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Bob Celebrates Highlights of Home Renovation
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" Hi I'm Bob Vila -- welcome home again. Today I'm celebrating it's been 25 years and I've been on TV. And we're going into our fifteenth season -- Bob -- so again so today I thought we'd take a close look at some other projects that we've been involved with over the years some of the friends that we've made a little reminiscing and close look at some of the things that all of us -- roofers have -- I wanted to do this special episode here in Roxbury Massachusetts. And royal governor William Shirley it's Georgian mansion because it's not working monument to conscientious home improvement. Peter Harrison was called America's first architect designed this house well before the revolution. And it's the only remaining country house in America built fire royal colonial governor it's seen lots of residents come and go experienced a lot of neglect over the years. And yet partly because of that neglect its arrives today to receive the respect and care it deserves and home improvements also come a long way in the last couple of decades in the fifteenth season of home again we've built or remodeled over thirty homes. It all started back in 1989. After a decade of hosting this old house on public television I decided it was time to move on and it started Bob Vila's home again."
" We started to close to home. Building an authentic little Cape Cod style house right on Cape Cod complete with a salvaged else trucked in from another site down the road. Then we headed to Chicago for a little urban pioneering in a gray stone to west and it's little carriage house out back with some amazing results. In our second season we give a little ranch house a facelift and headed south to make an old cracker cottage into a funky Florida get away. And in the third season we've built a gorgeous Victorian on Martha's Vineyard and converted dated Malibu beach house to a Spanish style fantasy -- all the trimmings. We added a second story to a suburban ranch. Revived a federal antique in Charleston green house this is -- added on a greenhouse with Martha Stewart one. And built an energy saving cabin in the woods. There was a fanciful tropical kitchen in Miami and a practical colonial addition. Then I did my own house and abused shingle style grand -- restored to its former glory in Iraq except with more bathrooms. A studio city bungalow and a post and beam barn follows that. And then we spent some time in the city affordable housing and accessibility in Roxbury a neighborhood in renewal. And an artistic loft conversion and Boston's leather district we had a great time building a house in just a week with -- an army of habitat for humanity volunteers in Yonkers, New York. And then we headed to Virginia where the governor needed a little work done on his house what -- project -- Welcome back we explored sustainable design in a new urbanism community then joined a group of homeowners to take back an entire neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. One project in response."
" It was all about farm houses in season twelve. -- remodeled dairy became a -- suburban residents and new construction blended with its neighbors in quechee Vermont. We built an enormous new ex urban house to look like it'd been -- for 250 years. And just recently rescued a diamond in the rough. From Brooklyn's waterfront and explore the wonders of modular construction in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts. These projects have run the gamut over the years from the simple facelift to what I like to call the gut rehab. But no matter whether you're doing a small affordable project or whether your building out of fantasy vacation home -- just doing some repairs around the house or some repairs around a major neighborhood. I'm reminded in looking back that there are certain things that all of these successful project have in common they involve planning carefully. Respecting history and building for the future."