinder Garden hose HEPA vacuum Drill dust attachment Hammer drill dust attachment Dust collector drill bit Power grinder dust attachment If no dust extraction is available for drilling or grinding, running a water hose onto the surface or holding a vacuum up to the tool will keep dust down. Use a drill dust attachment by turning the vacuum on and sticking the attachment to the surface....

Season 43’s modest cape in Concord, Massachusetts received a massive overhaul, including removing an outdated addition, adding an extensive and deeper foundation, and installing steel beams to connect the new angled addition on the backside of the house. Take a tour of the latest project house below. You can also watch the full reveal episode of the Concord Cape here. Blue Beauty The new addition was trimmed and then sided with pre-painted clapboards....

Planting an herb garden For a cocktail garden, mint and variations of mint are a good place to start. They will require being planted in a separate planter or away from other herbs, since they can overtake a garden. Basil can also be great as a replacement for mint in a variety of cocktails. Herbs like rosemary, thyme and dill can be muddled down and turned into a syrup to mix with cocktails....

Jenn: Hey guys, I’m Jenn, from House One. And today I’m here with Sam from DIY Huntress. Sam, thank you so much for being here. Sam: Thank you for having me. Jenn: Sam is the builder maker behind DIY Huntress. You can find her on her website and on Instagram and Facebook. Can you tell us a little more about DIY Huntress? Sam: DIY Huntress is obviously a DIY website. I specialize in woodworking projects that are affordable and that are easy to do for beginners and intermediate woodworkers....

About This House Likely built in the 1890s as a Folk Victorian, the house sits on what was once known as Silk Stocking Row, where Water Valley’s prominent families lived in gracious, architecturally distinctive homes. At the time, the town was a bustling hub for the Illinois Central Railroad. Historians surmise that the house may have undergone some Craftsman-style updates in the years that followed, the better to fit in with the popular aesthetic....

Best Drop Spreader: Scotts Classic Drop Spreader This spreader holds enough fertilizer in its large-capacity hopper for up to 10,000 square feet of coverage. It also has a spread pattern of 22 inches to cover around a quarter of an acre quickly. With its coated handle, it’s easy and comfortable to control. Key Features Drop design 10,000-square-foot capacity 22-inch spread pattern 26-pound frame What Customers Are Saying Overall, customers appreciated that this fertilizer spreader arrived ready to use....

This article appeared in the Fall 2021 issue of This Old House Magazine. Click here to learn how to subscribe. While most homeowners wouldn’t trade their dog for the world, having a furry family member means dealing with some inconveniences. A daily one: getting up to open the door every time your pup wants to go out. A dog door minimizes that hassle. But people often hesitate to add one because they don’t want warmed or cooled air escaping, or they’ve heard stories about intruders getting in....

Mason Mark McCullough tells us all about how he became a cast member of This Old House and Ask This Old House, as well as how he became a mason in the first place. Mark tells us that Tom Silva recommended him to the show, and after a few small parts, Mark was featured in an episode of Ask This Old House. The rest is history. Mark McCullough is a Massachusetts-based mason with years of experience....

In this video, This Old House landscape contractor Roger Cook keeps outdoor power equipment running smoothly. Project details Skill Cost Estimated Time Steps for Maintaining Gas-Powered Tools Remove and replace the spark plug each season. Always disconnect the spark plug wire when working on the equipment. Inspect the air filter frequently to ensure it’s clean. Replace it when it’s dark and dirty. Check the level of the engine oil before each use....

BEFORE | Busy Cookspace Live with it for a year. That standard advice to new homeowners—allow enough time to get a solid sense of what you want from a remodel—just didn’t work for Melissa and Dheeraj Maria. The kitchen that came with their 1936 Colonial Revival in New Rochelle, NY, was so unlivable, they had to act fast. “The range and dishwasher were broken, the fridge wasted space, and a peninsula blocked the dining room,” says Melissa....

Previous episode: S43 E1 | Next episode: S43 E3 In this episode: Concord, Massachusetts, is where the Revolutionary War started, but the town’s fame has continued with the literary celebrities who lived there. Kevin O’Connor meets with a local historian to talk about the home of the most recent project. With the cost of building supplies skyrocketing, contractors are doing what they can to save demoed material. At this project, the appliances ship to a family in Haiti; the hardwood flooring gets resold by a charity; Tom and Charlie Silva will salvage the glass sliders; Richard Trethewey and Tom will repurpose cast iron baseboard radiators in other locations in the house....

Top 5 Kitchen Trash Cans Best Small Trash Can: Simplehuman 10-Gallon Step Trash Can Best Dual-Bin Trash Can: SONGMICS 16-Gallon Step Trash Can Best Color Options: iTouchless 13.2-Gallon Step Trash Can Best Automatic Trash Can: iTouchless 13-Gallon Automatic Trash Can Best Value: Rubbermaid Step-On Trash Can Best Small Trash Can: Simplehuman 10-Gallon Step Trash Can This trash can is slightly smaller than the standard 13-gallon can, making it best for people who live alone, families that don’t produce a lot of waste, or people who have small kitchens....

While side sleeping is the go-to sleeping position for most of us, without proper neck or spine support, sleeping on our sides can lead to aches and pains that make falling asleep or waking up a nightmare. Therefore, choosing a pillow that helps deliver sleep-friendly comfort while supporting the healthy alignment of your spine is a decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. A supportive pillow not only helps end the day with some cozy comfort to relieve stress, but it can also be a tool for experiencing the type of quality and restorative sleep essential to a healthy lifestyle in the long term....

This article appeared in the Winter 2022 issue of This Old House Magazine. To learn how to subscribe, click here. Set on a tree-lined street in the historic district of Newburyport, Massachusetts, close to downtown and a bustling waterfront where the Merrimack River meets the Atlantic Ocean, the 1902 house was in a perfect location, but had more than a few less-than-perfect attributes. Traditional New England Charm When Palen and Melissa Schwab bought the house in 2015 and moved in with their daughter, Alice, now 9, they loved its traditional New England charm—white clapboards and green shutters on the exterior, decorative window trim on the interior—but while the house held three bedrooms, it had just one bath....

Kevin O’Connor meets master electrician Heath Eastman for a lesson on switch leg wiring. Heath explains that many homeowners have a switch in their home that doesn’t appear to control anything. Heath tells us that, in many cases, these phantom switches are intended to control an outlet, but that renovation and repairs along the way could be the cause of the missing functionality. Switches to Nowhere Many folks have a switch on the wall somewhere in their house that appears to go nowhere....

Steps for 3 Handle Shower Faucet Replacement Shut off the water at the main water shutoff. Put a drop cloth in the tub to protect it from any work and also to prevent small parts from falling down the drain. Remove the handles from the valves using the screwdriver. They’re usually under small covers that read “hot” and “cold.” Remove the escutcheons from the valves. They can usually be loosened by hand....