by "ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
Published 08/04/2017 at 20:23
by "ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
Published 08/04/2017 at 20:23
No Tags
STARS: 13
Like any kid that grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I was a big Bob Vila fan. I watched him on This Old House , followed him to Home Again , joined the Sears Craftsman Club - you know, the normal stuff we all did.
So, when This Old House Ventures, the current owners and producers of the show, announced that they were going to make all the old episodes available online through their new This Old House Insider program, I immediately signed up for the chance to rewatch old projects that probably haven’t been rebroadcast on TV in more than 20 years. I was surprised at how many details, and even dialogue, I remembered, but, one thing stood out to me that I missed on first viewing, Bob Vila has a serious hatred for the American garage.
Garages are extremely useful. They protect your car from the elements, save your wax job, give you a sheltered place to unload the groceries, and, eventually, become a fantastic place to pack full of all the junk you don’t want in the house but can’t bear to part with. Given that most This Old House projects take place in New England, where winter weather can be quite severe, you would think that the utility of a garage would be appreciated by most homeowners - which makes Mr. Vila’s hatred of them all the more perplexing
It all started in the very first season in 1979, when they rehabbed a mid 19th century 2nd Empire house in Dorchester. That home had a very attractive, all brick 2-car detached garage added in the 1930s, and Vila spent the entire season complaining about it. During the initial walk through with a real estate appraiser on the very first episode, Vila apologized for its ugly appearance, and was contradicted by the appraiser, who pointed out what an asset it was to have in the city, and how much money such a solid structure would cost to build new.
Later, Vila proposed painting the whole thing white, to hide the “ugly” red brick, but eventually thought better of the idea, due to the maintenance nightmare that is painted brick. In another episode, he suggests that a future homeowner ought to install a trellis or fence of some sort to screen the garage from view - again, this is a perfectly decent looking, 1930s brick garage, not exactly an eyesore. Finally, in another episode, he suggests that, since it is a 2-car garage, the new homeowner would probably want to convert half of it to a wood shop. As if the late 1970s middle class family that would be buying the home would have no use for a second garage bay, and as if the house itself didn’t have a perfectly fine, fully excavated basement to use as a shop.
OK, so maybe that was just “early installment weirdness” on the first season? Except, that it repeated. Their third project, in 1981, was a 3-bedroom 1950s rancher in Woburn with another detached, 2-car garage, that had been added in the late 1960s.
This was the period where the show was actually close to being cancelled. The second season - converting a sprawling country mansion into five luxury condominiums - had been a near disaster. The real estate market tanked just as construction was concluding, and three of the five units remained unsold by the time work was scheduled to start on the next project. This was the era when the show was still done on a shoestring budget, houses were purchased by the Boston PBS station, WGBH, and had to be resold for at least break even at the end of the season to keep it all solvent. Hence the decision to work on a small, not really old, starter home for the next project. If they went in the hole again, it would probably be over. I believe Vila actually did do quite a bit of the work himself, off camera, on this project, in the interest of saving the show.
The main idea here was to create a proper master bedroom suite with its own bathroom, which would obviously make the house more salable to a modern family. To do that with a minimum of new construction, the existing living room was converted to a master suite, and the garage was connected to the house with a new foyer/sunroom addition, to replace the lost front door that once led into the living room. That required converting the bedroom on that corner to living space so that the foyer would connect to the rest of the house. Easy enough, so far. Except, to replace the lost living room, Vila had the garage converted to a new living space, and that back bedroom became a new formal dining room. Now, setting aside the fact that dining rooms make terrible connecting spaces to walk through, because of the bulky table and chairs, this conversion eliminated important options for future homeowners. That garage had been built in the ONLY place on the entire property where a garage could be located. It was at the head of the driveway, and adjacent to the main living spaces. If anyone wanted to add one later, they would have to create a totally new driveway and curb cut on the opposite side of the property, and the garage would be on the bedroom side of the house, instead of the living side. This house had a largish eat-in kitchen and no dining room originally. The idea of converting that back bedroom into a new living room and making do without a dining room, saving the garage as a garage, apparently never occurred to him. That would have still given a future family the option of adding a larger family room out the back of the house later on. If you ask people which they use more, their dining room or their garage, I can bet what the answer would be.
