The hard path to rebuilding, with "This Old House Radio Hour"
52:03 Share

Missions to Mars? Driverless cars? AI chatbots? Feels like we're already living in the future. Well, Robinhood is built for the future of trading. Robinhood's intuitive design makes trading seamless, so you can spot opportunities and take control of your trades. You can now even trade your stocks and crypto all in one place. Sign up for a Robinhood account today.

Investing is risky. Robinhood Financial LLC member SIPC is a registered broker-dealer. Cryptocurrency services are offered through an account with Robinhood Crypto LLC, NMLS ID 1702840. Robinhood Crypto is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Now at Verizon, we're locking in low prices for three years guaranteed on MyPlan. And you can get a single line for just $45 a month when you switch and bring your phone. That's our best price ever on unlimited welcome with auto pay plus taxes and fees guaranteed for three years.

Because at Verizon, we got you. Visit your local Chicago Verizon store today. $20 monthly promo credits apply to over 36 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic data roaming at 2G speeds. Price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate. Additional terms and conditions apply. Hi, Morning Report listeners. David here. On Marketplace in recent months, I've been doing stories about what I'm learning about rebuilding after disaster. Of those 16,000 structures that burned up in the California wildfires this year, I

One was mine. With the 99-year-old house gone, we need to plan for a house for the next hundred years. How do we build the new one while respecting the old? Well, this old house radio hour, another radio show and podcast from American Public Media, asked me to share the story with their audience. Rebuilding, disaster hardening and new beginnings.

Also, if you need any tips for your own home improvement projects, this Old House Radio Hour has you covered. You'll hear that episode played next. Hope you enjoy. From LAist and APM American Public Media, it's this Old House Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jen Largess. On today's show, the founders of the NEAP method are here to help bring order to your closets, drawers, and every space in between. Anybody could tackle a drawer. And I think if you start with the one that kind of

makes you cringe the most. You'll see, oh, okay, that wasn't so bad. Marketplace's David Brancaccio lost his beloved cottage to the fires that devastated Los Angeles. He shares what it means to start over. This beautiful little house was a house for the last century. How can we honor that house but build a house for the next 99 years? Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein are back with more Cheap Old Houses.

All of this, plus we're answering your home improvement questions at 877-864-7460. That's 877-864-7460. Coming up right after the news. Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess.

Okay, be honest. Do you have that one closet you're afraid to open? Or a junk drawer that's basically a time capsule? You're not alone. This week we're joined by the founders of Meat Method, Ashley Murphy and Marissa Hagmeier, who believe organizing your home doesn't just make it look better, it makes life feel better. They've got smart, doable tips to help you bring a little calm to the chaos. No label maker required. They've also got a lot of great tips for you to use to make your home look better.

Ashley and Marissa, welcome to this old house radio hour. Thank you for having us. Yes, thanks. We're so glad to have you both here. So let's start small. If someone wants to organize today as they're listening to this, what is the first drawer or cabinet that you think they should tackle? Ooh, this is a good one. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, I'd honestly say the one that gives you kind of the most pain, especially if you know you're just starting with a drawer like that's pretty simple, you know, and so I have full confidence, especially if you use our organizing book that we now have out.

It's an org. We call it the knee method home organizing recipe book. So it kind of gives you all the ingredients you need and the steps. So truly anybody could tackle a drawer. And I think if you start with the one that kind of makes you cringe the most, what will happen is you'll see afterwards the transformation and get that feeling of like, oh, okay, that wasn't so bad. And look at the difference. And that's kind of what you need to then help propel you and energize you to keep going.

So, I mean, I think for a lot of people, that's a junk drawer, perhaps. And we don't think you have to remove junk drawers like you can have a junk drawer, but it should be a very functional, purposeful drawer. So a lot of people would probably want to start there. And you're saying that maybe starting with something small gives you the feeling of accomplishment that then allows you to be.

be brave enough to maybe take on a closet or something that is a little bit more in depth. Yeah, I think there's oftentimes a really big misconception. And I think it becomes very paralyzing for people to look at a full space.

and say, oh my gosh, like this entire bedroom or this entire kitchen needs redone. And it almost like paralyzes you then to not touch any aspect of it. Pick one drawer, pick one corner, pick one category within your kitchen and do that in one week. Next week, do another space. Like it doesn't have to be this full space.

Overwhelming. Yeah. I think like the full overhaul is what becomes very overwhelming. And so it doesn't have to be that to make these small changes that really do have a huge impact. You mentioned that every room has prime real estate. How could listeners figure out what that is in their home? Yeah, it's actually twofold. So prime real estate, I can put it very simply. It's

It's that space, call it a shelf, a drawer, a hanging rod that is most accessible so that you can actually access it the easiest versus, oh, I have to get out a stepladder in order to climb this in order to reach the top shelf.

