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4
)
F
orty years is a long time for anything to last—a
marriage, a restaurant, a business. It is almost
unheard-of for a television show. And there’s a good
chance that no one expected that to happen for a little
show called This Old House that sprang to life in Boston on the
local PBS station, WGBH, in 1979.
In 14 weeks, a crew of talented tradesmen rehabbed a
rambling wreck in Dorchester, MA—and viewers gobbled it
up. The show went national on PBS the following year, and
ever since, there’s been no looking back.
This year, This Old House is celebrating its 40th
anniversary, and the magazine that you are holding is a
celebration of that milestone. The show is the foundation for
everything that came later—the magazine, Ask This Old
House, the website, the Insider club. So we’re suspending
business as usual in this issue to acknowledge the
phenomenon that This Old House became.
Like many of you, I discovered This Old House early, as a
young woman living in kind of a wreck of my own in the
northern Detroit suburbs in the ’80s. Every week, my husband
and I would tune in on Saturday morning to follow the crew’s
progress on the current project, gleaning inspiration and
knowledge that could be applied to our own house. (You’ll
notice I said “could be ,” and not “was.”)
But many of you did take that knowledge into your own
hands. You watched the show with your parents, and then
later, with your children. This Old House taught you not to be
afraid of tiling a bath, building a deck, or demolishing a wall.
And as you tackled each new project , you would ask yourself,
“How would Norm do this?” or, “What would Tommy do?”
As Pam Stockham of Roeland Park, KS, puts it in Kate
Wood’s story “TOH ’s Greatest Hits” (page 52): “This Old
House is like meeting up with family each week.” From our
family to yours, here’s to another 40 years.
Look who’s 40!
BELOW: Trawling through decades of images for cover inspiration,
we couldn’t pick just one! So for this special issue, we’ve created fi ve
different covers, mailed out at random. You can purchase a special
collector’s set of all fi ve of these 40th-anniversary magazines by
going to thisoldhouse.com/collect and ordering yours for $25.
Supplies are limited, so please place your order now.
susan wyland,
editor-in-chief
40 YEARS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 THISOLDHOUSE.COM 7
Letter FROM TOH