Results tagged “thisoldhouse”

Is this the year for Queens to shine? Richmond Hill was just voted the best place in the state to buy an old house, and the title comes from none other than This Old House magazine (the show recently did their first ever NYC renovation in Brooklyn). A spokeswoman for the mag told NY1, "We picked Richmond Hill Queens because it's got lots of old homes that retain their beautiful original period details like wrap around porches and interesting siding details and things like that." She also notes that a starter home there will likely cost you less than $300,000. And what's this? The founder of the Richmond Hill Historical Society says, "for the price of a studio in Manhattan or in Park Slope or parts of Brooklyn, you can get an entire house here complete with a pool and porch. And maybe if you are lucky, a sleeping porch on the second floor." Okay, we were sold with the whole sleeping porch thing, but would you make the move? Either way, maybe this will help get the district landmarked, which has been an ongoing battle for over a decade. And perhaps This Old House can help out Far Rockaway next.

For the past thirty years, Norm Abram has served as the master carpenter for This Old House. Abram has become a beloved and inspiring figure who demystifies the home renovation and restoration process to millions on public television. Abram, who also hosts The New Yankee Workshop, has been making frequent trips to Brooklyn these past few months, as This Old House tackled its first ever New York City project with the restoration of a brownstone in Brooklyn. We spoke Abram at the wrap party for the project, which brought a decrepit Prospect Heights SRO (see some photographs from last December) back to its former glory.

Recently we had a chance to visit the Brooklyn home that is the first New York City project to be featured on This Old House. The Prospect Heights house, built in 1904 and "designed in the Renaissance Revival style by architect Axel Hedman," has its own project page on the TOH website, and before homeowners Karen Shen and Kevin Costello purchased it, the 4,000 square foot structure was a rundown boarding house. This Old House producer Deborah Hood explained why the show picked the Shen/Costello home:

At This Old House, we probably considered about a dozen properties in Brooklyn, and scouted a few in places like Boerum Hill (where I got flea bites from touring an abandoned rowhouse) and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens (where we found charming, small rowhouses protected by single-family zoning). But, ultimately, we were drawn to the neighborhood of Prospect Heights, because unlike neighboring Park Slope where most houses have already been renovated, our area still has lots of properties that need attention and preservation...

Continue reading "This Old Brooklyn House"

Last month Brownstoner did some detective work and uncovered which house the This Old House crew would be renovating in Brooklyn. The announcement that the show would come to New York City for the first time ever came earlier this year, when Kevin O'Connor and Norm Abram were still scoping out potential fixer-uppers (there were hundreds of applicants from all five boroughs, with 1/4 being from Brooklyn).

Exciting news for homeowners: for the first-time ever, This Old House is coming to New York City. Bob Vila Kevin O'Connor & Co. are currently looking for a home to renovate in the area ("a great old house in need of help, with plenty of things to save and update"). Some more details on what they're looking for:

The project's scope must be "just right"— not a whole house, but more than just a kitchen. The renovation must be completed in about 4 to 5 months, with construction beginning as early as August and finished by December. The ideal project should already be underway with design plans and have the ability to be “fast-tracked.”

Renovations are funded by the homeowner (though the show likely gets some nice discounts), and there are more details here if you are seriously considering it. It would be nice to see the Anthony Avenue mansion in the Bronx get some love, or the rooftop house in Williamsburg (though the show would like for the entries to be "historic"). What other homes could use some touching up?

With the buzz about the 248 McKibbin Street MySpace page organizing comments about its bedbug infestation, we thought it would be a good time to visit the Bedbug City Map. The map relies on reported bedbug incidents, which are mapped by the intensity of the infestation as well - and 248 McKibbin is at the red "Help!" level.

When it comes down to it, learning about various problems with NYC buildings is like an episode of This Old House. Though the the city's Department of Environmental Protection says that the drinking water supply in southeastern Queens is safe, after last week's brief scare when tetrachloroethylene (PERC) was found in higher than normal amounts (though the water was still apparently safe), it turns out that many city buildings lack a special water valve.

It's possibly the most famous couple to sue over bed bugs: Saturday Night Live star Maya Rudolph and auteur Paul Thomas Anderson claim that their SoHo rental was infested with the vermin and are now suing Halstead Property and the owner, Francis Feeney! They were paying $13,500/month for a Greene Street loft (plus two months' rent, security deposit, broker's fee), but found themselves (and their baby!) bitten. Ew. The exterminator told them they would have to move out for a couple weeks, and the family hasn't been back since.

It's Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday today (thank you, Google, for the reminder), and Gothamist would like to take the time to think about the man. There was a time in Gothamist's life when we wished we could be Frank Lloyd Wright, because we were mesmerized after a visit to the Guggenheim Museum AND the This Old House where Bob Vila visited Taliesin West. Frank Lloyd Wright, a man of the Midwest, didn't really like New York City, as it was about grids and lines, so he broke that up with his circular plan for the Guggenheim. From the Guggenheim website's section about the building:

Wright made no secret of his disenchantment with Guggenheim's choice of New York for his museum: "I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum," Wright wrote in 1949 to Arthur Holden, "but we will have to try New York." To Wright, the city was overbuilt, overpopulated, and lacked architectural merit.

He died six months before it was completed, but the museum is a New York City icon.

Forget online dating or even meeting cute on the subway - the next wave of hookups could be coming from the aisles of Home Depot. The NY Post suggests that the city's Home Depots are perfect places for people of both sexes to be totally confused and overwhelmed, making them bait for others or giving them more reason to seek out cute customer service reps. A writer says:

"I spied a very cute actress-model-student-with-a-day-job helping out someone in the shelving areas. I tried to think of a shelving question on the spot, but couldn't. You can commiserate together about being confused. You can wander the countless shelves of dongles and doohickies, having no idea what you're doing."

Pick-up performance anxiety and having no idea what you're doing in dating not withstanding, we guess this is true. And apparently, in other cities, the Home Depot is a top pick-up place, and why not, in this age - and city - of design-obsessed folks. Still, Gothamist's main associations with the home do-it-yourself category stem from our beloved memories of This Old House, but we'll have to check out the scene when we go and buy an under-the-sink garbage.

Alexandra Bandon, Writer and editor

City Review on Trump Tower and Curbed on Apprentice contest Jennifer C.'s firing. And speaking of television, some picks for the new season: Veronica Mars, Kevin Hill, and RW/RR Battles of the Sexes 2 (Chicagoist's Margaret Lyons points out Aneesa's bio: ) Plus Aaron at Out of Focus has been blogging the new season.

Say the word "chocolate" and Gothamist swoons with thoughts of deep, dark rich pleasure. Mention the name Jacques Torres and we're lost in memories of his decadent, gourmet chocolates, hand-crafted in his DUMBO factory and retail shop, Jacques Torres Chocolates.

Disclosure: Gothamist started to read The Effects of Living Backwards (called a "mess - a goodmess, an ambitious mess" by the official Amazon reviewer) last fall but then realized our apartment was a mess so we tried to clean it and found that mix CD we got for our birthday ages ago, so we bopped around to that while we tried to organize our CDs but then This Old House came on, so we just watched that.

Finally, a Gothamist dream come true...okay, at least a Jen dream come true: Bob Vila comes to New York City. The former host of the first reality show Jen ever took a liking to, This Old House (Gothamist grew up on a lot of PBS), Bob Vila will be renovating a former pepper factory in Dumbo, in part to appeal to a younger audience as well as experience the pains of renovating in New York City. Yay!