The war continued in 1983, with their 19th century Greek Revival in Arlington. This season was an attempt to turn the house into an “Idea House for the ‘80s”, incorporating modern thoughts and features. The second floor gained a fitness room with floor to ceiling mirrors and a grab bar, as well as a sauna and a deck. The kitchen was expanded with a greenhouse, the living room became a media room with a high end projection TV and surround sound, and an attractive looking wine cellar was created in the basement. To pay for it all, part of the second floor was turned into a revenue generating rental apartment. About the only amenity this house lacked was a garage, which was odd, because it had one to start with. A wood frame, slate roofed, single car garage had been added in the 1940s. It had to get out of the way of the kitchen addition, but was too well constructed to throw away, so it was relocated to the back of the lot and converted into a woodworking shop. Again, the number of people that own cars is probably larger than the number of people that do woodworking, and the house had a full basement that was big enough for a shop. In relocating the garage, they turned it around so that the front faced away from the driveway, with no room to grade one back in up to it, basically preventing it from ever being turned back into a garage. This season was especially anti-car, as the proposed 2-car parking pad off the back alley was deleted for budget reasons, leaving only a rather small and narrow driveway off a dangerously busy main street to service a two family home.
Up until this point, we’ve been dealing with homes that WGBH-TV owned. As you know, the show eventually abandoned that capital-intensive format and started simply filming private homeowners doing renovations on their own houses that they had already planned and would pay for themselves. Surely, when working with actual homeowners, Bob Vila’s anti-garage bias would be kept in check?
Not so fast. The 1987 season, one of the last before Vila quit in an argument over outside endorsements, dealt with the expansion of a 1940s Cape Cod in Reading - expanding it from a “half cape” to a “full cape”, and adding 17th and 18th century detailing. The original house had a single car garage built into the basement, which was covered over by the new addition. On this project, they actually reconstructed the garage bay in the addition - except, they regraded the driveway away from it, and decided to install regular “people doors” instead of a garage door in the opening. They went through all the trouble to build, or rebuild, a garage, then made it totally unusable as a garage. This was the season where the homeowners totally failed at tracking their budget or monitoring how much money they spent and casually brushed off all of Vila’s questions on the subject, until the final episode, when the costs were tallied and they were at 150% of what they wanted to spend. Surely, they didn’t veto a functioning garage on cost grounds. They had to be talked into not having it, by Bob Vila.
As further proof that this is a Bob Vila issue and not a This Old House or PBS issue: after he quit in 1988, he formed his own production company and launched a similar show in syndication, Bob Vila’s Home Again , which premiered in 1990 and ran (with a slight retooling and title change) through 2007. One of his earliest projects on the new show involved buying and upgrading a rather sloppily constructed 1970s split level in Quincy. On that, the architect suggested adding an addition to the side, containing a badly needed master bedroom suite upstairs and a 2-car garage downstairs. Vila immediately dismissed the idea as making the house look “too big and fancy” for the middle class suburban neighborhood, and settled on building an airlock vestibule around the front door instead. Again, this is Massachusetts. A garage is a welcome asset for homebuyers there, not a fancy extravagance for the rich.
So, what, exactly is the deal here? Did people in the 1980s just see garages as above ground basements - useless empty expanses waiting to be reclaimed as living space? Did ‘80s yuppies trade in their BMWs frequently enough that they didn’t have to worry about keeping them in good shape? Or, does Bob Vila enjoy cars with failing clear coats and sun bleached interiors, and does he consider scraping a thick ice layer off the windshield every morning to be good cardio? What is the cause of his hatred of garages? Did a beloved childhood pet get crushed under an overhead door, creating a deep seated trauma that he carries with him in adulthood? I demand answers.
"Honeybunchesofgoats" (honeybunche0fgoats)
08/04/2017 at 20:28, STARS: 2
This is beautiful
"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
08/04/2017 at 20:34, STARS: 4
This is good Oppo.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/04/2017 at 20:49, STARS: 2
In the interest of full disclosure, I never liked Mr. Vila. I am skilled in several trades and do better work than many who are paid full dollar for their work in those trades, so I have a limited idea whereof I speak. Having said all of that , I never saw a house show that really grabbed me. This Old House or the one in Minnesota, I think it was called Home Time . And I quickly bored of Norm Abrams and New Yankee Workshop , because his projects were always complicated and you could tell that he’d probably re-taped countless goofs in order to film the perfect cut every time. The Woodwright was fun...
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where homes are VERY expensive, but the weather is also very mild. I cannot imagine wasting a garage on parking a car. Add to that, I drive faded old cars anyhow and spend all my effort and time keeping them thoroughly maintained. But I can certainly understand the desire to keep a garage heated to 40 or 50 degrees F when the prevailing temp outside is 100 degrees colder than that at night, but I would probably just invest in an engine block heater and a timer to turn it on an hour or two before I head out to work.
Executive Summary: I accept your analysis fully, I don’t like Vila, and I need my garage for man caveness.
Excellent Oppo.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/04/2017 at 20:51, STARS: 1
This is just me guessing here, but I have a thought. In older East coast cities with similarly old suburbs, free standing houses have been around a lot longer than cars and garages.
