'Ask This Old House' comes to Wilmington

Joel Saufley first e-mailed PBS' "Ask This Old House" seven years ago, desperate to find a solution to the creaky stairs in his 1918 brick rowhome in Union Park Gardens.

Saufley moved into the English Garden-style home with his wife just before the housing market crash. It was their first home and the honey-do list quickly multiplied.

A few months ago, Saufley tried his luck again with his favorite home-improvement television show. This time, producers responded within two weeks. Vacationing on the Outer Banks, North Carolina, the couple initially thought it was a prank.

"We've been really big fans of the show since we were kids," said Saufley's wife, Jane Chesson.

Chesson grew up in a 1920s Palmyra, New Jersey, home where her mom was always knocking down walls. Since moving into Union Park Gardens, the couple has completed several weekend projects, including landscaping, painting and installing a kitchen backsplash.

But they wanted to leave the electrical and plumbing to the experts. Chesson, 33, works as an adjunct arts and humanities instructor at Wilmington University and Saufley, 35, is a financial analyst.

On Wednesday, show host Kevin O'Connor, master plumber Richard Trethewey and a film crew rolled into Delaware for their first-ever taping in the First State. Neighbors snapped photos of their branded trailer and caught a candid O'Connor munching on lunch.

Now airing its 13th season "Ask This Old House" is the spin-off of the long-running and award-winning "This Old House." The show tackles smaller home repair projects than the original, which meant that Saufley couldn't get his annoying stairs fixed.

But Trethewey did spend the morning installing a new pedestal sink in the couple's miniscule bathroom to replace a cracked one. Wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans, the plumbing guru drilled holes into the wall to mount the new sink before moving into the hallway to deal with all the piping hidden in the pedestal's leg Then he attached it to the home's drain plumbing.

The only snag came when Saufley and Trethewey miscalculated the size of a pipe needed. Then it was off to Home Depot. Even the big shots hit up the hardware store every now and then.

"You have to be a bit of a contortionist to get into those spaces," Trethewey said. Later, he complimented Wilmington for its "rowhouse feel" and revitalized downtown core.

Delaware was among a half-dozen states that the show somehow missed all these years, according to senior producer Heath Racela. The others are South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Alaska and Hawaii.

The couple's Gilles Street home was the team's only stop in the First State. They spent the week planting a butterfly garden in Washington, D.C., crafting a rain barrel in Baltimore and replacing an outdoor sconce in Philadelphia. The Delaware episode is expected to air early next year; no date has been set.

O'Connor, a cherub-faced 46-year-old, said his co-workers are all "reluctant TV personalities."

Word on the set is that "all the guys with the big egos are gone," he continued, without being more specific. Former host Bob Vila left the show in 1989 following a dispute over doing commercials.

The biggest issue with DIY homeowners, O'Connor said, is that "every single one of them underestimates how long and how much it's going to cost."

The Irishman knows from experience. He and his wife bought an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian home outside of Boston that took nine years to renovate. Now, they own a 1950s home, which is "relatively young" by "This Old House" standards.

The show has never had a project go so haywire that it never made it on air, according to O'Connor. But he remembers carpenter Norm Abram's reaction to an abandoned, foreclosed home in Boston from season 29.

"It should've been torn down," Abram whispered to O'Connor.

After the sink was installed and Saufley and Trethewey practiced their reactions with different inflections for the camera, it was time for the babyproofing segment.

The couple's 9-month-old, Helen, is starting to crawl, so show producers sought advice from a representative with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

In the end, the three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot home was equipped with safety gates at the top and bottom of the stairs (screw-in preferred at the top), plates on all the electrical outlets and support brackets to anchor furniture and a flat-screen TV.

Chesson was thrilled by the opportunity to meet public television "rock stars." O'Connor even retrieved the couple's mail.

In the stack was a copy of "This Old House" magazine.

"I didn't plan that," Chesson said.

Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.