Episode #61: Everyone Still Loves Cheap Old Houses

Stacy Grinsfelder  0:00  
On today's episode, John Rodgers and I discussed managing expectations with contractors. And later, I am thrilled to welcome back Elizabeth Finkelstein from the wildly popular Instagram account, and recent HGTV and Discovery+ TV series, Cheap Old Houses. But first. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  0:20  
I'm Stacy Grinsfelder from Blake Hill House, and I am the host of True Tales From Old Houses.

Stacy Grinsfelder  0:35  
Hello, everyone. Well, over the past couple of weeks life has been pretty exciting here at Blake Hill House. About 10 days ago now we had three nights of severe thunderstorms., and on the second night, I think it was about 11:30 at night, I was laying in bed in the dark when I heard the loudest boom I've ever heard. And the whole house shook and lit up like it was daytime. I'm pretty sure that that's the closest I ever came to flying or levitating or whatever you want to call it. I went straight up into the air and I scooted over a little bit and landed right on my husband, who was asleep beside me. He of course, barely stirred. I have no idea how some people can sleep through this stuff. Anyway, I knew the lightning bolt was very close, but I wondered if it could have hit the house. Then I started hearing a bunch of commotion out in the hall. So I got up to check on everyone. Half of our electricity was out, and it turns out that two of my boys were actually in the kitchen when it happened right next to them, and they were very excited about the whole thing. Keep in mind that their frontal lobes aren't fully developed yet and danger is still a great adventure. On the other hand, my fully developed brain was having a very hard time grasping the situation. At that point, I was still thinking that it must have hit the transformer across the street, but when I looked outside, the power wasn't out for any of my neighbors. And that's when I realized that we were the ones who had the problem and that lightning really did strike like hell house. First and foremost, my boys were unhurt. Thank goodness. They were standing and talking in the kitchen directly inside of where the lightning strike occurred outside, and also thankfully nothing caught on fire. As far as we know the lightning entered the house via the internet cable on our second floor. Now, it is possible it jumped over from a nearby tree, but that section of our house is quite exposed. So I really don't know. The current traveled down the outside wall and straight out of the grounding rod, which thankfully existed. Without that grounding rod, I don't want to even think about what could have happened. I was able to reset the breakers, but our internet was fried from the cable all the way to the pole outside, and the shock destroyed our modem, router, and mesh system. We had to have a technician repair the cable, and we had to buy all new hardware. Then, a couple days later I was on the sun porch, and I discovered that the panel and plug for electric dog fence had completely blown apart. The panel was laying on the floor all the way across the room and scorched entirely black. The plug was still in the outlet, but the plastic plug cover-- I don't actually know what that's called. I'm sure it has a name, but anyway, it had split into three different pieces and I found all of that plastic in different areas around the room. Honestly, it could have been so much worse. You may remember the story of the house called Louise that Laine and Kevin Berry told during Episode #46. A tree right beside Louise was struck by lightning and the poor house was a total loss. It burned to the ground in a matter of minutes. Luckily, instead of a catastrophic event, the strike here was simply a week-long inconvenience. And that grounding rod really got me thinking about the low-tech safety that builders and tradespeople added to these old houses, and I'm going to write an article on it and put it on the Blake Hill House blog soon. In the meantime, there's plenty over there to read about this particular event, as well as the tiny, tiny, tiny amount of progress that we are making on our two bathroom renovations and the garage build. All of that is at BlakeHillHouse.com. Alright, I do have a little housekeeping note this week. Recently, a few people have said that they don't know where to find the show notes. It occurred to me that I always mentioned this specific website address in the outro, but maybe not everybody listens to the outro. You can find everything related to True Tales From Old Houses directly at TrueTalesFromOldHouses.com, and that includes shownotes, our sponsors and coupon codes, merchandise, photos, and anything else that I mentionin each episode. The Blake Hill House blog is my personal scrapbook for the house projects here at Blake Hill House. It's where I talk about DIY and what's happening. The Blake Hill House blog and True Tales From Old Houses website are linked in case you go to one instead of the other. However, TrueTalesFromOldHouses.com is where you'll find everything you're looking for that pertains to this podcast. Hopefully that helps instead of confuses the issue. Now, if you ever have questions about the difference between a website, a blog, a vlog or a podcast, please just reach out to me through either website, and I'll explain it all, I assure you that there are no dumb questions.

Stacy Grinsfelder  5:14  
For today's listener Q&A, John Rodgers from Phoenix preservation is back. Hi, John. 

John R.  5:19  
Hello, back for round two. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  5:21  
Back for round two. So to refresh everyone's memory, the question, last episode was, How do we find passionate qualified resources, especially outside of the Northeast? You and I, we had a very productive conversation, but in the course of that discussion, I realized that it might be helpful to listeners to hear some ideas about how to manage expectations with contractors. The truth is, we can't always hire a master craftsman, well versed in old house restoration. Sometimes we can't afford it, and sometimes that resource is simply not available. So let's talk about it. How can homeowners communicate effectively with contractors to reach the outcome they want? Do you have some ideas, John?

John R.  6:01  
I think the biggest thing is, and we touched on it briefly last time, the biggest thing is finding a contractor that fits, and that means so many different things, fit based on budget, fit based on experience, but at the same time, fit personality-wise, you know. You can be a master craftsman of whatever trade, and if you act like a jerk, or you you come across like thinking you know, talking down to the homeowner, like they have no idea what they're doing, you know, it's probably not going to be the most successful project. You might end up with something beautiful, but you're gonna have such a, such a bad taste in your mouth afterwards that there aren't going to be any, any fond memories. So really, it's it's finding that mixture of the three, like the contractor you can afford, plus somebody that that you can get along with, especially in historic restorations, because it's not an in and out job. They're going to be in your house for, you know, a couple of days a week, a month, a year, depending on the scope. So you really have to have to feel comfortable with them and have a certain level of trust and respect.

Stacy Grinsfelder  7:01  
Right. So let's focus our conversation there on how to determine if somebody is a right fit, maybe personality wise, even like, how do you know when you want to work with someone? I mean, how do you know that's gonna work? Or how do you know when it's not? Maybe maybe that's a better question. Everybody's personality is a little different,

John R.  7:19  
Right. Yeah, when it's not, it is usually pretty glaringly obvious from the get-go. I mean, as a contractor, you know, because because contractors, especially in this line of work, because there's so much out there, I mean, we're basically picking, picking homeowners as much as homeowners are picking the contractors, which sounds weird when you say it out loud, but you really have to find a right fit and find somebody that is looking for the type of work that you're comfortable doing. I've had jobs where I've I've had to turn them down, or I've had to walk away because the requests that the homeowner made just didn't-- not that they didn't make sense to me, but it wasn't something that I felt comfortable doing. Either it was outside of my, I guess my grasp of of what I felt comfortable attempting, or it was something that was so against what I thought was okay, old house-wise that you know, I just--it was better for somebody else to tackle that.

Stacy Grinsfelder  8:13  
Right. Has that happened to you with a window project before?

John R.  8:15  
It has. I've actually had, and one one glaring example, the homeowner loved their original windows but hated wavy glass--just did not like the look of it and wanted full restoration and all of the wavy glass replaced with with modern glass. Not, you know, not insulated glass units, the IGUs--not a not an energy efficiency retrofit. They just hated their wavy glass, and it was kind of--I struggled with it for a while because on one hand, I would love to have a source for free wavy glass so that could use somewhere else, but at the same time, it like it hurt my heart to just take all of this perfectly good wavy glass. It's been there for over 100 years, just because the homeowner doesn't like the look of it.

Stacy Grinsfelder  8:59  
That's so strange.

John R.  9:00  
As far as I know the windows are still unrestored. So hopefully there's there's hope for them yet.

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:05  
That's really stra... I don't know, I can't imagine that being the thing I'd want to give up. So, but you know, like you said, Everybody has their own ideas.

John R.  9:13  
Everybody has their own ideas, but at the same time, you know, you kind of pick a house that at least you have a starting point. You've been in my house. So if I wanted to live in a log cabin, I would not have started with this house. I think we used that in the original interview. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:27  
You're right. 

John R.  9:27  
There's things to give and take, but but there's extremes that probably shouldn't be crossed when it's when it's completely altering the look of the house.

Stacy Grinsfelder  9:34  
Sure. So as a homeowner, I find that making a list of deal breakers really works for me when I have to, when I know I'm going to have to compromise. I'm not going to get everything I want. Then, I will sit down and I'll make a list of things that are really important to me. So for instance, I'm getting working on an upstairs bathroom project right now, and I want a contractor who's willing to work with a particular kind of shower pan that I want to use because it's the only one that I feel confident that it won't leak over the long haul. So I'm looking for, when I'm talking to contractors, I'm looking for someone who knows what they're talking [about], knows that pan I'm talking about, is willing to use it, is happy to use it, and doesn't tell me they're going to use it [and don't], and then I listen for other sort of red flags. One contractor told me, "Oh, well, the way we always do it is this way." And I said, you know, "Well, that's-- I know, because that's exactly how they did it in my old house that leaked like crazy after seven years. So that's why I'm really interested in using something different." And you can say things assertively, yet, politely, you know, you don't have to say, "Well, that's not what we're doing here." It's just it's --I really said to them, I said it just like that, you know, "Yeah, I'm really familiar with that process, because, but after seven years, my shower leaked, they came and fixed it, and then it leaked again, after two. So I'm looking for on the second floor of this really old house, you know, you and I know that it's never just one floor that's affected, it's going to be everything underneath it, and so that's why it's really important to me to use this particular product." And then I, I felt like we were on the same page, and he is actually the contractor that I hired. Another thing that's that's helpful is that I'm going to be on site. So I can pick a contractor, knowing full well that I'm going to be around, if things go awry. That's not true for everyone. You know, some people have to go to work during the day. They aren't here. So they need to hire someone who they know they can trust. I mean, I trust this person, but I'm saying they know that they're going to be able to come home and the work is going to be done. And there will be no surprises--or a few surprises. There's always surprises--few surprises, I should say.

John R.  11:42  
Definitely. Yeah, that's the level of trust. And that's for me as a contractor, that's probably a better compliment, than social media response and telling me I did a great job at the tail end, like walking into a job site and they, they give you the key and say, "Hey, you know, come and go as you please." I mean that, that signifies a certain level of trust between the homeowner and the contractor, especially if the homeowners aren't there, if it's a house that they're, they're not living [in], and they're basically saying, you know, we trust you to do it the right way. Here's the key. Let us know when you're done, and that's, that's super important on the homeowner side, as well as for the contractor because you have to feel comfortable that that trust is there.

Stacy Grinsfelder  12:21  
So and I would argue that some projects are just too high stakes overall, to compromise. And I have a couple of examples, my grand staircase, and also the chimney that I had rebuilt on our house. Those two projects, I just am not-- I can't afford that master craftsperson who could or couldn't, I guess I should say, especially to do that staircase. Yet, by the same token, I wasn't willing to compromise by hiring someone else. I mean, I literally had three people tell me, painters, "Oh, you don't have to take all the paint off those balusters. You just put a little filler in there sanded and repaint." Again, I'm like, and I know full well, that is not correct, you know, and so I'm not willing to compromise there. So I'm going to be doing that project myself, but in the case of the chimney, I saved for three years because the chimney was not a project I could do by myself, but I also didn't want to trust it to just any mason. I needed a real professional, who'd worked on old houses, who had done a crazy chimney like mine with three stacked flues, and it was a big deal. If you're in that situation where you're not sure you feel really uncomfortable, I would just just just wait, just wait, you know. There's no big, usually no big hurry. You know, sometimes we feel like there's a hurry, but oftentimes ,these houses have been falling apart for, for so long, waiting a little longer isn't going to be the difference between a house standing an a house falling,

John R.  13:39  
Right. Yeah, and usually it's pretty, it's pretty glaringly obvious if it's something structural that needs to be addressed right away, but yeah, in the grand scheme of the life of the home, you know, 100 and something years, and we're in a rush now, because it's been six months or two months, or we have a company party that we want to throw at the house at the end of the month. You can rush and make it look pretty. But if you do the pretty stuff before you do the important stuff, it's not gonna last and you're doing it again.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:07  
Alright, well, I guess we threw out some ideas there. We haven't solved everybody's problems, if only we could. So if anybody has any other ideas, please do send them to me through the contact form, and I will happily share your methods for communicating with contractors on an upcoming episode. That would be great. And for you, John, I hope you'll be back this season to help me with other questions.

John R.  14:29  
Absolutely. We can always do a part three, 

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:31  
Part three. Yeah, well, we'll have a different question. We should talk about other things, too. Sometimes.

John R.  14:36  
We'll get better and better if we do the same question over and over again. By the end of the season, we will be professional.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:42  
That's true. How patient could people be if we just continually answered the same question every time?

John R.  14:47  
but in a different way.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:48  
It's true. All right. I'll talk to you later, John. Thanks for coming. 

John R.  14:51  
All right. Have a good one. I'll talk to you later.

Stacy Grinsfelder  14:53  
Now it's your turn. We have a new question this season and it is, "What is your favorite thing about living in an old house, or what's the most challenging thing about living in an old house?" And here are some of your answers starting with the favorites. Marie said, "There's nothing like warming your bath towel on a radiator." I don't have radiators here at Blake Hill House, but I can just imagine how nice that must feel. Kelsey loves being able to play songs with her squeaking floorboards. There really is no sneaking around in an old house is there? Squeaking floorboards or the original burglar alarm. Now for the challenges, this answer from Mertle Farms reads, I'm never happy with the details. And I took this response to mean the details of their own work, not the actual beautiful details in their home. I feel like it might be time to talk about paralyzing perfectionism here on the show again. And finally, Patti finds the lack of money for repairs to be the most challenging part of owning an old house and Patti, I am sure you are singing the song of many. As my friend Lindsey from Blind Eye Restoration said to me, "Old houses are very needy," and that is the truth. I want to hear your answers all season, so please visit the True Tales From Old Houses website. On the bottom righthand side, you will see a microphone icon. Click on that mic and you can leave your answer as a voicemail. Please answer in a complete sentence, and you can leave that voicemail using your phone or even your computer. If you're shy about leaving a voicemail, which I understand, I get it, feel free to submit your answer via the contact form instead. Your privacy is important, and I will not share messages without your permission. So again, this season's question is "What is your favorite thing about living in an old house? or What is the most challenging thing about living in an old house?" Thank you, Marie, Kelsey, Mertle Farms, and Patti for taking the time to answer the question this week.

Stacy Grinsfelder  16:50  
I want to take just a couple of minutes to tell you that True Tales From Old Houses is supported by The Window Course from Scott Sidler of the Craftsman blog. The Window Course is a step-by-step, do-it-yourself program that will teach you everything you need to know to successfully restore your historic wood windows. It's self-paced, so you can go as fast or as slow as you need to, and there are several price points to fit your needs and budget. The cooler weather, it doesn't have to slow down your window restoration progress. I live in one of the coldest places in the United States, and I work on them year round. You can too. If you sign up for the lifetime access package or training package then you'll also get a free infrared paint remover, which is $130 value. That's $130 right back in your pocket. The Window Course is offered with a money-back guarantee, and now it comes with that infrared paint remover too. I've still got a coupon code for you. Scott is offering True Tales From Old Houses listeners a special discount. For 10% off, visit TheWindowCourse.com and use the coupon code truetales.

Stacy Grinsfelder  17:50  
True Tales From Old Houses is also supported by the Plunjr app, whose mission is to solve 100% of plumbing problems that don't require an onsite plumber. The Plunrj app is free to download. Open the app on your phone or tablet. Click talk to a plumber now, and you'll be connected with a licensed plumber in your area, who will help you troubleshoot and solve your plumbing problem with a face to face voice chat. It's so cool. I've used the Plunjr app twice, and I tell everyone about it. A pro at Plunjr helped me install a kitchen faucet and garbage disposal, as well as a toilet in the upstairs bathroom. You know me; DIY projects rarely scare me, but plumbing does feel a little more high stakes, and having instant access to a plumber makes all the difference. Plunjr can even ship all the parts you'll need right to your front door. Plunjr truly is plumbing for the people. So here's what you need to know. Download the free Plunjr app at P-L-U-N-J-R.com/download, and I'll put that in the show notes too, Tap talk to a plumber now to solve your problem. And there's a True Tales From Old Houses secret word and that word is FLAPPER. Mention the word flapper, and get your first call for only $10. So what are you waiting for? Use our secret word flapper to save, and be sure to tell them that I sent you.

Stacy Grinsfelder  19:15  
My guest today is Elizabeth Finkelstein, the tireless champion of Cheap Old Houses and the community who loves them. I'm not going to offer a big introduction because Elizabeth does it so beautifully for herself.

Elizabeth F.  19:27  
I am Elizabeth Finkelstein. I am the founder of cheapo houses on Instagram and Facebook CheapOldHouses.com, and the co host with my husband Ethan of Cheap Old Houses on HGTV and Discovery+.

Stacy Grinsfelder  19:39  
Hello, Elizabeth. Hello!

Elizabeth F.  19:42  
Hi Stacy. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  19:44  
Welcome back to True Tales From Old Houses. I had to look back through the seasons to find out when you were originally on the show and it was Episode 11, believe it or not, over two years ago, and this is episode 61.

Elizabeth F.  19:58  
Oh my gosh, congratulations.

Stacy Grinsfelder  20:00  
Thank you. Congratulations to you, too. 

Elizabeth F.  20:02  
I love your podcast because I am a person who constantly, I love podcasts, and I've been searching for podcasts for a long time that have anything to do with preservation, architecture, old houses, and there are so few of them out there. And so I really feel like you're fulfilling a void and a need, and I'm very grateful to have been a guest on here twice.

Stacy Grinsfelder  20:23  
Well, thank you, thank you so much. I love doing the show. I always tell people I say, this is the work, the work that I do on True Tales From Old Houses, is truly my absolute favorite. I mean, I do a lot of things. I kind of, I have my hand in a lot of different old house stuff, but True Tales From Old Houses is definitely my favorite.

Elizabeth F.  20:42  
Well, you can tell. There's I feel like there's a lot of passion on this show, and I've learned so much from it, and I'm excited that-- I always am excited that people find a way in the house world to sort of find their niche and contribute in a way that is very fulfilling to them, and I am excited for that. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  21:01  
Well, thank you, thank you. I was going to make a joke and say not much has really happened in two years, you know, life is pretty boring, nothing to report, but of course, we know that is not true. And I actually had-- I was so excited about this interview. I had a funny dream last night, you know, when real life crosses over with, you know, work life. And I had a dream that you all had fake names. So basically that you came on the show as Elizabeth and Ethan, and you stayed Elizabeth, but apparently Ethan's name was Henry, and for some reason I assigned the name Harrison to your son. You don't have to tell me what his real name is.

Elizabeth F.  21:32  
That's so funny. Well, Henry is my grandfather's name. So maybe you had a little bit of a premonition about that, and, you know, he was a great inspiration to us because he left his life in New York City and bought a farmhouse in upstate New York, and he raised my family there. So that's very interesting that that's the name you came up with?

Stacy Grinsfelder  21:48  
Well, let us start at the beginning. I want to know how did your show come about?

Elizabeth F.  21:52  
Oh, wow. Well, we were approached. I think just as our Instagram feed started to gain popularity, we were approached by a number of production companies that were interested in working with us and making a show out of what we do, which struck me as very funny because I think in so many ways we are-- the principal and the methodology behind Cheap Old Houses, is very antithetical to the way that most home renovation TV shows work, which is sort of like a fix and flip model, and we fight against that. We do not believe in flipping. We believe in slow restoration. We believe in taking your time. We believe in doing as much DIY as you can, while also there is no shame in hiring out the work if you feel that that's necessary, and you have the means to do it. But we we love the authenticity of what Cheap Old Houses represents and don't necessarily appreciate a lot of the inauthenticity that a lot of home renovation television has put out to the world. And so you know, it was going to be difficult for us to fit what we do into a TV model, and so for a while we had these production companies reaching out to us, and we could never really land on an idea that made sense to us. We are also not people who I would say are fame-hungry in any way. We're quite private, and so if we were to do a TV show, we wanted it to be something that was really good for houses, really good for our brand, and made made sense because we weren't going to be on TV just for the sake of being on TV. And so for a while, the idea just sort of sat out there, and we were open to it if we could find a way to do it, but it didn't seem that we really could. And I think as the feed increased in followers and networks and production companies started to understand that there was something to this, and maybe we could take a little bit of a leap of faith and think outside the box in terms of format, that we could take a bit of a risk. 

Elizabeth F.  23:40  
The network HGTV was fantastic,, and they were totally willing to not try to change us into something we weren't, but to look at what we do and make it appropriate for television, and so I feel like we landed on a model that we're so so happy with. It is at once, I think aspirational, but also feels very attainable. We've had so many people tell us that after they watched the show, they went online and started looking up Cheap Old Houses because they felt like they could do it, and that is something that I don't think you've get a lot of in a lot of home renovation shows. Not everyone has the budget to hire a designer. Not everyone feels that they can take a house in that kind of timeline that is required in order to do a major transformation like that, and so a lot of people I think, have felt left out of the game in terms of these shows, and I'm excited that we're making this feel accessible to anyone. That's part of the whole ethos behind Cheap Old Houses is that you too can do this, and there's a way to do this for anyone. No matter what your means, no matter what your background is, you can do it.

Stacy Grinsfelder  24:41  
So how did you choose where to go and who to visit, and it really brought home just how small the old house community is because there were so many familiar faces.

Elizabeth F.  24:50  
The old house community is so small, and in a sense that made it a little bit easier because we sort of, I think, used this as an opportunity to to visit people that we for so long have been inspired by, and I think in terms of any business that you start, it's always, if you're inspired by somebody or something, chances are other people will be as well. So we really wanted to visit people this season who we felt really spoke to our hearts, and that would be a great sort of first opening season. We looked for people who were geographically diverse. So we wanted to visit all different parts of the country, at least places where there are a lot of cheap old houses, and you know, we were specifically looking for people who purchased their houses for under $150,000. So that was sort of the cut off. And, yeah, we just, we really just found 10 people. Ethan and I had been saying, for years before we even got this TV show deal, that we wanted to do a road trip, visiting all the people who we follow on Instagram, and have been, you know, just inspired by. Stacy, you're one of them. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  25:56  
Oh!

Elizabeth F.  25:57  
If you're, if you're if-- we're going to come visit you, and you're going to show us how to restore our windows, that's our dream.

Stacy Grinsfelder  26:04  
oh my gosh, okay, well, I'm going to I mean, I don't have to put it on my calendar quite yet. But I will prepare myself for your visit, because that would thrill me. We would have so much fun. You could come, and we could do a little workshop, I have all kinds of windows here. I kind of collect them from the side of the road on trash day, which, of course, is tragic, but I save them for the purpose of teaching. You know, if nothing else, we'd have so much fun together,

Elizabeth F.  26:26  
We totally would, and that's something we've been wanting to do for such a long time anyway, and I think that our favorite part of filming this show was going to visit people who we have been following for such a long time. And it's, it's so funny, we always say it takes a certain kind of person to want to restore an old house and get into this kind of world where they're their their lives are in a sense, really devoted toward restoring their house, documenting the process, and just kind of jumping in full force, and that was really evident to us when we were doing this road trip for the show. Because as soon as we met all of these people, it's like, instant friends. We just understood each other from the get-go. There's a certain way of looking at life that people in the old house world all kind of share, and you-- and it's like you walk in and you don't have to explain yourself. You're just like, Oh, I totally get you. That was what was so fun about the filming.

Stacy Grinsfelder  27:14  
Oh, that's so great. Did you really drive everywhere and Ethan's old truck,

Elizabeth F.  27:21  
We really did drive everywhere. The only place we didn't drive was to Texas, and the truck came trailered, but other than that we drove everywhere, which was fun. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  27:32  
That does sound like a lot of fun. I wondered if there were any sort of magic of television moments.

Elizabeth F.  27:37  
Very few. I think that's one of the things that excited me about doing this is that we, the show is extremely authentic. We didn't stage anybody's house. We didn't bring in furniture. We didn't help them, you know, finish a room. Everybody really, really-- what you're seeing on the screen is what people did with their houses, and I wanted to show that reality. I probably, if it were up to me, would have shown more of the unfinished rooms because I think that's so important for people to understand. When you're restoring a house, everybody is always like only a third done. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  28:09  
Yeah, 

Elizabeth F.  28:10  
and and you'll probably only ever going to be a third done, and I think that's just an important thing for people to understand. The show is extremely authentic. All of the show, houses we showed at the time of filming were for sale and actually actively on the market. A lot of them still are, and the people we visited had actually done the work, and you were seeing the fruits of their labor and no one else's, and and that was extremely important to me. I would say the only tricks where we had to trailer the truck a couple times because we were filming in snowstorms, and frankly, it wouldn't have been safe for us to drive that 

Stacy Grinsfelder  28:44  
right 

Elizabeth F.  28:44  
in those circumstances, but that was really the only show trick that you saw. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  28:48  
That's really neat. So you showcase 1000s of houses on Cheap Old Houses. So how did you narrow it down to certain houses for each particular episode of show, not the people you visited, but the houses that you wanted to show that could potentially be featured on Cheap Old Houses?

Elizabeth F.  29:05  
We cast the show around the homeowners first. So we searched for 10 people who we thought represented a great kind of sampling of people who are who are restoring their houses of various sizes, of various geographical locations, of various styles, of various incomes, and experience, and we wanted to really encapsulate the whole old house world in those 10 people. So that was very important, and then once we found that we searched for houses on the market within, I would say maybe a two-hour range of each of those homes. So when we cast for example, Amy and Doug Heavilin in Franklin, Indiana, we searched you know for a couple houses close by to them that we could go visit while we were there. And so really if-- it was a matter of what was on the market at the time. We tried very hard to, and weren't always perfectly successful at this, but to kind of theme it. So for that episode, for instance, if you saw Amy and Doug's episode, it was all Victorian houses, and that was really nice because there was sort of a thread of Victorians that was through the whole episode. 

Elizabeth F.  30:08  
That wasn't always possible. And  sometimes we traded the theme for the better houses. So for instance, you know, if there was a kind of a gigantic school house on the market, we couldn't say no to that, even though we probably weren't gonna find another one as well. So it honestly, I-- I'm happy with how the for sale houses came out, because there was some that were move-in ready. There were some that were sort of quirky mid-century with, you know, pink bathrooms and all of the kitchens from that era, and there were some that were very historical. I mean, we had a salt box from the 1700s in Connecticut, and I think it really ran the gamut, and it showed a great range of these homes, and I was really happy with how it turned out. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  30:49  
I liked it, I really was-- I enjoyed learning from you too, because I think when you show us Cheap Old Houses, you know, it's a house and a caption, but you really know your stuff, and I think it was a learning opportunity for people to who watched to learn from you about different styles of houses, and what might have been happening at that time that influenced the architecture, and that was really cool. That was probably one of my-- it was unexpected. I don't know why I didn't expect it, but I just I didn't know what I was getting into. It was, it was, --A really unexpected pleasure of watching the show was learning so much from you. 

Elizabeth F.  31:22  
Well, thank you for saying that. Learning was my favorite thing too. I'm just a nerd, I really am. I just, I could go down a rabbit hole. My my absolute favorite part of filming the show was researching the houses and going down, you know, intense rabbit holes of old catalogs, and you know, looking up everything I could about terrazzo floors. I, there were things that we encountered in these homes that I just hadn't seen that much of because I'm I'm from the northeast, I've always lived in the northeast, and you go to Texas, and you go to North Carolina, and there's a totally different vernacular.  Architecture is incredibly regional, and the way they did things in so many ways, houses are all about the climate, and it's all about just like keeping warm. How do you do that in different places, and everybody had a different methodology, and there were different local materials available for early houses. And so, you know--and Indiana has a huge slew of Victorians because the Victorian period is the time during which that state really blew up in population, and so it's extremely regional and and I, it was a little bit of a wake up call to me how much I don't know, but that was also so exciting because, look, I have a graduate degree in this. If I don't know it, like how can-- no one --there is no way everybody is going to know this, and I hope that the show gives you a little bit of permission, that if you don't know the difference between a tower and a turret, or whatever the terminology is, you can still love old houses. It's fine; You'll learn it, you know. I think if you're going into your house with a, with the your best effort to honor it, you don't need professional education in this, you know, or a formal-- sorry, a formal education in this to really be able to love old houses, and I probably said the wrong thing in the show a few times, and you know what? It's fine.

Stacy Grinsfelder  33:06  
Right. We've talked about that a few times on the show. I mean, this is-- this is a real positive show. I like to keep it in a positive spin, but there there are these times when we get called out for saying the wrong thing, and my response is always you know, did you understand what I meant? And if the answer is yes, I'm like, you, you can still restore your windows, even if you don't know what any of the parts are called. Iff you can point to it, and you can get the products and do the work, if you don't know any of the words you can still restore your windows.

Elizabeth F.  33:37  
I equate it to wine a lot. I think that, I think the world of wine has a similar sort of intimidation for a lot of people because they go in and they're like, well I don't know how to describe it and I don't know if I like it. Well, do you like the taste of it?  Does it? Does it stir up feelings in you when you drink it? Like is there something about it that speaks to you? And I think-- look, I was-- I-- I knew the magic of old houses when I was two years old living in them. I grew up in one. I didn't have a formal education in them at all, and I understood that they were magical because I was a child growing up in one, and you that's all you need. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  34:10  
Great point. Every time you discovered something beautiful or unexpected or hidden within one of these houses, it was clear that you were so excited, and I'm wondering what was your favorite discovery from the season,something that made your heart beat maybe just a little bit faster?

Elizabeth F.  34:25  
That's a great question. There were so many things. I, well a lot of the things actually we didn't even show in the episode because Ethan and I would always, after we cut the filming, we would run down into the basement or go to the attic, and I know that every old house person would do that, and, but they weren't necessarily the showy rooms with the details so they didn't make it on camera that much, but we would always go in the basement and find just, you know, the discarded old doors or the--a lot of times you'll see they'll have taken out the original kitchen, and it's sitting in the basement. This is a very common thing in old houses because back then people didn't dispose of things so quickly. They reused them because materials weren't readily available as much as they are today. So they would take the kitchen cabinets and you know, repurpose them for something in the basement storage, and I always love looking at those hidden rooms that aren't necessarily like the showy rooms. So we had a lot of fun doing that. 

Elizabeth F.  34:30  
I loved finding that speaking tube in one of the houses in Amy & Doug's episode in Indiana. There was like an original Victorian speaking tube in one of the closets and because that's something that I had never encountered before, and I, but I had heard of them, and I'm like, What the heck is this? And I like anything that really speaks to the way of life back then and those sorts of social history. That was really exciting. We saw a lot of old wallpaper, which excites me. The number of interior shutters that we found-- there were a few houses we went into that had every single window had their interior shutters completely intact. Literally, I'm talking 30 windows had perfectly operating interior shutters, and that meant that they all had tiny little hardware knobs on them that were like, you know, Eastlake or a particular style hardware, and they were absolutely beautiful, and these are things that don't make the real estate listings. You know, the real estate listing is beds and baths, and you know, updated kitchen,

Stacy Grinsfelder  36:25  
You always know when you look at a listing, if the kitchens not in it, you're like, Huh, they're not proud of that kitchen. I wonder why?

Elizabeth F.  36:32  
People often ask me, why don't you show the kitchen, and I'm like, I only show the kitchen if it's a historical kitchen. Because otherwise, you know, the thing is, with bathrooms and kitchens is that they are the most flipped room, and every house, everyone goes to sell their house, and they change the kitchen and the bathroom, and so the, the whole rest of the house looks like 1930, and the kitchen and bathroom very 2016. And because trends move so quickly, now 2016 kitchens look very different from, you know, 2020 kitchens, and so they date themselves quite quickly. And so I usually don't-- I don't want people to be looking through our feed and all of a sudden, you know, come across the 1990s kitchen. It's just kind of a buzzkill. So in our, on our feed, if we don't show the kitchen, it's usually because it's like, meh.

Stacy Grinsfelder  37:18  
I know, I like that idea of staying in the moment. It would kind of break the mood if you are flipping through the photos and land on a 90s kitchen for sure. 

Elizabeth F.  37:26  
Right 

Stacy Grinsfelder  37:26  
What would you like to see happen with the Cheap Old Houses show? I mean, how would you grow it if you had the chance? 

Elizabeth F.  37:34  
I have a lot of thoughts on that, and I think the network does, too, and our production company does too, and now that it's there, we have the good fortune of getting feedback from people, and by and large, the feedback has been excellent. The ratings were very good. I think that we have thoughts about how to improve it even more. I think it was it's a very different show for the network. So I think we got to a place that was awesome. And I think we can take it even further. I would love it to be longer, so that we could really sink our teeth more into the histories of these homes and the stories of the people who restore them. There were definitely things that didn't make the cut that I found to be very interesting, but we had a 22 minute cutoff that we just couldn't do them do them justice in such a short amount of time. So I would love it to be longer and a little bit meatier, you know. It's-- it depends what-- it depends where you come from. I think the show is trying to do a lot of things and be a lot of things for a lot of people. A lot of people love the sort of renderings to sort of envision what the house used to look like, and I know that on a network like HGTV that is really all about showing transformations in before and afters, it's very important that that is there. There are a lot of people that love the quote unquote history show aspect of it, where it's a lot of digging into those sort of histories of the homes and the towns, or or hearing the stories of real people who have done it or seeing houses, that are actually on the market, and what does that mean? and there--there are really so many ways we could take this, and right now we're really thinking hard about if we already get a longer format or even if we're not, what works and what we could sort of put on the backburner to sort of enhance the other aspects? I have to be honest, I don't have a perfect vision in my head. I--I love where it's-- I love what it is, and I love where it could go, and I think there's a lot of potential.

Stacy Grinsfelder  39:23  
Each episode looked like it was created with kind of a mix of a full film crew and then you and Ethan maybe outfitted with GoPros or something, and I was wondering what was the sequence of filming for each show?

Elizabeth F.  39:34  
Yeah, so each episode took about a week to film. We would go one day to each different house, and it was funny to see it just all of a sudden, in a four to five minute clip, that was a whole day's worth filming--driving up to the house and you have to shoot everything multiple times. So we're getting a reaction walking into a room, many from many different angles and many different times. I always joke I have a vision in my head of our camera or two cameraman standing in every bathtub in every house we went into to get our reaction walking into the bathroom. Veronica and Paul at Stony Run farmhouse in Pennsylvania have a beautiful little mint green bathroom, and our our cameraman were huddled at that bathtub as we were standing in that bathroom talking. It was very cute. 

Elizabeth F.  40:20  
So each day was a different house. So the first day we would visit the first house for sale. The second day, we would visit the second house for sale. The third day, and it wasn't necessarily in this order, but usually we tried to follow the sequence of the show. The third day, we would visit what we call the stage house, so the people who have restored their house that were featured in the episode, and then the fourth day would be pick up shots. So sort of driving scenes in between or us interview style, as you see a lot. That's called OTF on the fly, where we're sort of just standing there and reflecting on what it is we're seeing in each scene. 

Elizabeth F.  40:51  
It was quite cold. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  40:53  
It looked cold. 

Elizabeth F.  40:54  
we were really cold filming this, but we were bundled up underneath our coats, and it was an excuse for me to get some really fun colorful coats, which was really fun. I think if I had dressed the way I really should have been dressed, I would have looked ridiculous. So I really had to balance like looking a little bit cute with you know, being warm, and our crew was great. You know, we got a lot of breaks, and we got to go sit in the warm cars, and it was all, and there was a lot of coffee. There were there was always coffee being handed to me, which was lovely, and mind me, remember, we're filming this in a pandemic. So there were masks and there was, you know, spray on everything constantly like sanitizer spray, and we were limited--we couldn't necessarily go warm up in a public environment. So we really had to kind of rough it, but I think, I think the tone of it, I think it would have been funny had we filmed it in a very comfortable place because there's nothing about restoring old houses that is that easy or that comfortable, and there's a little bit of an [unitelligable due to the recording] and a little bit of an uncomfortable aspect of this that I think is part of the charm, and I think I would be a little sad if we filmed Season Two in really warm, comfortable weather because I think the look of it is kind of-- you're kind of out there, and you're kind of taking a leap of faith, and you're you're a little bit, you know, uncomfortable. I think that's part of the brand a little bit. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  42:12  
Sure. All good points hadn't really thought of that. You mentioned earlier that about the regional differences in architecture and how it's primarily about staying warm, and that really hit home. I thought, gosh, you're right, you're right. You know, the first question of any houses, how can we cool it, and how can we warm it? And that has everything to do with position on the property and all the windows and heating. So super interesting--gave me a lot to think about there. 

Elizabeth F.  42:36  
It was interesting. There was a house we visited in Connecticut in episode one or  episodes three? It was the salt box, and it had that giant central chimney that had a fireplace coming into every single room, and it was a fireplace they cooked on and it just heated every room. So that house was built with the idea of keeping all the rooms warm at all times, and that's something I'm quite familiar with because I grew up in New England, and I'm just I'm very familiar with these kind of houses. My, my aunt, my cousins had a salt box that we would always spend Thanksgivings, and to me, they're sort of the ultimate, you know, perfect Thanksgiving house. So but then, then we went to North Carolina and we visited a house that had a detached kitchen, and it had a long central hallway that the air could flow through. It's, it's just a totally different way of building and that was about keeping them keeping them cool in the summer, whereas everything up north is like how to stay warm, and I'm reading this great book called How to be a Victorian, right now that I highly recommend, and it's um, it's written by a British Social historian, and she's fantastic, and she talks about how literally the first line in the book is the first you step out of bed, and your first thought is like keeping warm, because they didn't have heating, and there were fireplaces in every room, but only the very wealthy were able to have their bedroom fireplaces on at all time. So a lot of times, and even they didn't necessarily, so really, so much about old houses is thinking about temperature control.

Stacy Grinsfelder  44:02  
That's interesting. I will link that book in the show notes.

Elizabeth F.  44:04  
It's a great book. She's written a whole bunch of others, and now I'm going down a rabbit hole reading them all because they're, they're fascinating. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  44:10  
Yeah, I'll look forward to it. Well, moving on to a different topic altogether. I really wanted to find out more about your show. You probably, maybe didn't want to talk about all the little nuts and bolts of how it was produced, but I was super interested. So that's my rabbit hole today.

Elizabeth F.  44:23  
I think it's so-- I think that's fascinating, and I'm always happy to talk about it. I think it's very interesting. I didn't know anything about TV before we started, and one of the really fun things about going through this process is learning how these things are produced, and I'm always excited to talk about it for sure.

Stacy Grinsfelder  44:37  
Well now that Cheap Old Houses has been released to the masses--this is kind of a tricky question, but has there been any criticism? I mean, I know you're really private Have you felt-- How do you stay away from anything like that?

Elizabeth F.  44:48  
I, you know, for the most part there, it's been overwhelmingly positive. I was-- I was bracing myself for it. I had read all the books on how to deal with criticism. I had armoured up against it, and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were very, very kind and excited about it. You know, there always are people who are going to be unhappy, but I think that just comes with ever putting yourself out there into the world. There are going to be people who will criticize you, and I am extremely, I think, sensitive. I'm very creative, and I'm very protective of my ideals, and when people criticize them, I get very upset. So what I just do is just-- I don't read the comments, and I think that's most unimportant thing, because look, you're never going to please everybody, and especially with what we do. What we do is really outside the box. It's a different way of thinking than most people, and I think if it was pleasing everybody, I would be doing something wrong. So you know, there have been little things, but I think that that is just-- If you're gonna have a TV show, you're gonna get criticism. It's, it's sort of like something when you, and this is something that I've been dealing with since I started my brand. You know, we have a brand that's based on social media, and there, there is the ability for everyone and their brother to comment and tell you what they think of you, and so I don't think anybody who runs an account like I do, or has a show, like I do is immune to this, and you just have to say, all right, I understand that there are going to be critics, and really, you have to build a place for them within your business, because it's just a cost of doing business, that you're going to have people say things. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  46:24  
All right, well, a more positive topic. I found out via your show that you and Ethan finally found your own cheap old house, and when you were here two years ago, I think Devyn or I asked you if you were looking and you said something to the effect of, we're always looking ,and I really want to know what you found. How did you decide on your cheap old house?

Elizabeth F.  46:44  
That is true that we were always looking, and part of the reason why we started Cheap Old Houses is because we're always looking, and I--it was really a stockpile of houses that I had found that I was interested in, and so we just started putting them on an Instagram feed, never thinking that this would become a business or anything that, you know, would would make us an income. And we thought--I-- we live-- we live-- so we live just outside of New York City in a very, very expensive place, and I think just doing this for so many years and and watching and being inspired by other people like the people that are on our show, that have taken a leap of faith and are living a life that just sucks less money out of them every single day was really inspiring to us. And we just, I think more and more, I felt we really wanted to do this too. Th house we found which for privacy purposes, I don't like to I don't like to get the location.

Stacy Grinsfelder  47:42  
Oh, yeah, no, no need I just meant what type of house did you choose? And why?

Elizabeth F.  47:46  
Yes. So the house that we chose is a farmhouse. It's on about 11 acres, and it's funny. I didn't post it on the feed because it was really, it was really bad. Most of the houses I post on the account are generally have a lot of their features intact. So something you can kind of hang your hat on like, Oh, look at the staircase or look at those doors, or the woodwork or something, and this house had just been in a situation where it had been really gutted, and it was in a location we really liked and I was familiar with, and I love actually, and I saw the listing and I showed it to Ethan and we were like oh yeah, unfortunately, like it's sad it's so gutted. And then Ethan took every our son camping for the weekend, and I was with my mom, and I was like, we were bored. Yeah, let's take a long drive and go look at this house. So we did and as soon as we got there, I saw the land. I saw the house,and I was like, oh Ethan's gonna really like this because Ethan-- I'm a real house person, and I think Ethan has become more of a house person since being married to me because I push it on everyone, but it is really, at his heart. I think he he loves the idea of a lot of land. And so I said to him, like we should go look at this, and so he went over, and you know, it's funny, although we weren't sold on it when we first saw it, I think we've come to I think we truly feel like it's it's a slice of paradise. We are so happy with it. 

Elizabeth F.  49:16  
We've come to learn that it is quite possibly the oldest house in the town, and we also found out that--we didn't think anyone else was interested in this house to be honest, but I think we were at that point, a bit naive to the COVID market and what it was doing and how so many people were looking in these rural locations. It's quite rural, and we didn't know that there was someone bidding against us that apparently was like maybe or maybe not going to keep the house, and we--we won. We paid $70,000 for it, and we are keeping the house. I mean we-- I am so set on keeping this house. It's, I feel like this house, landed in the luckiest hands because we really love it and I'm very intent on making it feel like it's from 1777, which is the earliest place we can date it to. It's quite exciting.

Stacy Grinsfelder  50:06  
Have you started work? Are you doing the work some of it yourself?

Elizabeth F.  50:08  
We are. We're doing a lot of the work ourselves. The house needed a lot of structural support, which is something that we didn't know how to do ourselves, and so and we felt like, look, we're not going to do this twice. We're going to do this once, and we're going to do it right. So we did hire that part out, and, you know, I just want to say, and I'm probably the worst person at spreading this around, but you don't have to do everything by yourself in your house. I want people to know that that's a very important thing. Everyone has a different schedule. Some people have young children, that's very hard to do work when you have young children. Some people have very demanding jobs and not a lot of time, and if you have the means to pay someone to do certain aspects of your house, you have not failed at all. That's great. And so I just wanted to throw that out there. I think that there are some people that believe in doing everything DIY. There are some people that can hire the workout and are perfectly fine. Doing that either way is fine. As long as you have the best interests of the house in mind, however you want to go about it is okay.

Stacy Grinsfelder  51:04  
I agree. And I feel like I don't say it enough, either because I do tend to be so much-- to do so much DIY, but honestly, that's all motivated by budget for me. I mean, if I could do it differently, you can darn well bet I'd do it differently, at least in some cases. So I agree with you, there are many scenarios in which hiring someone is better for your mental health, better for your physical health, better all around. So there is no shame in that whatsoever.

Elizabeth F.  51:31  
I was talking the other night to Veronica and Paul, who I mentioned before, who are featured on the show, and their farmhouse in Pennsylvania, and they said-- they like to do a lot of DIY as well,but they said they always like to, in every major project, have, pay a professional to do one aspect of it because it'll push you over the hump enough to say, okay, at least one thing is done, and then you get motivated. If you have a lot of open jobs going on at the same time you feel like you're never going to get over that hump, and I thought that was really good advice. They kind of splurge on one little thing in each project that they do. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  52:03  
That's really smart. 

Elizabeth F.  52:03  
So for this one, the house, the house was leaning, like in many different directions that didn't make any sense. We had to rebuild the whole foundation well. So a lot of the work we've been doing so far has been hired out. I think once we get to the more detailed interior work, and that sort of stuff. That's where I feel comfortable, and that's what I probably will do work on.

Stacy Grinsfelder  52:23  
Do you have a target? This is always such a silly question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. But do you have a target potential move in time? Or is this just kind of an ongoing project? I mean, you don't have to, you don't have to know.

Elizabeth F.  52:33  
We honestly don't. We, we live in a house that we love, and we would never have been able to have a second house if it wasn't extremely cheap, which is what it was, and so we don't have a timeframe that we have to have it done, which I am so happy about because I want to do it right. I don't want to rush any decision and, and I do feel like we're taking our time, and we're gonna-- and I think when we finally have it done, which could be years from now, it's going to be exactly the house that we love. We're extremely fortunate. I-- I don't take it lightly that we are able to do this kind of thing while also being in a comfortable house, but it feels really good to have that luxury right now. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  53:10  
Well, I have to ask because the last time I talked to you, you were talking about what kind of fireplaces you liked, and one of them--you said that you liked the large kind that are so big, like a Hansel and Gretel thing where you could stand in them. Does your cheap old house have a giant hearth? 

Elizabeth F.  53:21  
Sadly, it doesn't. It is not a central chimney. It has chimneys on either side. This house was originally built as a federal house, and then it was Greek "revivalized"sometime in the middle of the 19th century, and we don't know exactly when, and a lot of-- and there were a lot of changes that were made over the years, and I'd like to bring it back to being federal inside although the outside is quite Greek revival. It unfortunately doesn't have that central chimney to be able to have those fireplaces, and they're really, it's also had its chimneys removed. They were originally internal chimneys, and then they were taken down, and then sometime in the 1970s there was an external chimney built on one side that was not a great chimney, and it came into a very tiny little hearth. So we took it down and we're actually planning to rebuild those in-- those internal chimneys, but I just don't see any way that we could squeeze in one of those, one of those beehives, or those those gigantic fireplaces with a beehive oven, but it is still it is still very alive in my dreams, believe me.

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:19  
Maybe an outbuilding or something at some point. You could build an outdoor kitchen and have your very own

Elizabeth F.  54:26  
That would be very cool.

Stacy Grinsfelder  54:28  
All right. Well, it was so lovely to catch up with you again Elizabeth. Thank you for coming back.

Elizabeth F.  54:34  
Stacy, I could talk to you forever. I just feel like you you get it, and I really mean it when I say-- so our house has some original windows. It has some replacement windows, but all of them are old, and so I'm excited to-- that's kind of the thing that I said I want to do. I want to do the windows. I want to figure it out, and so I probably will employ your expertise at some point to help me do that. I really mean it when I say that, 

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:01  
Yeah, I would love to do that, and there's something very, very satisfying about restoring old windows. They are always a source of a little bit of frustration. There's always something unique and different about each one, and when you're done, and you stand back, it just feels so good. So it would be my pleasure to help you with that Iwould be honored. In fact. 

Elizabeth F.  55:19  
That would be awesome. We will make it happen.

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:21  
Why don't you tell everybody again, how they can watch Cheap Old Houses and where they can find you. It's truly a fun and really educational show. It was great entertainment, and I loved it.

Elizabeth F.  55:31  
Well thank you for saying that. It is, it-- the run has concluded. It was a 10-episode run on HGTV, but it is available at any time to stream the entire season on Discovery+, and you can always follow us on Cheap Old Houses on Instagram or Facebook and find all the information there as well, and if you go to CheapOldHouses.com, which is our website, there's information about the TV show there as well. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  55:54  
Well, hopefully we can grab coffee together in person sometime in the future, but until then I will see you in my computer and on my TV. 

Elizabeth F.  56:03  
Thank you Stacy. 

Stacy Grinsfelder  56:04  
Thank you, Elizabeth, and thank you for listening to True Tales From Old Houses. To continue the conversation, be sure to follow True Tales From Old Houses and Blake Hill House on Facebook and Instagram, and for more information about this episode, including show notes and transcripts, visit TrueTalesFromOld houses.com. Until next time.