So that's the first aspect of prime real estate. The second aspect is, are what are the items that you need to use and access most frequently? So it's kind of, you know, where it's like, okay, what's the easiest shelf and where can I access the items I touch every single day in that space? To make that a more efficient process. Correct.

Can you walk us through the best way to store something like T-shirts or sweaters? These are items a lot of people tend to have a lot of. File folding. We are firm believers in the file fold. What is file fold? So instead of stacking in a drawer, you...

If you folded a stack, you'd then switch it and put it into a drawer where it looks like files. And the thing about that is you end up being able to use the height of the drawer. So you fit more in typically. You also then are able to see everything that you have.

Um, for sweaters, it certainly keeps their shape much better. There's certain sweaters that you can definitely like get away with hanging, but for the most part, a lot of sweaters just have better longevity if they are folded and file folded so that you can.

see them and they keep their shape. Very interesting. For families with young kids, what's your philosophy around shared spaces? How do you balance adult aesthetics with kid accessibility? I mean, I think you've got to live in your home, you know, if your kids are a part of that. The biggest way that we've addressed it in our own homes and with our clients is that

It's we don't follow the like your kid can't have a space on the first floor type mentality, but are but we're definitely like there shouldn't be toys in every single room, like figure out a way to concentrate that. So like my kids do have some things that are more, you know, toy related in their room, but they're very like specific and purposeful. There isn't like

you know, beads that are living up there and beads that are downstairs and beads that are in the basement and, you know, everywhere like that. So instead we really like kind of classify what the various areas are. And, um,

you know, make them have a designated space for their things versus it trickling into every space in the home. All right. What is your go-to organizing tip that costs absolutely nothing but delivers instant calm? I would say sorting through your expired. Yeah.

Like that costs you nothing and isn't it for everybody ourselves included can be an instant declutter. You just don't do that every week where you're looking at expirations. But, you know, if you're looking at it once a quarter, you will be surprised the things that are in the space that are very expired. And you're like, I mean, yeah.

Once this is gone, A, it all feels lighter and B, like, I don't know, you're recognizing that you're going to put better things into your body too or on your skin or whatever it is, you know? I'm going to add to that. It ultimately could cost you some money, but the number one rule for us is...

Do not run out and buy organizing products first. And you see it so often. It's probably actually, I'm going to say similar to working out. Like you're going to go buy all those workout clothes to make yourself feel like, Ooh, I bet if I buy these clothes, I'm actually going to do it.

Or if I buy these organizing bins and I spend a lot of money on them, it's going to force me to be organized. We're going to tell you right now, don't do it. Go to your home, to your rooms, your spaces, and organize them first. It doesn't save you money because ultimately we do believe you should buy product, but

but not until you really know how you could live with it for a while. Like, am I accessing these items here? Is this working for me? It allows you to really think through what would create the boundaries so that it isn't a toppling over stack of sweaters. Like, but do that first. Don't go by first. Yeah.

Very good advice. And we thank you both so much for meeting with us today. This was really an inspirational conversation, too. It really makes me want to go organize something. It makes me want to clear up some spaces. But great advice. And we thank you for being with us. Yes. Thank you for having us. It was lovely to chat with you. Thank you. That was Ashley Murphy and Marissa Hagmeier. The Neat Method Organizing Recipe Book is available now from Workman Publishing.

You're listening to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Right now we're tackling your DIY and home improvement questions. Call us now at 877-864-7460. That's 877-864-7460. And we'll match you with the right expert. Hello, you're on This Old House Radio Hour with home engineer Ross Trithui and general contractor Charlie Silva.

This is Thomas. I'm from Katy. It's near Houston, Texas. Hi, Thomas. What's your question today? So yeah, we got the laminate floor installed here upstairs in our house about a year ago. It looks really great, but because it's been installed as a floating floor, I assume there may be something where the boards may be shifting around or because the way they're being laid, there seems to be a little bit of a crackling noise. And it's not in one particular spot all the time.

But as you walk over the floors in different areas at different times, you have this kind of popping, crackling sound. I actually know the exact noise that you're talking about, and it can be really annoying, especially when you're trying to be quiet in the morning. It's not a noise that you want to hear every day, especially with a new floor. Charlie, do you have any advice? Yeah.

