This Old House | Manchester House [S23, E1] | Full Episode

We're just 18 days away from our big 40th-anniversary TV special on PBS! Celebrate with us! For a limited time, watch select episodes for free. This is the Season 23 premiere, which originally aired in 2001. This series premiere episode is available FREE for a limited time in celebration of TOH's 40th anniversary! To view the rest of Season 23, get a FREE trial membership to TOH Insider. Learn more  https://bit.ly/2XEaAPf #ThisOldHouse #AskTOH SUBSCRIBE to This Old House: http://bit.ly/SubscribeThisOldHouse In this episode:On New England's north shore, This Old House gives grand rebirth to a once-stately, uniquely American Shingle-style house by the sea. Call it the Big Kahuna by the Sea. Our Manchester project was the longest and most ambitious renovation we've ever undertaken with homeowners: about 10 months and $1.5 million. But what a payoff. The McCues' 1883 house, aptly described at the beginning of the project as looking like "a motel in Hyannis" (translation for non-New Englanders: "an unadorned shingled box"), is now once again the seaside beauty it was at the turn of the century, when the original Shingle-style building was done up in Colonial Revival finery. As usual, general contractor Tom Silva provided solutions to two of the most vexing challenges the original building posed. From the day they moved in, the McCues had been troubled by the low ceiling heights on the first floor, especially in the living room that overlooked the sea. The feeling of being squashed was no doubt exacerbated by the original room's narrowness (see floor plans), and architect Holt was quick to address part of the problem by proposing an expansion of the room into one large space to hold the kitchen and the living room. That meant removing a bearing wall. Enter Tommy. First he engineered a steel and wood flitch beam (Steeling the Show), inserted like a giant needle through a hole in the side of the house one dramatic afternoon. That opened the room up, but what about the low ceilings? As we all discussed the pros and cons of raising the ceiling or lowering the floor, Tommy quietly worked out a way to strengthen the ceiling joists with thin steel sheets and shave off the joist bottoms, gaining nearly 3 inches of room height. They proved to be a crucial few inches, giving the room a feeling of height while preserving the floors below and above. About This Old House TV: This Old House is the No. 1 multimedia home enthusiast brand, offering trusted information and expert advice through award-winning television, a highly regarded magazine, and an information-driven website. This Old House and Ask This Old House are produced by This Old House Ventures, LLC and are presented on PBS by WETA Washington, DC. Follow This Old House and Ask This Old House: Facebook: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseFB Twitter: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTwitter http://bit.ly/AskTOHTwitter Pinterest: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHousePinterest Instagram: https://ift.tt/2ROpRve Tumblr: http://bit.ly/ThisOldHouseTumblr