Laura Testino
This Old House, TZP Growth Partners
Acworth, GA | University of Alabama
I was eight years old when I quoted The Waterboy to the movers as they hoisted the dresser from my parents’ bedroom, down the hallway of our one-level ranch, and then out the front door to the moving truck.
“You can dooooo it!”
I said, with surprising gumption, after nonchalantly glancing up from my journal. It was spiral bound and from that year when animals with eyes exaggerated ten-sizes too large for their heads had been plastered on birthday cards and notebooks and at the bottoms of chain emails. The movers thought I was some eccentric combination of hilarious and creepy, probably, so they laughed, but not enough to send them doubled over and out of breath, unable to remove the dresser from my home. It was moving, and so was I.
Thirteen years later and my family is still living in the new house, and I am a thousand miles north in the middle of midtown Manhattan, quoting The Waterboy again as I try to weave a dresser through an office with cubicles to the freight elevator in the back hallway.
“You can dooooo it!”
Moving that dresser was my last This Old House magazine task on the tenth floor of 135 W. 50th. Formerly a Time Inc. publication, This Old House magazine was sold and began operating under This Old House Ventures, LLC, in April. I moved the dresser on a Friday in the end of June and on the following Monday I went to work at 262 Harbor Drive, which looks out through rows and rows of docked sailboats and over the Atlantic Ocean: a calm and pleasant view from Stamford, Connecticut. I will go ahead and disclose that yes, on occasion I gaze out over my cube, through the glass office windows and toward New York City (though in all reality here it’s probably Long Island, but who has ever gazed longingly at Long Island?), and that yes, in order to have that view, I commute for four hours each day. I play a scheduling game that involves a subway and the Metro North and a shuttle bus to the office, during which I have an exorbitant amount of time to read magazines and books and also sometimes write things (like this).
“You can dooooo it!”
Whether through words or dance, Laura loves to tell stories. Notable inspirations in- clude: Harriet the Spy, Doug the Pug, Joan Didion and Belle.
Each day in the office is a full day, whether I’m researching for an upcoming story, fact-checking, or on occasion, writing print content. And moving a home magazine was indeed similar to the time my own family moved homes: there were some before days of manual labor and packing, some after days of reorganizing and figuring out how in the world everything works (e.g. the server and phones and internet and email).
It was sometimes challenging, always fun. This Old House is full of seasoned editors, who have done their fair shares of working together to build and design and decorate homes and furniture and many other projects, all in addition to creating the magazine – a piece of a brand that also incorporates the original of home renovation television shows and a newly redesigned digital site. I learned so much from this phenomenal group in just ten short weeks, and they’ve made me so excited to pursue a career in magazines. It’s wonderful to have these people rooting for you –
“You can dooooo it [too]!”