#tom silva

[toh-incorrect-quotes]

('Louisiana Fairytale' plays as the camera pans right from a shot of the front of the current project house to TOM SILVA and NORM ABRAM, who are finishing up something ludicrous and impressive with a highly specialized power tool that no mere home handyman would own. BOB VILA enters from the left, yammering on about the project in his standard fashion.)

BOB: Of course, this sort of thing is completely out of my league so when we need something like this done well and done right, we turn to professionals like (points to NORM and TOMMY) master carpenter Norm Abram and his BFF, Tom Silva.

NORM: oh, hey, Bob. Hey, Tommy, look who's here. (TOM nods, acknowledging BOB'S presence. He shoots NORM a significant look.) Say, Bob, we were just wondering... You're here once a week, like clockwork, right?

BOB: Well, yeah, that's how we've been doing this for years now.

(NORM and TOM share another significant look.)

NORM: Right. Well, we just gotta ask ya- who runs Hell while you're here?

BOB (entirely at a loss for an answer) uh... nobody?

TOM: So you just leave Hell unsupervised for long periods of time? (TOM and NORM barely suppress giggles while BOB still fails to get the joke.)

NORM: He would. (He and TOM snicker and return to their project as BOB finally gets it.)

BOB: (obviously annoyed) Did y'all just call me Satan? (Shrugs. Has another thought.) Did y'all just call me stupid? (Another pause.) Oh, my God, you know what? Fu-

[saintlucyrepresents]

Michael Piazza This Old House

When This Old House magazine decided to retool and redesign their look and feel, they asked Michael Piazza to photograph the full cast of This Old House at their headquarters in Connecticut on a Covid-19 safe production. Michael spent the day with the host of the popular This Old House show, Kevin O’Connor; Tom Silva and Norm Abram, contractors; landscape expert Jenn Nawada; plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey; carpenter Nathan Hilbert; and the rest of the show’s cast. Michael’s portraits of the team are used on a special fold out cover, throughout the new Spring 2021 issue of This Old House magazine, and across the show’s collateral. 

From left to right: Richard Trethewey, Jenn Nawada, Kevin O’Connor, Tom Silva, Nathan Gilbert, Jenn Largesse, Mauro Henrique, Jeff Sweenor, Heath Eastman, Charlie Silva, Ross Trethewey, Mark McCullough, Chris Ermides

See the issue on newsstands now and more of Michael Piazza’s editorial and portrait photography online.

[yellowmoya]

Watching This Old House

Yeah Tommy Silva, teach me

Go mason Go!

Norm Abram, you are doing miracles in wood

Interior designer shows up with hideous colours.

[thisoldhouse]

This Old House magazine celebrates 40 years of This Old House TV with five different covers.

Cover #1: This Old House, September/October 2019. Tom Silva photographed in 2000 by David Carmack

Buy all five collectible covers here.

[seat-safety-switch]

Hello, I’m Norm Abram, and you’re watching This Odd House. Now, I know what you’re saying. “Norm, aren’t you usually helping genial New Englanders fix up their oceanfront condominiums?” Well, in my travels, I’ve seen a lot of phenomena that just can’t be explained by science.

You see, I believe that when people die inside a house, their spirit is trapped in it forever. Sometimes, when I do a renovation, their spirits come out from the wall or floor that I just pulled up and do a real number on the folks who live there now. I started going down to the public library and getting out books on hobby-grade exorcisms, nothing serious, just the kind of thing anyone can do at home. Got those ghosts right out of the homes, and back to a peaceful nonexistence. Then my producer thought, maybe there’s a show here. That’s what you’re watching now.

This handsome Victorian-style home in Rhode Island has six bedrooms and the long-dead soul of a Civil War general. Now that he’s been released, he cries out for vengeance against his heirs. I asked my buddy Tom Silva, a general contractor who has also never given up looking for the dark secret behind that one night in November 1987 where his car was attacked by howling orbs of pure energy, to come and help out a little. Tom?

Thanks, Norm. Now this kind of cedar plank-on-beam construction is really sturdy. It’s just too difficult to dismantle in order to fit your conventional smudging pots and dreamcatchers inside, so what we do instead is fill the area inside with the good energies from this xenon crystal I stole from the fortune teller of a travelling circus in Kansas. Forces this little sucker right out, and then you spring the trap. It’s so simple, but it has such a great effect on the appearance of your home. Look, the blood running down the wallpaper has immediately stopped.

Tom, it’s always a pleasure. Coming up after the break, we’ll fix a creaky oak stair tread and condemn a family of ethereal hell-dogs to the next plane of existence.

[lil-doodles]

Sketches from the other night while my wife watched This Old House. The other is Mabel Normand who was a silent film comedian and director. It is said that she taught Charlie Chaplin how to direct movies. I will probably do a better version of her later.

[thisoldhouse]

40 years of innovative tools, building materials and technologies from the 40th anniversary issue of This Old House magazine. TOH general contractor Tom Silva shows off his favorite drill/driver.

Photograph by Anthony Tieuli

[thisoldhouse]

How to Build a Simple Mudroom Bench

In just a few hours, Tom Silva and Kevin O’Connor turn a single sheet of MDF into a piece of furniture that provides both storage and seating

Full details and video at the This Old House website

Photograph by Colleen McQuaid