Run My Renovation: The Dirty Details

I'm back to let you know how it all went down!

But before I do that, looked what I whipped up on Sunday before their arrival.

It made perfect sense to me at the time--should I clean or make the curtains that I've been meaning to make for the past year?  Make curtains, of course!  And, for the record, our house was clean upon their arrival.

Our days started bright and early as the crew started to arrive at 7:30am each day.  With only one bathroom and two people getting ready for their close ups, plus a dog that needed to be walked, my day began at 5:30am every day.  It's been a while since I've seen that number on my alarm clock.  5:30 came especially early when I was climbing into bed at midnight as I did on Tuesday and Wednesday.

After much deliberation and a last minute wardrobe change, this is ultimately what I wore.

Just ignore the wrinkles as I may have pulled the clothes out of the hamper to snap the picture.  I was so paranoid about showing some crack that I also wore a long tank top (the same color of the tank shown under the tee) that I tucked into my jeans, plus I wore a belt.  No way was my crack being exposed!  There was a cold snap during the first two days of shooting so when we were outside, I had to sport the hoodie. When I wore it, I had on five layers.  Remember that when you watch the episode (five layers I'm sure is equal to ten pounds camera wight!).

The crew consisted of 12-15 people.  It was quite a sight to see all of those cars parked on our road and all the people milling about the house.  I'd love to show you that sight but somebody forgot to use her camera.  For three days!  (People, if you're going to have a TV crew over to your house don't be like me--whip out your camera and use it!).

If I had used my camera, I would have shown you:

*the cars lined up on the street
*our guest bedroom full of camera equipment
*our driveway turned make shift workshop
*Bryan on the roof installing a sky light
*Joanie and John doing interviews in our front yard
*Bindi being an angel (I swear the crew should have their own show about training dogs!)
*Bryan being interviewed in our driveway
*our kitchen full of food
*our freezer full of Rita's Italian Ice
*yours truly using a power saw

And so much more!

The entire crew overall was one hard working bunch.  From the build crew to the production crew everyone worked hard and had great attitudes and personalities!  You could tell they all loved their jobs.

Everything is sounding pretty peachy keen so far, huh?  Well, as far as having a ton of people working in your house, they made it very easy on us.  As far as what the on-line voters chose for us, let's just say that's when things weren't so great!  There might have been some groans here and some grunts there.  I might have been caught on camera listing all the items that would be changing as soon as they pulled out of the driveway (it wasn't a short list).  It's so easy to focus on the individual elements of a room when it's bare.  But when they called us up for the reveal, well I might have fought back tears.  Happy tears, of course.  It was unbelievable!  Suddenly I didn't notice the things I didn't like and just marveled at how the room feels.  It's large and light and airy and has a cottage feel which is what we wanted all along.  In short, if asked if I would do it all over again, the answer is YES!

Now are you ready for some juicy gossip on the hosts?  This was not my first brush with home improvement celebrities so luckily I knew how to behave.

Why yes, that is me with David Bromstad.  And yes, he is super cute in person!  And he thinks I'm adorable.  Seriously, he told me so!

But that won't stop me from spilling all the dirt!  Working in the South is rubbing off on host John DeSilvia.  He may be from Brooklyn, but I heard him say the word "winder" as in "so next we're going to install this double-hung insulated winder".  Seriously, that word came out of his mouth.  Ok, ok, he might have been repeating what I said but still, I think he's going to have a Southern accent in no time.

And Joanie Dodds, while she may be a pretty model, let me tell you she is totally a geek.  She's a former band geek (I can use this term because I was one myself) and is currently a word geek.  In fact the whole crew was comprised of word geeks.  They were all addicted to the Words With Friends app and Joanie helped a few of the guys score some high point words.  I find myself itching for iPhone now just to play the game (I used to kick some Scrabulous booty back in the day--was anybody else addicted to that Facebok game?).

That's all the gossip I got.  Juicy, huh?!

All in all, it was a surreal experience seeing our space transformed right before our eyes.  One we'll never forget.

In three days, our attic went from this:

 
To this:

Oops, sorry!  A wall was built at the back of the stairs.  It kind of blocks the view from this angle.  Guess you'll have to wait for the afters.  Run My Renovation will premier August 19th on the DIYnetwork.  With thirteen episodes it will wrap up sometime in Novemeber.  We don't know yet when ours will air in the line up but I'll make sure to let you know the date.  It'll be interesting to see what we changed and what we kept.  Who knows...we may have already made some changes!  Stay tuned!

For previous posts about Run My Renovation, click  here, here, here, and here.