This Old House

The Nantucket House - 4

Our master carpenter goes lobstering with contractor/lobsterman Pierre Garneau, who has a family license to put out 10 traps. At the house, mason Dan Kissell takes down the unneeded (and unsafe) chimneys, careful to salvage the old bricks, which can fetch up to $2.50 a piece. Homeowner Kathy McGraw Bentley is assigned the task of cleaning the bricks of their old mortar. Engineered lumber arrives on site, in time for reframing to begin both inside the building and on the platform left by the recent demolition of the kitchen ell. We learn how to mix the perfect motar with the masons, who are beginning to build the concrete block foundation for the new addition. Inside, job foreman Patrick Hehir and the crew work to insert a new engineered lumber beam into the second floor system, and begin to sister on 2 x 8s to the existing 2 x 6 joists.