Well, Thomas, you took away one of my questions is, was it a flow? Is it a floating floor? Yes. What was there before? I'm assuming it was carpet. Correct. Yeah, there was carpet before. Do you think you had a carpet down and maybe you did have a squeak below in your subfloor, but the carpet muffled it since you're saying it's a very mild floor?

noise that you're hearing? We definitely had squeaking from the subfloor before, and that was a different squeaking. That's more like that typical squeaking that you hear. I assume it's the boards maybe rubbing on each other as it shifts through the seasons and the movements. So I would look at it as this, and I always hate to say that it's a bad install because you just don't know. So a lot of times you put a floating floor in,

the whole floor moves more, you know, more than the league together, back and forth, not individual pieces. Okay. So do you see any separating from individual boards? And then maybe look it up and see if they were supposed to glue them. But,

If they didn't leave enough allowance also for the floor to move under the baseboard because you always go over it. Sometimes you put a little three-quarter round around the perimeter so the whole floor can move around. So maybe they didn't leave enough space. So it's hitting tight against something and forcing the floor to be really tight together. And that way when you're stepping on it, it's forcing that little –

crackling noise. Ross, any thoughts? So it sounds like you do have the gap around the perimeter. It sounds like the baseboard's covering that, so that allows that kind of floating to happen. Some manufacturers have very specific requirements for the underlayment. Some can go directly on the subfloor. Some of them have an underlayment that it has to sit on on top of. That's more of a unique requirement, but sometimes that is the case. The underlayment we checked beforehand because they will initially, the installer wanted to

put something else underneath it. And I looked at their website and I had requested to put specifically on there what they had recommended. That was new to me. I've never heard that before, that the seams would have to be glued. So I can definitely take a look and check that. If the tongue and groove joint is moving just the smallest amount...

That could definitely contribute to the squeak for sure. And think how many boards there are. So it's not one doing it. So if my boards are my fingers and they're not all glued together, they're all able to move back, you know, and that's really going to magnify that's, you know, crackling noise. Interesting. You know what? You could always carpet over it. Yeah, that's probably. When in doubt, just go back to the carpet, Thomas, and you're good. Yes.

Nice thick shag rug. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we might have to look into that, but not right away. Thanks a lot. Thanks for the call, Thomas. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. After the break, our experts answer more of your home improvement and DIY questions. Call us at 877-864-7460. That's 877-864-7460. Coming up on This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. Stay tuned.

Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Before we get back to your calls, we are opening up the phone lines and playing House Rules. House Rules

This is a game where we test your knowledge of common DIY and home improvement procedures. No lifelines, no second chances, just you, your instincts, and a shot at glory. Hello, you're on House Rules. Hi, this is Lisa Petrakis. I'm calling from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks. So, Lisa, how handy are you around the house? I'm really good at calling my handyman. That is a perfect qualifier. You are ready to play. Okay.

All right, Lisa, here's how it works. I'm going to ask you two multiple choice home improvement questions. If you miss the first one, unfortunately, the game is over. If you do get it right, you get to move on to question two. If you answer both correctly, you win the ultimate prize, a custom voicemail recording from this old house's very own Richard Trithui. Does that sound good? Oh, that would be awesome. All right, Lisa, let's play house rules. Here's your first question.

Lisa, what do you think? It's B, horsehair. Oh, all right. Lisa, you chose B, horsehair. To get the right answer, we asked Zach Detmore, a general contractor for the show, and this was his answer. The correct answer is actually B, horsehair.

Horsehair was used most commonly because it was a natural byproduct at the time, but it acts as a strengthening agent like rebar does in concrete. Horsehair does in sort of tying that whole structure of the plaster together. And Lisa, that means you're right. Nice work. Yay! I think you were trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Well, you are moving on to question two. Here is your second question. What is the best way to store a paint roller for the next day? Is it A, wrap it in plastic, B, wrap it in fabric, or C, submerge it in apple cider vinegar? Lisa, what do you say?

I'm going to say A, wrap it in plastic. All right, you chose A, wrap in plastic. To get the right answer, we asked Mauro Henrique, a painter for This Old House Show. The best way to keep your paint rolling, sometimes you're going to get like one of those supermarket plastic bags.

and wrap it up really nice. Put the tape around, don't let the air in out. So that's the best way to keep your paint roller, but not for a long time. If you're planning to repaint, start repainting tomorrow. That's a good way to do it. If not, unfortunately, you're going to have to use another roller for the next project.

Lisa, that means you got both questions right. Congratulations. Yay. I knew more than I thought I did. Yes, you did. You are this week's House Rules champion. Richard Trithui is standing by ready to record your brand new custom voicemail. You just let him know what you wanted to say and it's all yours. Wow. Thank you so much. This will be fun. Thanks.

If you want to be on House Rules, it's easy. Call our hotline at 877-864-7460 and leave us a message saying, I want to be on House Rules, along with your name, where you're from, and your phone number, and a good time to call you back. Or send us an email or question at thisoldhouse.com with the same info. We'd love to have you on the show. ♪

You're listening to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Right now, we're tackling your DIY and home improvement questions. We've got an expert on site to help you get the job done right. Call us now at 877-864-7460. That's 877-864-7460. And we'll match you with the right expert.

Hello, you're on This Old House Radio Hour. Hi, this is Tim Gill from Dakota City, Nebraska. Hi, Tim. Thanks for calling. Thank you. I have a problem I need some help with. Okay, what's your question? Well, I have basically a covered walkway over my house. It's encased with a brick wall. The wall comes out about five feet in the house, turns 90 degrees, and then goes to about 20-some feet. The problem I've got is...