2-car garages generally only became a standard feature of new houses in the 70s and 80s. All the houses in the suburban DC neighborhood where I grew up had 2-car garages. It was built in 1984. The next subdivision over was built in 1977 and it also had 2 car garages. But the neighboring subdivisions that had been built in the 60s or earlier had a mix of 1-car garages, carports, and just driveways. This was typical all over the DC suburbs.
So, being as 2-car attached garages were still a new thing at the time, and associated with fancier/bigger/newer houses, and Bob Vila was all about old houses, he could very well not have been on the garage bandwagon for this reason.
Just a guess.
"RallyWrench" (rndlitebmw)
08/04/2017 at 20:56, STARS: 4
Love the analysis, I’ve heard several contractors say Vila is a hack.
. I was always more a fan of Tim The Toolman Taylor’s approach to garages myself...
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 20:57, STARS: 0
To each their own. I haven’t had one in years, but it is near the top of my list when I move again (along with an extra toilet, for peace of mind, if you know what I mean). Eliminating one on a “spec” job in the Northeast just seems like an odd choice, when the property has to appeal to the widest number of potential buyers.
I don’t have a problem with the guy, he always seemed cheerful and upbeat, but, watching the old shows again, you can also pick up when the tradesman he’s with isn’t terribly happy about being on camera, and also catch the odd sarcastic comment or criticism of his coming through, sometimes directed at the homeowner.
Ultimately, though, he was way more charismatic to watch than that Steve Thomas guy that replaced him.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 21:00, STARS: 0
Could be, the first project in ‘79 definitely seemed to show that attitude. Even though the structure was prewar, that made it only about 40 years old at the time and he might have thought it clashed visually with the main house.
Could be that they thought the people looking to buy houses like that in those neighborhoods didn’t care about having one.
"interstate366, now In The Industry" (interstate366)
08/04/2017 at 21:01, STARS: 1
More power!
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/04/2017 at 21:03, STARS: 1
Better would be the 2.5-car garage with a spare bathroom and a little office and workshop space. Keep one car parked in there and use it for multiple purposes.
"vondon302" (vondon302)
08/04/2017 at 21:04, STARS: 0
Hate Bob villa. Member of craftsman club. Love my garage. This is grade A Oppo.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 21:11, STARS: 2
Which also makes it possible to partially convert to, say, a ground floor bedroom later on - if you intend to stay put instead of moving to a nursing home in old age.
"RallyWrench" (rndlitebmw)
08/04/2017 at 21:19, STARS: 0
Arh? Ahr ahr!!
"OPPOsaurus WRX" (opposaurus)
08/04/2017 at 21:49, STARS: 3
This is why Tim is the better toolman.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 21:54, STARS: 0
I don’t know, he did lose the hot rod drag race.
"Seat Safety Switch" (seat-safety-switch)
08/04/2017 at 21:57, STARS: 7
This is a fantastic work of research you have done here, and I can picture the corkboard with blurry pictures connected by red yarn you must have on your wall.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 22:00, STARS: 0
Oh, yes. Also, he may be connected to the saucer people, not sure on that one yet.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/04/2017 at 22:03, STARS: 0
Scraping ice sucks though. I wish my truck would fit in the garage during the winter, but I’d have to get rid of my workbench, and that ain’t happening.
"interstate366, now In The Industry" (interstate366)
08/04/2017 at 22:04, STARS: 1
Remember the Mustang he did with Saleen?
"merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc" (merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc)
08/04/2017 at 22:06, STARS: 0
Hell, all the Chaldeans around me turn their perfectly good garages into dining rooms, kitchens, sitting rooms or similar....I feel so bad for the garages, they never saw it coming, poor things never had a chance. It does lend a cool front porch vibe to the neighborhood, but still, those poor defenseless garages. Cracks me up. I make fun to my wife, who’s also Chaldean and we have a good laugh. Meanwhile I’ve been successful in parking two cars in our two car garage since we moved in 11 years ago. That’s always been my space and if it doesn’t belong in the garage, it doesn’t stay out there for long. Garages are awesome. Fuck Bob Villa.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/04/2017 at 22:07, STARS: 3
Bob Villa is an idiot, through and through. I used to love watching him drive the tradesmen insane on Home Again. You could often see their faces turn beat red as he screwed something up in his little demonstrations.
I didn’t realize all the old episodes were now available. I’ll have check that out. I loved watching This Old House and The New Yankee Workshop with my dad as a kid.
"merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc" (merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc)
08/04/2017 at 22:08, STARS: 0
The woodwright was the shit back in the day. Mad carving skills.
