Perhaps surprisingly, in nearly 30 years of This Old House, we had yet to renovate in New York City. So final Spring we put out a call for entries, and received hundreds of proposals from all five boroughs… but we heard overwhelmingly (over 1/4th of all submissions!) from renovation-obsessed …

So we feel compelled to write about a guy that has been working on our project for fairly a while now. You may or may not be aware of that, but there is another Silva brother on our site: Tom’s brother, Dickie. And we can easily say that we have fallen in love with that guy and here’s why:

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The front steps are in! Roger and his guys have been working their butts off moving tons of stonage that week. The granite steps feel like you are ascending the Lincoln Memorial. They are so solid and fit the weight of the house perfectly. The Goshen stone patios areas are wild. They are so beau…

I just got back from the jobsite and it is hopping!  Stonework, siding, electrical, plumbing, tile work, air conditioning, carpentry everywhere - you name it.  The webcams show a lot of the action (and hopefully a little more now that one of the guys helped me push the Tommy Cam by a bit …

Pete and I realized  a while ago that finding some really rare pieces that will go into our new house requires more effort and instance than just searching on the Web and shopping around.  So in our never ending quest to represent our overall house theme properly (the homage to the…

I believe that in our lives things can be a combination of good and positive, as well as difficult and negative. The tricky part can be keeping all that stuff in balance. At least that is what I think besides.  I will not get too deep here, I swear. But I could not start a new blog withou…

Well not fairly the cherry but shut. I guess the cupola will the be the cherry - or the weather vane. But for some reason that deserves it more. Here’s the story…

When Amy and I went on our journey to meet different timber frame companies we looked for the company with the most soul. When we go…

Well, after two lengthy years of patience and waiting we are finally seeing our new house become a reality! 

It nearly seems surreal. And despite the rain, the thunder and the lightning on the first official day of building - and the same forecast threatning our crew all week - we are…

Last week we had a assembly on site to figure out how to start to get the house brought on to the site. The Bensonwood team (the experts at this), Tom, Deborah and I all stood around talking about everything from the best day of day to reach, do we need police details, how much airspace does the cr…

Last week we had a assembly on site to figure out how to start to get the house brought on to the site. The Bensonwood team (the experts at this), Tom, Deborah and I all stood around talking about everything from the best day of day to reach, do we need police details, how much airspace does the …