A bunch of the faces of the bricks are coming off. There are cracks in them, that kind of stuff. I am trying to figure out if it can be repaired or it's got to be replaced or just looking for some advice. To answer your question, we have the show's mason, Mark McCullough, and general contractor, Zach Detmore, on the line.

Hi, Tim. This is Mark. Hi, Mark. Hey, Tim. Mark here. Oh, no, I'm not Mark. No. I'm Zach. You're Tim. You just made me way more handsome than I am. Thank you for that. We promise we'll give you good advice. Yeah, exactly.

But Tim, this is the real Mark. You do the uglier version, I have to say. But anyway, you do have a common problem. And quite simply, it is the mortar in that wall is stronger than the brick.

When we lay brick in any situation, so a brick veneer on a wall or a house or, again, any application for brick, we always use type N mortar. N as in Nancy. The type N mortar is much softer than what you probably have, which I'm surmising is going to be a type S mortar.

Again, that is just too strong for a brick. And anytime that the freeze-thaw situation occurs or even regular movement in the brick...

is is going to cause what we call delamination so again i'll surmise that what you're talking about is is the brick face itself so about an eighth of an inch yeah uh is falling around so if you can just picture the mortar being stronger than that brick any kind of movement

and any pressure that's been applied wants to be alleviated. And that comes with the delamination of the face of that brick. So, okay. Um, the one way, one way that I've cured that in the past is I've, I,

I've taken out all the mortar joints. So again, assuming it's type S, I take that out with a grinder about three quarters of an inch, hopefully an inch, and then I'll replace it with the type N. Okay. And that usually gives a little bit of elbow room for that brick to continue to move. And the only cure for a brick with a broken face on it or that delamination is actually to replace the brick. So...

Mark. Okay. I bet it's sporadic. I bet you have one brick here, two brick there, one brick there. Right. Yeah, exactly. I think you've called it right. Where the cracks are, they're actually in the brick. The mortar is good. That's right. So that will even confirm what I was thinking in my head. A telltale for the situation I'm describing is...

The mortar will be slightly darker than normal. That type S, the reason it's darker is because it has more Portland cement in it to give it that strength. So if you have anything other than white or a light gray, again, I'm going to go with the problem as I just described.

So he can't construction adhesive these back on. This is a real... No, no, it's not going to... No, there's no duct tape involved. This is a real... Super glue is awesome, but... How do you remove with a grinder the mortar on the vertical joints when you have a brick directly below and above the mortar joint? That's an excellent question because...

When you're using a grinder, you have to be very careful so you don't nick the brick. The grinder, to Zach's point, is not designed to take out that small head joint, which is what Zach is talking about. So the length of the brick butts into the length of another brick, and in between that is what we call a head joint.

So I'll get a grinder and I'll use a tuck pointing blade, which just means it's as thick as the masonry joint. So when you make a pass, the entire joint comes out. But what you do with the head joint, and that's a bed joint, by the way, Tim, is

But a head joint, I'll leave in there. I won't go near it with the grinder because even the most skilled mason is going to nick that brick, which is what we don't want. So I'll leave that head joint alone until I get my small chisel and just take a brick hammer and a chisel and tap it out. Without a bed joint below or above, you'll see the head joint really falls right out. Okay. Okay.

That makes sense. So bed joint is horizontal, head joint is vertical. Yes, correct. Taking notes over here. What could I do about some of the bricks that have the...

and have had the face pop off. Yeah, that brick has to be extracted and replaced. Again, it's not as difficult as it sounds. Thank you so much. I appreciate your help. All right. Thanks for calling in, Tim. Take care, Tim. Bye. You're listening to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Call us now at 877-864-7460.

Hello, you're on This Old House Radio Hour. Hi, this is Carolyn Bowling, Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Carolyn. What's your question today? Well, I want to know what I should do with my old house. I had a leaky roof and I have cedar beams and the cedar beams have stains on them. Well, we have Charlie Silva, a builder for the show, and Zach Detmore, a general contractor for the show, both on the line.

Charlie, is there anything she can do about the staining on her cedar beams? Well, you're saying it's a leak in the roof. Is there water coming through literally on those areas when it rains, driving rain, windblown? I have a log house. And so the rain did come in around the logs on the north side. But then the rain came around the chimney and came down through the ceiling onto the big log ceiling.

