In 1975 producer Russell Morash hired the Silva Brothers to build a garden for his PBS show, The Victory Garden. Seeing their work and meeting the Silvas, Morash was inspired to create a show about home renovations. Today there are numerous such shows, but then the idea was very new and very risky. In 1979 the production company purchased, renovated and resold a small home for their first series, and the show's enormous popularity drew in viewers, and has ever since.

Each year, the show typically takes on a larger contracting product in the spring and summer, somewhere near Boston, and a smaller project in a friendly clime during the winter months; for these smaller projects, the show often recruits local help, bringing in its well-known experts for just a few episodes to introduce the locals and explain what they're doing.

Several shows, such as The New Yankee Workshop and Ask This Old House, owe their existence to this groundbreaking effort.