"ranwhenparked" (ranwhenparked)
08/04/2017 at 22:18, STARS: 3
The worst one was when he salvaged a decrepit old cabin from some summer camp on Cape Cod and trucked it to the job site and had it attached to the new house they were building as a family room. By the end of it, they had totally reframed the entire thing and replaced all the sheathing and windows. Nothing visible on the inside or out could be saved, and about half the internal structure had to be removed. They had more labor and new materials go into fixing it than building a totally new space of the same square footage would have required. Bob Ryley was clearly disgusted by the whole thing, some of his negative remarks made it into the show.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/04/2017 at 22:30, STARS: 0
I never saw that one, but it sounds like typical Bob Villa.
"RallyWrench" (rndlitebmw)
08/04/2017 at 22:47, STARS: 0
Hell yes, I saw that car race! Remember the white Foxstang he did with Saleen too? Had T-bird headlights, it was nuts. I think I still have a magazine copy with that car, I loved it.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 00:23, STARS: 0
That, too. but garages typically have very poor entrances into the main house.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 00:24, STARS: 0
Pretty much. What about pouring water on the windshield to melt the ice? Engine block heater?
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 00:25, STARS: 0
Mad skills. No DeWalt bench planer.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/05/2017 at 07:07, STARS: 0
If you poured hot water on the windshield, the thermal shock would probably break the glass. You’d definitely get water all over yourself, which would make you freeze. It would probably take a dozen trips to get all the windows, so it wouldn’t even save you time.
Engine block heaters make it easier to start your engine, and make heat available to the heater more quickly, but you’ll still have to sweep the snow and scrape the ice.
Besides, we have basements for our man caves, so vehicles can go in the garage.
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
08/05/2017 at 08:40, STARS: 0
this is great Oppo.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/05/2017 at 08:58, STARS: 0
Not anymore. New houses tend to have nice big mud-rooms with benches and plenty of room for all the coats and shoes and whatnot.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
08/05/2017 at 11:57, STARS: 1
Another variation on that line of reasoning: “well, a lot of the other houses around here don’t have garages, so let’s make the house itself as big as possible while working within our space/budget constraints.”
But I can tell you, here in Madison where I live now, some of the most desirable neighborhoods are smaller houses built in the 50s and 60s, and it’s like a huge bonus if you can find 2 bathrooms and a 2-car garage, especially attached. Plenty of 1-car garages, both attached and detached, but the 2-car attached ones along with at least 2 bathrooms are a huge price booster.
I’m looking at houses and often find myself looking at a house in those neighborhoods which are desirable because of their location, nice mature trees, and schools, but the house comes with a 1-car garage, and my first thought is always to wonder how much it’ll cost to expand the garage. Because this is Wisconsin, and if you drive your car in the snow, the only way to truly get all the snow off if is to park it inside for a while and let things melt. And it sucks clearing off your car in the morning when it snows overnight and you’re trying to get to work.
I have a 1-car garage in my townhouse and my wife and I alternate each week who gets the garage. I’m not buying a place with anything less than a 2-car garage. Not gonna happen.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 16:27, STARS: 0
Basement: whatta concept. We don’t have those here. And I was only talking about tap water, not hot water.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 16:28, STARS: 1
I meant that in terms of accessibility for disabled people. Narrow doors, narrow stairs, et cetera.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/05/2017 at 20:17, STARS: 0
Basements are great.
You’ll just be making more ice then.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 20:40, STARS: 0
I cannot conceive of cold that is that cold.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/05/2017 at 20:43, STARS: 0
You are a lucky man then.
"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
08/05/2017 at 21:21, STARS: 0
Warped, more likely.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/05/2017 at 22:52, STARS: 1
Perhaps a little from column A, and a little from column B.
"Die-Trying" (die-trying)
08/22/2017 at 20:45, STARS: 0
i have always enjoyed working IN a garage. being able to get out of the heat/cold. BUT i have a gripe with how most are sized. most 2 car garages are barely wide enough to get 1 car in there, and have work benches, and tool boxes, and hoists, and tanks/bottles.. not enough room to get on both sides front and back of a car...... but i like being able to lock down tools in a very dry and usable place....... lean tos are nice, just not as secure.......
"Dave the car guy , still here" (a3dave)
08/25/2017 at 09:29, STARS: 0
Couldn’t stand the guy. My dad did commercial, residential and military construction for 20 + years and was foreman on the building one of the largest wood structure ever, the Navy blimp hanger in Houma LA. Dad used to pick apart Villa’s work and cost overruns all the time. He schooled me early on to hate the man.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/25/2017 at 09:46, STARS: 1
My dad hated him as well. He’s a residential contractor. I worked for him every school break from age 13 to about 25. I still work a bit for him here and there.
"Dave the car guy , still here" (a3dave)
08/25/2017 at 10:20, STARS: 1
I wish I could give you 20 stars instead of just one recommendation. Kindred souls.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
08/25/2017 at 11:34, STARS: 0
Much obliged :)