Cedar beams. All right. So how old is the roof, by the way? And I assume it's an asphalt roof? No, it's a metal roof, and it's 20 years old. Have you worked with many log-style homes, Charlie? I've never worked on one, to be honest. I mean, I did one for Daniel Boone years ago, but no, I actually have not. But, I mean, it's a metal roof over...

whether it's like a deck house that we have around here, that it's a thin insulated, it just seems to me it's, it's rain for sure coming in. Right. Yeah. That's what you're saying when it's happening. So there's gotta be a failure when you sit in there as chimney, there's gotta be a flashing issue where the roof touches the chimney. I mean, did you have the roof put on? Did you buy the house like this? We, we built a log house. And did it leak shortly after that or just happened last year? No, no, no, no. Just, just recently it started leaking. It,

It's probably time to get a new roof, but my question is, what do I do about the beams that have stains on them? We had this problem too. And I remember at one point we did like a soap and water clean and it helped even out the edge of the stain. So it wasn't as obvious, but I don't know if that's true for everybody. Truthfully on from the inside, when you look at the beams and the staining, I mean, for you, Morrow's too far away for you. I'd send more over there, but yeah,

You want to find somebody that you can maybe research cleaning them, the water stains, right? That's where I would start with an expert that could work with the beams and the staining. And maybe they're so bad and it's got to finish. You sand them and you start fresh and it's a new clean look. But make sure when they do the metal roof,

And they're going to put an ice and water membrane underneath it. And they should know what they're doing, of course. But you want to use a high temp ice and water below a metal roof. So that is really your last line of defense if there was a failure in the roof. Anytime you have metal, you want to use a high temp ice and water shield. It's a self-sealing membrane that goes on your roof.

roof deck or, you know, your roofing and then the metal roof would go over it. I also, we also put those under an asphalt roof too, but a metal roof needs a high temp one. All right. Thank you. You're very welcome.

You're listening to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Call us now at 877-864-7460. Hello, you're on This Old House Radio Hour with Mauro Henrique and Zach Detmore. Good morning. I'm Jo Suderman from Lewistown, Montana. Hey, Jo. How's it going? I'm Zach Detmore.

Oh, good. Thank you. How are you? So good. Hi, Joe. This is Mauro. How are you? Oh, wonderful. It's so good to hear. So what brings you in today? Well, we have a specific question, and that is that we had our house built a couple of years ago, and during the pandemic,

Construction, we had, you know, it was during the supply chain issues and we purchased garage doors, but the dark green were not available, which is really what we wanted. And so we had to buy the white ones instead. And we're hoping to paint the white ones, the dark green now, so that they match our other exterior doors. Okay.

I'm sorry to hear that, Joe. Unfortunately, this is this old house. It sounds like your house is quite new. I don't know if we'll be able to help you. You're right. It is very new. But even new houses need tender, loving care. That's true. What do you think, Mario? During the pandemic, I had a bunch of jobs that requires deep-based care.

colors to do doors and to do interiors and for the funny thing is we couldn't find any dark base colors like dark blue dark green dark red or even sometimes black we couldn't find it it's interesting you say that we ordered our fence um just after the pandemic we had the same problem we wanted a darker colored fence and there were it was just not available yeah apparently like um

COVID hit darker pigments harder in the respiratory system. Your greens, your hail navies, your dark rays. Yeah.

That must be the case. Well, we would love to paint them now, but our specific question is that we're a little confused as to how to paint the joints, you know, between the panels, because we're afraid that when we...

close the doors, then those joints go together. The paint will stick to itself from one panel to the next. And then when we open the door, we're afraid it'll peel the paint. So wondering how to do this. Well, the way I would paint a garage door is if I have a chance to take all the panels apart, that's the best way to do it.

But 99.9%, you can't do that. And then we have to do it in place. And using the darker color, believe it or not, is thicker than any other colors because there's so much pigmentation into it that makes the color and makes it even thicker than light colors. And the other option you would have

It's like paint one panel at a time. And then in between the paints, I would do like a very, very two thin coats of paint, just enough to cover the wood or whatever the material that you have. Let it dry between one panel to the other. And that's the best and easy way to do it. So if you roll it up a little bit, it opens that crease so that you can paint inside of it. Would you recommend letting it dry completely before rolling it up a little more? Yes. Okay. Okay.

It's like a really difficult thing to do. Most people say, yeah, you know what? Sometimes I don't worry about paint and in between the paint, just a little edge, you know. Joe, what's the material of your garage doors? The garage doors are steel. Is there any specific type of paint we should use for steel doors? There's a paint that we call, that is called DTM paint.

What a DTM means is direct to metal. So in other words, you do not need to prime. When I do metal doors or any other material other than wood, I would definitely go with the DTM direct metal. And they come in different finish. They come on a low luster. They come like a semi-gloss. And some manufacturers even have on a high gloss.

Mauro, would you recommend brushing this on or is this something she's going to apply with a roller? She can do it both ways. She'll do a much faster, quicker job with the roller, with a short nap roller. But the door has some texture to it. So the roller or sprayer will do a better job than the brush. But it's either way. It's like preference, personal preference. I'm like, you know, myself, I would do...

