This Old House Season 21 Episode 19 The Billerica House - 19

The final two days in Billerica find Dick Silva returning his beloved Model A truck to the new garage, which is nice and warm thanks to a natural-gas heater. Roger Cook and his crew are rolling out a bit of sod in the back yard, and Roger gives us a look at how he covered up the septic tank, moved the frog pond and replaced the old pavers around the pool with some beautiful granite coping by Roger Hopkins. Inside, oriental carpet expert Steve Boodakian extolls the virtures of a central vacuuming system'it makes vacuuming so easy that people tend to do it more often, which greatly extends a carpet's life. The front stairs runner receives its decorative brass hold-down rods. PC Computing magazine editor Paul Somerson reviews the house's computer set-up, which starts with a high-speed cable connection to the Internet. A "hub" allows multiple Internet connections throughout the house, so more than one user can be online simultaneously; it also allows all computers in the house to share any peripherals, like a printer or fax. The final pieces of linoleum go down in the kitchen, and we get an end-of-the-workday lesson on arming the security system, which unlike the old house's is connected to a central monitoring station. The next day, the guys admire the etched glass installed in the front door last the prior evening, then we tour the decorated house with This Old House magazine's Donna Sapolin, looking at each room through the eyes of a design editor who has a picture spread to put together. We see, and hear, the powerful yet nearly invisible audio/video system, including the remarkable flat-screen TV above the fireplace. At the closing party, Dick and Sandy show off their just-obtained certificate of occupancy, which means they'll be into their new home by Christmas.