'Houses with History': Rustic, 19th century Barnstable House gets a facelift
‘Houses with History’, the popular home renovation show on HGTV, takes us to West Barnstable. The Barnstable House is one of America's oldest, vintage houses, built at a time when the house's coast served as a port side for a successful trading market.
On the episode that aired on October 27, History geek, Mike Lemieux, and professional carpenter, Rich Soares, looked at some of the oldest, vintage houses in Massachusetts, while they take a look at the properties and decide which house will be their next home renovation project.
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'Houses with History' is an up-and-coming home renovation series, based out of Plymouth in Massachusetts. This house transformational series looks at houses and barns built by early Americans in the New World. For this, the producers research fascinating backstories of America's oldest houses.
Mike and Rich finally take a call and decide on the Barnstable House, which is a little rustic cottage type of house, that was built in 1800. In 1630, West Barnstable was a popular port town for trading, and people would come here to sell fish oysters, and all kinds of agriculture.
The Barnstable House is quite cozy and adorable at first glance. Mike points out that the builders put a lot of thought into it, as the roof was slanted; to have the snow slide off easily. Moreover, there was a perfectly built chimney, to keep the inside of the house warm enough for a fireplace. There was also a completely shattered wall on the inside, left for them to fix, it seemed like!
Having said that, they noticed that the outside of the house needed some serious repair work since the cedar shingles were literally falling apart.
Mike and Rich talk to Jen about their plan, after which they get to work. The team decided to tear down and remove a wall in the kitchen so that there's more space for a nice bar area and will give the kitchen a dining space as well.
Here's a clip from Jen's Instagram of the Barnstable House.
'Houses with History' airs every Wednesday, at 9 pm ET/PT on HGTV.