My garage doors, when I painted, we did the mini rollers. It means you're going to have to add another coat because the coat with the rollers goes so thin on the material that we have to add a third coat on.

Okay. Thank you so much. That makes sense. Joe, thank you so much for calling. Thank you, Joe. Thanks, Joe. Thank you. We really appreciate all of your help and your advice. And we look forward to painting our doors and getting that project done. Beautiful. Send me a picture. Take care, Joe. After the break, Marketplace's David Brancaccio lost his beloved cottage in the Eaton Fire and reveals the true cost of rebuilding.

That's coming up on this old house radio hour from LAist and APM.

Welcome back to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Coming up, cheap old houses are back with two unforgettable finds, including a rare mid-century modern gem in Oklahoma and a towering brick schoolhouse in Indiana you can own for under $80,000. But first to Altadena, California, where January's wildfires destroyed Marketplace's host, David Brancaccio's historic cottage, sparking a journey through loss, insurance, and the hard path to rebuilding.

I'm David Brancaccio, host of Marketplace Morning Report, and this is my old house. We had this beautiful house that we were in love with in the East, but we had children on the West Coast. We had to be sure that as much as we loved the house, our lives reflected that we love our children more. And so we made the move out here.

We come across a house that had just gone on sale in Altadena, California. And it was a gorgeous, tiny cottage. Turns out Altadena was home to a whole bunch, dozens and dozens of these things called Jane's Cottages. And they're Englishy Tudor. And some are bigger than others. We had the very smallest iteration of this thing. It had a couple of half timber looking accents. It had a pair of gables facing front.

A pitched roof, 90 degrees to that. First thing is you come up a concrete stoop. You come up on some stairs. You go into the front door, opens out into a living room. It's not a very big house, less than 1,100 square feet. A living room with a fireplace with a dining room.

This is almost as important as a bedroom for anyone who has an Italian last name like me. You have to have a place where human beings sit down and actually dine. Lots of beautiful light if you cooked late in the day, dinner, you saw the sunset over the Verdugo Mountains. And then a couple of tiny bedrooms and not very big of a bathroom.

We just actually fell in love with this tidy space with a nice kitchen and a spectacular backyard. And we thought, all right, we're going to do this. We own this house for two months and a day after escrow closes and it burns down in the Eaton fire. One of the four fires that happened in January of 2025.

We move back to California, it's the Northridge quake in '93. We move back east and we get hit by three hurricanes. We buy a house here and it's the worst wildfire in forever. I'm not going to take it personally, but is it me? I'm not sure. Over 9,000 structures perished in just our fire. It's like Dresden in the Second World War over there. It's just you can't get your head around it. However,

We weren't there for the fire. We didn't have the experience of evacuating in the middle of the night with kids, with pets as burning embers are falling on our head. We didn't have that. So we found out because a guy watched the neighborhood burn who lived two houses over. We hardly found anything in the ash. When we moved into the house in November, I had some sacred water that I got from a story I did in the library.

Himalayas from the mouth of the Ganges River. I got some of the water and I brought it home in a little vessel. Mary Brancaccio, my wife, sprinkled the house with it. But this was her incantation. It was, please bless everyone within these walls. Yeah, well, it worked. We were fine. So we found that. The other thing we found was this gross looking piece of char that was my internet router.

You know, I called the internet provider and said, hey, I can't bring your router back. I know you own it. It was an odyssey. Some person at the internet company was puzzled about what to do. He was sympathetic. Everyone was sympathetic with the plight, but they didn't know what to do.

I said, I got it right here. It's in a Ziploc bag. You don't want this. And he said, actually, if you send it back to us, it'll give me a tracking number and we can use that tracking number to get your bill reduced to zero. And it worked. Came off the bill about a week later. So, I mean, that's comedy, right? So we've been having some fun with some of this stuff to avoid crying.

Mary Browncatchew said brightly a couple of days ago, well, when we eventually can rebuild and eventually get back into a house on that property, we won't have to spend any money on maintenance. It'll be a brand new house. Isn't that wonderful? I thought.

It's not so wonderful. I kind of like fixing things that go wrong. Now, things will still go wrong, but one of the beautiful things of the vintage houses that we've owned over the years is that you can get your hands dirty with those things. You know, I know my limits. I can do electrical work, but it's not a good idea for me to do electrical work. The place where we hit the wall, there was a disaster recovery center.

And we had signed up quickly for a briefing from the insurance commissioner's office. We're in there talking. Two weeks after the fire, and I knew I wasn't going to ask this question, but Mary Brancaccio did. She said, how long till we get in to our house again? And the woman said, three to five years.

And I'm not a spring chicken. Do we have three to five years? Our small house will give us a leg up on the speed. It won't be five years, but it's not going to be one year either. Not exactly how we envisioned our later years. It's become clear to us that this beautiful little house that we only owned for a couple of months, which got to 99 years before it incinerated, was a house for the last century.

