This Old House


This Old House is an American home improvement media brand with television shows, a magazine, and a website. The brand is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. The television series airs on the Public Broadcasting Service television network and follows remodeling projects of houses over a series of weekly episodes.
Boston PBS station WGBH-TV originally created the program and produced it from its inception in 1979 until 2001, when Time Inc. acquired the television assets and formed This Old House Ventures. WGBH also distributed episodes to PBS until 2019, when WETA-TV became the distributor starting with season 41. Warner Bros. Domestic Television distributes the series to commercial television stations in broadcast syndication. Time Inc. launched This Old House magazine in 1995, focusing on home how-to, know-how, and inspiration.
In 2016, Time Inc. sold This Old House Ventures to executive Eric Thorkilsen and private equity firm TZP Growth Partners. On March 19, 2021, Roku acquired This Old House Ventures.
On March 11, 2025, American Public Media and KPCC Los Angeles announced that they will air the radio version of This Old House on Public Radio Stations.

Overview

This Old House and its sister series Ask This Old House are often broadcast together as The This Old House Hour, which was originally known as The New This Old House Hour. Both shows are owned by This Old House Ventures, Inc. and are underwritten by GMC and The Home Depot.
Two of the original underwriters were Weyerhauser and Owens-Corning. Weyerhauser, a lumber distributor, had donated more than $1,000,000 a year to the show by 1989. This Old House is also underwritten by State Farm Insurance, HomeServe, and Marvin Windows and Doors. Other underwriters throughout the show's tenure have included Parks Corporation, Glidden, Montgomery Ward, Ace Hardware, Kohler, Schlage, Century 21 Real Estate, Toro, ERA Real Estate, Angie's List, Amica Mutual Insurance, GAF, Mitsubishi Electric, and Lumber Liquidators.
The third series to share the name is Inside This Old House, a retrospective featuring highlights from previous episodes. Old episodes are also shown under the program name This Old House Classics and were formerly shown on TLC under the name The Renovation Guide. Only the episodes with original host Bob Vila aired under that name., Classics are also carried on the commercial non-broadcast DIY Network as well as syndicated to local TV stations.
This Old House was one of the earliest home improvement shows on national television. As such, it was initially controversial among building contractors, and some cast members were afraid that they were giving away secrets of the building trades. As time passed the show grew into a cultural icon, and producer-director Russell Morash became known as the "Father of How-To".

History

Begun in 1979 as a one time, thirteen part series airing on WGBH, This Old House has grown into one of the most popular programs on the network. It has produced spin-offs, a magazine, and for-profit websites. The show has won seventeen Emmy Awards and received 82 nominations.
Although WGBH acquired the first two project houses for renovation, the series originally focused on renovating older houses, including those of modest size and value, with the homeowners doing some of the work as a form of sweat equity. The series covering the renovation of the Westwood house became something of a cult classic because of an escalating dispute between the hosts, Vila and Abram, and the homeowners over the direction the project was taking. Vila remarked at the end of the Westwood series that the owners could have contributed more "sweat equity". As the show evolved, it began to focus on higher end, luxury homes with more of the work done by expert contractors and tradespeople.
Vila left This Old House in 1989. For much of his time as host, as he only earned between $200 and $800 per episode, Vila had taken on various commercial endorsements with the blessing of WGBH and show producer Russell Morash. Earlier in 1989, Vila had been approached by Supermarkets General Corporation, the owner of the Rickel chain of home improvement stores, to replace Bruce Morrow as the company's television spokesman. Vila's decision led to major underwriter and Rickel competitor Home Depot, as well as its lumber supplier Weyerhauser, to respond by pulling support. Vila declined to stop working with Rickel and news articles variously report that Morash fired him, or that he quit.
Steve Thomas took over hosting duties after Vila's departure, remaining with the program until 2003. Cast members noted that the show became more of an ensemble production after Vila left.
Since 2003, Kevin O'Connor has been the host of This Old House. Before O'Connor joined the cast, he was a homeowner who appeared on Ask This Old House, seeking help with wallpaper removal. During O'Connor's tenure as host, Abram's role increased to that of a near co-host. In at least a few season-opening episodes, Abram appeared alongside O'Connor to introduce the new project, and Abram also filled in for O'Connor when O'Connor's son was born during the Carlisle project.
File:Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi, public television show, This Old House,, with HUD Deputy Secretary Roy Bernardi, and This Old House host Kevin O'Connor, at a renovation site in 2006
Beginning with the 2007–2008 season, This Old House and Ask This Old House are presented in a high-definition television format.
To celebrate its 30th anniversary season, This Old House worked with Nuestra Comunidad to renovate a foreclosed home in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. Nuestra Comunidad is a non-profit development corporation that acquired this 1870s era Second Empire style home from a bank foreclosure.
In 2016, Time Inc. sold This Old House to a joint venture operating as This Old House Ventures, LLC.
To celebrate the 40th season in 2019, a retrospective and revisit of some of the more-notable projects were incorporated into a handful of episodes, with some of the original homeowners providing tours. The first house highlighted was the original 1979 project house in Dorchester.
On March 19, 2021, TZP Growth Partners completed the sale of This Old House Ventures to Roku. All 1,500 episodes of Ask This Old House and This Old House will be made available to owners of Roku streaming products free with ads, and through their dedicated 24/7 Streaming TV channel. PBS will still have rights to air episodes on their platforms.

Theme song

''Ask This Old House''

In 2002, Time Inc. created a spinoff of This Old House entitled Ask This Old House. The show was inspired by a similar feature in This Old House Magazine. It takes place in "the loft" of a rural barn somewhere in the Boston area. The regulars on the show have been Kevin O'Connor, Tom Silva, Richard Trethewey, and Roger Cook. Norm Abram does not appear on Ask This Old House. In later seasons, the spin-off program added landscape expert Jennifer Nawada Evans, eventually replacing Roger Cook, who retired due to unspecified health issues. Other experts making regular appearances include masonry specialist Mark McCullough, paint and finish specialist Mauro Henrique, and electricians Scott Caron and Heath Eastman. Ross Trethewey is the show's building engineer and leads the TV segment called "Future House", covering home automation and related technology.
Magazine readers or show viewers submit home repair or improvement questions to the four regulars, who sometimes also invite guest experts to answer more-specialized questions. Most of the questions are answered in the home-base loft, but one or two homeowners in each episode receive an on-site visit from one of the show's hosts. The visiting host assists in starting or completing the task with the homeowners' hands-on participation. Over the course of several seasons, at least one of the traveling team members has been featured in a segment in each of the 50 US states.
Ask This Old House had a program segment called "What Is It?". In this segment, three of the four regulars would offer humorous guesses as to the function of an unusual tool or device, before the fourth regular would reveal its actual use. The segment was so popular that it would sometimes feature notable celebrity guests such as Jimmy Fallon, Nick Offerman, and Richard Mastracchio, the latter of whom broadcast from space. Beginning with the 2007–08 season, Ask This Old House added a "Useful Tip" segment provided by a viewer of the show; this is a revival of a short-lived feature of This Old House when Bob Vila hosted the show. Another occasional feature is "Home Inspection Nightmares", in which viewer-submitted photographs of badly-made or deteriorated home installations are shown and commented on by the hosts.
The opening sequence of Ask This Old House consisted of a GMC van towing the dark-blue Ask This Old House trailer from around Massachusetts before reaching the barn at the end. The 25-second version of the opening sequence showed Tom Silva, as passenger, picking up four coffees from a drive-through. The original version had Steve Thomas as the driver. The 40-second version of the opening sequence showed Kevin O'Connor as the driver. In both versions, after the van pulls into the barn driveway, the footage cuts to Richard Trethewey handing out the coffees to the other three regulars. The original opening sequence has since been modified, and still shows the travels of the small trailer which has the Ask This Old House logo prominently displayed.
Ask This Old House has been nominated for five Emmy Awards.

''This Old House'' magazine

This Old House magazine was first published in 1995 by Time Inc. and discontinued in 2024. Published eight times per year, the magazine had a circulation of over 950,000 and reached nearly 6 million consumers each month. Nathan Stamos was the publisher., Susan Wyland, best known for her tenure on Time Inc.'s Real Simple magazine, became the magazine's editor in chief, replacing Scott Omelianuk, who had been editor for 12 years.
ThisOldHouse.com is the brand's website and features how-to projects and inspiration and tips for homeowners. The website also serves as the online destination for the television show and includes bios on the cast, information on all of the home projects, and live webcams of the current house projects.