New Orleans' Old Houses In The Spotlight

Rashida Ferdinand sits in front of her house in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans on Monday. The television program, "This Old House" will cover in great detail the rebuilding of her 1892 Creole shotgun-style home. The show's 10-episode series featuring New Orleans area homes is scheduled to begin airing nationally next month on PBS.
Alex Brandon: AP
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Audiences will follow homeowner Rashida Ferdinand, 32, a fourth-generation resident of the neighborhood, as she rebuilds the home she purchased in 2004, about a year before Katrina smashed levees and inundated her home with floodwater.

As cameras rolled, her home was buzzing with construction workers hanging drywall and installing French doors.

A ceramic artist by trade, Ferdinand called finding the home "a blessing" because of its lot size, art studio out back and location near the Mississippi River. But it was the history of the neighborhood she cherished most.

"The 9th Ward was a place of pioneers, a place where people found land, built on the land and started communities, especially right here along the river," she said.

Though it's taken more than two years to rebuild her dream, Ferdinand expects to be in the house by February. She's "on the forefront of the rebuild" in the Lower 9th Ward, said This Old House host Kevin O'Connor.