We've been doing a lot of thinking about, okay, how can we honor that house but build a house for the next 99 years? And what does that mean? When I close my eyes and think of the space, I think about actually not the house but the gardens. It had a lovely garden in the front and it had a big garden in the back.

And just as we're talking, they had to cut down the trees. The trees were condemned. We wanted to save them. So part of the plan as we try to move forward is garden is a key piece of any kind of

rebuilding over there. It's the roofline and the intimacy we hope to evoke as we rebuild that will pay homage to what we lost. There is no bright side. What if you were underinsured? What if you have no insurance? What if you lost a loved one? But to keep putting one foot in front of the other and moving forward, we like to think of now that the land is cleared, it's a new beginning.

That was David Brancaccio, Marketplace's senior editor and host of Morning Report. You're listening to This Old House Radio Hour from LAist and APM. I'm your host, Jen Largess. Right now we're joined by Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein, publishers of Cheap Old Houses, the popular social media account that draws millions of fans eager to discover homes across America listed for as little as $10. Today we'll explore whether these hidden gems become a labor of love or a money pit.

Ethan and Elizabeth, thanks for joining us on This Old House Radio Hour. Hi, Jen. Hey, Jen. Also joining us to understand the scope of a possible renovation is This Old House General Contractor, Zach Detmore. Hey, Jen. Our first listing today is a stunning mid-century modern home in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Built in 1961 and designed by futurist architect Gilbert Spindle, this home is one of only eight of its kind and

in the entire country. The home has an open floor plan with lots of natural light, two spacious bedrooms, each with its own en suite bathroom, and has central air. This mid-century home is located at 3917 North Idlelot Avenue in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and can be yours for $200,000. Elizabeth, can you describe this home to our listeners?

Well, basically, if you can picture a UFO just falling out of the sky and landing in Oklahoma, you can picture what I'm looking at. It's a roundhouse. It's absolutely of another time. And it's one of only eight left that were designed by Gilbert Spindle. This is known as his geodesica style house.

So on the outside, it's round. It's one story and it's very symmetrical. So it has these beautiful mid-century front doors with these very iconic knobs. That's a theme that continues throughout the entire inside of the house. So you're looking at glass, you're looking at brick, you've got some glass block on the top.

And all in all, it's in kind of a pinkish color, which I think is so apt for the era. It almost has a little bit of like a Barbie thrown in there. What I love about this house is that this house also has this garage that's off the back that you could park your 1950s car in. Elizabeth, you walk in this house, what do you see? You walk in this house and you see essentially a throwback to the early 1960s when it was built. So you have terrazzo tiled floors. You have a...

brick walls inside the house, a pink bathroom. So if you're looking for a real time capsule that you can preserve, this is it. There are multiple fireplaces that are so of the era, but if you scroll all the way to the end of the listing, you get the floor plan, which looks like a little carousel. It's just fabulous. And Zach, if someone's walking in and looking at this beautifully preserved home, how do you recommend keeping its unique style, but also probably making the necessary renovations? What does that look like? Yeah.

Yeah, so the first thing with this house is I think you have to really be into this vibe because it's very difficult to renovate a house and make it look like anything other than what this is. So your furniture needs to be of the era and you need to sort of dial in your layout because a curved room is harder to furnish. But in terms of renovating it, the main concern I think would be a flat roof.

because they can sometimes be less forgiving than a pitched roof. But the house has giant overhangs, which typically protect the siding. So it probably is in really good shape. And, you know, there's really nothing you can do to the floor plan. It is what it is, which just means you're doing minor cosmetic updates. But if you like this look, I don't think a lot really needs to be done to this house, except probably changing up your furniture.

One thing that I thought was cool on the floor plan, which is fascinating to look at, it's like a spiral, but one of the closets is sort of cheese wedge shaped. So someone on the exterior is really getting gypped with a shallow closet and the person on the interior gets a nice deep closet. You get a cold dip right away when you get to this house. Yeah, exactly. But

But I think overall, if you are a fan of the Jetsons and you like that cartoon and you like that futuristic lifestyle, this house is the ideal house for you. Next up, a truly massive historic property in Canleton, Indiana.

We're talking over 7,200 square feet of solid brick construction. Built in 1915, this one's a former schoolhouse located at North 8th Street in Cannellton, Indiana. It can be yours for the price of $79,000. Elizabeth, can you describe this school to our listeners? Wow. So you're looking at $11 a square foot. It's a giant school that sits up on a hill.

And it's brick construction. It has a beautiful plaque on the front that says the name of the school and the date. It looks a little bit like an eyesore right now just because there's no windows all over the full building and they're all plywooded up. But...

I know that this restoration, and if someone had something in mind for this place, it would be a center of the community there and really overlook the Ohio River, which is amazing. Over the years, we have seen many people do this, and it's very cool. I mean, you have a 7,000-square-foot mansion at the end of the day, essentially. And I think there's something very...

and nostalgic about the idea of schoolhouses because these and smaller ones or one-room schoolhouses that you see all over, they kind of signify a lost time in a way or...

I think, a return to one's childhood, even if schoolhouses are still around the country. And there's something very grounding about that for people. It's sort of a throwback to everybody's past. And so there is an allure about them, for sure. I've even gotten excited about them, but I've never really seen any this cheap. So this is a huge building for $79,000. Let's say $11 a square foot is what's sticking in my head. Just insane. Yeah.

Well, when you think about some old houses that have sort of tiny rooms and quirky spaces, these were laid out with giant spaces. So you have large square rooms and you can almost think of it as loft living at the end of the day and you have space for everything.

And it's pretty cool. This one especially seems very symmetrical. I think there's a staircase in the center and then you have these giant rooms coming off of them, at least eight of them. Yeah, we've seen these turn into adaptive reuse projects where multiple apartments can kind of go in there. Something this large could totally be seen as that just so

that there's maybe not one specific unit. You can get creative with the space. 7,000 square feet is quite a lot. I was going to say, what do you do with those large areas if you're looking to reuse this in some way? Do those need to get divided up? Do you celebrate the open spaces with the new use of the property? What have you seen people do? I have seen people approach it in many different ways. I much prefer the open space. My feeling is if you're going to buy a space like this,

to chop it up takes away a bit of the reason why you would buy something like this in the first place. And Zach, how do you think, how easy or hard would it be to sort of turn some of these classrooms into a fully functioning, say, apartment or at least room with its own maybe bathroom where there was only one bathroom for the floor? How hard is it to go back and add those things? Yeah.

I think that's sort of the right approach. I think when you have a building that is so cheap

per square foot, it can put the fantasy in someone's mind that they are going to have a 7,200 square foot house. But it's important to remember that refinishing hardwood floor for us typically costs at least $5 a square foot, which is $32,000, which is roughly half of what this whole structure is costing. And when you compile that over the large area, you have a very expensive, uh,

structure when you're done and you might not get the ROI out of a single family union that you might out of multiples and like Ethan Elizabeth said this structure lends itself towards sort of being broken up in a way that uses the walls as they are so I think that's the right approach

because the ceilings are so high. It does give the opportunity potentially to drop them. There's not a lot of detail up on the ceiling. So if you have to disguise some lighting, some electric, some plumbing, and you don't feel like gutting the space, that's an opportunity that can save you some money.

In general, I think your costs are going to be sort of in the general fix up and then conditioning this space because obviously it doesn't have air conditioning, but it does have steam heat and it does seem to be, you know, intact. And that's a pretty good system. So I like the idea of breaking it up in terms of sort of getting the most bang for your buck. Using some creative thinking. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, heating is definitely the biggest concern here. I feel like cooling this space, it's probably not super well insulated and brick buildings tend to just really stay nice and cold in the summer. So it's really about that, getting that heat up in the winter. In Indiana. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. This is great information.

Thanks, Jen. That was Ethan and Elizabeth Finkelstein. You can follow Cheap Old Houses on Instagram or subscribe to their newsletter by going to CheapOldHouses.com. We're nearly at the end of the show, which means it's time for The Simple Fix. Hi, Jen. It's Heath Eastman, the show's electrical contractor. This is my simple fix. Are you worried about hitting something you don't want to hit when you're drilling into a wall or a ceiling? My simple fix is...

Use a coat hanger. Start by making a small hole, either with a tiny nail or a small screwdriver. That way you're not risking drilling into something you don't want to hit.

You can then use a metal coat hanger to reach into that hole, feel around and see what's behind that wall. You can also put a small bend in the hanger and spin it around inside the wall if you want to feel around and see if there's anything crowding the area you're trying to do. I do this a lot when I'm putting recessed lights in a ceiling. Now typically for me, I'll use an insulation tie. It's just a stiffer piece of metal, holds its shape better, and it's easier to form and get a feel of what's in the ceiling or the wall. But if you're in a pinch, a wire coat hanger will do the trick.

We'll see you next week on This Old House Radio Hour. Our show is distributed by and co-produced by Elias Studios and APM, American Public Media. This Old House Radio Hour was created and produced by Ember 20. Listen to new episodes of the podcast every Tuesday on your app of choice. You can follow This Old House on all the socials at thisoldhouse, all one word. We'll see you next week.

Personal finance isn't just about spreadsheets and investing. It's emotional. Talking to your partner about money, negotiating a raise. Even the smallest decisions, like splitting a bill, can bring up feelings of shame or anxiety. I'm Rima Kheys, host of This is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace about life and how money messes with it.

In this season, we get into topics like workplace drama, tough financial trade-offs, and the quiet tension that builds when love and finances collide. Listen to This Is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts.