Domestic Do-over

by Kate McMurray

  He’d never watched the channel much. He did every now and then, but often the contractors did double duty as hosts of the show, and much of what they did was so staged that Travis found it awkward to watch. He doubted those guys even had their contractor licenses; what were they doing wielding sledgehammers?

  But working on a mansion in Victorian Flatbush definitely tempted him. He’d walked by those houses dozens of times—he lived not far from the neighborhood—and he’d been itching to get his hands on some of the more dilapidated ones. So though he didn’t care about being on TV, this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  As he walked up to the house now, he saw that even though filming wasn’t supposed to start yet, workers were already setting up TV equipment in the tiny front yard.

  Travis was supposed to meet with Brandon Chase, do a walk-through of the house, and get more information about how filming would go. He had no idea what to expect, especially since the whole place was already crawling with people.

  Then Brandon Chase walked outside. Travis recognized him because he had watched a half-dozen episodes of Dream Home to find out what he was getting himself into. What he’d learned was that Brandon and his wife Kayla flipped houses, mostly in suburban and exurban New Jersey and upstate New York. Each episode showed one house. The flips were never straightforward, but then, house flips rarely were. They bought houses in terrible shape in order to maximize profits, and turned them into modern, neutral houses intended to appeal to a wide range of buyers. Although Brandon swung a sledgehammer around and got his hands dirty a couple of times an episode, the role of the hosts seemed to be mostly to do the cosmetic stuff like picking out tiles and paint colors. Their tastes had struck Travis as very bland. His friend Sandy might point out that this was bound to happen when they didn’t have a homosexual handy.

  Brandon was handsome and charismatic on television. He was tall, with broad shoulders, tousled blond hair, and greenish eyes that shone in the sunlight when they filmed talking-head interviews outside. Travis had thought him sexy in a made-for-TV kind of way, but now, in the real world, he had some regular-guy charm. He had on a lightweight jacket open over a plaid shirt and a pair of well-worn but nicely fitted jeans. So he was appealing—but also married, so Travis shoved that aside.

  Travis walked up to him. “Hi, I’m Travis Rogers, your new project manager.”

  “Yes! Of course. Great to meet you.” Brandon held out his hand. “Let me just find Virginia and then we can get started on the walk-through.”

  Brandon ran back into the house and returned with Virginia Frank, one of the show’s producers. Travis had met her at the Restoration Channel offices the week before, when he was still considering whether to come on board. She was a tall woman with curly red hair, dressed to the nines and not like someone who’d enjoy getting dusty walking through a construction zone. Her emerald green suit was an odd contrast to the crumbling house.

  She clapped her hands twice and said, “I’m so excited, guys. I want to start with just a brief explanation of how this is all going to work.”

  Travis felt a little awkward about being thrust into this situation right away. Virginia pointed to a set of four folding chairs set out on the porch. Before he sat, Travis said, “Is the porch structurally sound?”

  “The wood is just a facade for a stone porch, actually,” Brandon said. “I already checked.”

  Travis nodded and sat.

  “So, here’s the deal,” Virginia said. “We will be shooting the first season over the course of about eight months. The plan is to have the renovations overlap some, but not so much that it becomes an undue financial burden. So we spend two months on this house, but then start our second house before we wrap up this one, and so on. It will be an hour-long show, one house per episode, and we’d like to shoot eight episodes, but will do six if that’s all the houses we can manage to finish in eight months.”

  Travis tried to school his face. That was an awfully ambitious schedule. Judging just by the peeling paint and boarded-up windows on the outside of the house, a ton of work was probably needed inside. This was a three- to four-month job, easily. “You’re saying this house has a two-month schedule?”

  “We’re hoping to have it done in sixty days, yes,” said Brandon.

  “That seems… optimistic.”

  “Time is money,” said Virginia. “Two months to make an episode is a long time, and the longer we hang on to the house, the higher the odds we’ll lose money on the project. So we need to turn these houses pretty fast. Not to mention we want to capitalize on Brandon’s name and the public moment he’s having.”

  Brandon moaned. “Do we really?”

  Virginia sipped from a travel mug as she eyed Brandon. “I want this show on the air before your fifteen minutes are over.”

  Brandon sighed. “In a few months no one will remember who I am.”

  “Precisely. I mean, I suppose we could still trade on your family name, but I’d really prefer to bolster you on your own merits.”

  “Did something… happen?”

  Brandon and Virginia both turned to Travis. Virginia tilted her head like a confused dog and said, “Brandon and Kayla got divorced. Kayla cheated on him. It was all over the tabloids.”

  Travis shrugged. He didn’t pay attention to that stuff. He tried to read between the lines here, though. Did Virginia want to capitalize on Brandon’s tabloid fame in order to attract viewers to this show? That seemed sleazy.

  “Let’s not relive it,” Brandon said. He looked embarrassed, so maybe he wasn’t on board with Virginia’s plan. Something about this hooked Travis’s attention. Something had happened here, and Travis was surprised to find he cared about what that was.

  “Anyway,” said Virginia, “Brandon runs the show. He does interviews directly with the camera and does the voiceover to explain what we’re doing. But you, Travis, will have an on-camera role as well, as sort of the voice of the crew. We’ve hired two teams that will work in eight-hour shifts to get the project done, and your role will be to manage both teams. You don’t necessarily have to be here the whole time. In fact, once we get the second house, you’ll have to be over there too. We’ll work out a schedule that works for everyone. We want you to give regular reports to Brandon on camera, and in particular, to report if we have issues with the house. We may ask you to weigh in on design decisions, and you probably have a good sense for what things will cost, right?”

  “Sure,” said Travis.

  “So that’s how we see your role. Brandon will be getting in there and helping with some tasks too. We want some footage of him installing floors and tiles and things.”

  Well, that was just what he needed. Travis rubbed his forehead to mask his reaction and said, “Is that safe?”

  “I’m a licensed contractor,” said Brandon, sounding a bit defensive. “Having me do some of the labor on Dream Home saved us some money. I’m not qualified to do the engineering or structural tasks, but I can paint and install floors, and I like doing the cosmetic stuff anyway. It’s like putting my own stamp on a project.”

  “All right.” Travis tried to picture Brandon working on a house. Travis had worked on dozens of projects just like this, full-gut renovations that were sweaty and labor intensive. He tried to picture Brandon doing something tedious like laying floor tiles wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt stretched over his torso, and… well, it was a nice image.

  “We can discuss more as we walk through the house. Essentially, this will be a renovation project just like every other one you’ve worked on, but we’ll be filming it. The camera crew will be much smaller than all this.” Virginia gestured around her. “We’re doing orientation today.”

  Travis looked around, worried about what he’d agreed to. “Can we take a look at the house?”

  “Yes!” said Virginia. She stood. “Let’s take a look.”

  As Travis feared, the house had a lot of major issues. On top of the bare minimum things like patching the floors�
�if they could be patched—and replacing the windows, there were mice and likely other pests that needed to be exterminated, the electrical and plumbing probably needed to be replaced, and to be competitive in the market, they’d need to upgrade the HVAC. But the house itself was quite charming. The woodwork, the old sconces in the hallway, the ceiling fan in the living room, and the curly maple banister were among Travis’s favorite touches. But even all of those needed to be cleaned and refinished.

  There was easily a hundred thousand dollars in repairs needed just on the first floor. “You really think you’re going to get all this done in sixty days?” Travis asked.

  “It will be a tall order,” Brandon said, “but Virginia’s right. We have to try, or we’ll lose money. And you’re probably only looking at repairs and upgrades. Wait until you hear about my design changes.”

  Oh boy, here it came. “What do you want to do?”

  Brandon led Travis and Virginia into the kitchen. “It starts here. We gut everything. Nothing here is salvageable. The cabinets are falling apart, the appliances are ancient, and I would advise against opening the refrigerator because something clearly crawled in there to die.” Brandon grimaced. “But we do new everything. New floors, new cabinets, new appliances. I have some sketches I can show you, but basically I want to take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and possibly even the wall between the dining room and living room to create one big, open entertainment space.”

  Travis nodded slowly. He didn’t love the idea of removing walls, especially since that would call for even more structural work, but he could see how that would make the space more functional. “All right.”

  “Then we do white cabinets, since this is a pretty small space. Light and bright to make everything look bigger. Light tile backsplash, white counters. Maybe we do an island in a contrasting color.”

  And so it went. Travis could see why Brandon made for good TV—he was handsome and smart and clearly in his element. However, Brandon’s design plan for the house involved making everything neutral and bland, removing all character from the house. As Brandon described the exact shade of white he wanted to paint the first-floor powder room, Travis finally interrupted him. “So your plan is to take a historic home and make the inside of it as generic and modern as possible.”

  “The space needs to be functional and appeal to enough buyers that we make a profit.”

  Travis crossed his arms and looked at the bathroom. The wallpaper, printed with marigolds, was hideous and clearly not original to the house—for that matter, this half bath was likely not original to the house either—but picking more interesting wallpaper or even just painting it a color that wasn’t white would be a better choice to keep it in line with the original design of the home. “Wouldn’t it be better to try to preserve as much as possible? Taking down that hallway wall would cause you to lose those beautiful sconces and the crown molding. I agree, get rid of the horrible linoleum in the kitchen, but the floors on most of the rest of the first floor are probably salvageable. Sand them down and stain them a color that’s a little more updated, and they’ll look great.” Travis looked at the floor. “You can’t just patch them because nobody makes planks in this width anymore, so it’s kind of an all-or-nothing job. But even if you do end up replacing them, this isn’t the sort of house you just put laminate in.”

  Brandon bristled. “I know.”

  “Not to mention the Landmarks Preservation Commission may not let you do your whole plan. I mean, they probably will as long as you maintain the exterior. I worked on a house in Park Slope last year in which we moved the kitchen to an entirely different floor and added an addition on the back, and the LPC was fine with it. But getting all this approved could hold you up for a bit.”

  “I’ve already submitted the plans. We’re just waiting on a final ruling.”

  Well, there was that, at least. Travis reached out and touched one of the hall sconces, then pulled his hand away and dusted his fingers off on his jeans. “I’m just saying, if I were in the market for a historic house in a neighborhood like this, modern and generic is not the aesthetic I’d be looking for.”

  “Fair point. But the LPC doesn’t care about paint colors, so we’ll see what they come back with. They likely won’t grant all the permits I applied for.”

  Travis nodded. He could sense Brandon’s irritation. He’d overstepped his role. “Sorry. It’s your show. Just saying.”

  “I’m anticipating a two-hundred-thousand-dollar renovation. Does that seem about right to you?”

  “Yeah. Hard to say for sure without getting a look at what’s inside the walls, but I think that’s in the ballpark.”

  Virginia clapped her hands twice again. “So! Regardless of the permit situation, we’re going to start filming on Monday. Travis, you’ll do the walk-through with Brandon on camera and let him know if you have opinions on anything. Mostly just agree and estimate how much it will cost. Can you do that?”

  “I can estimate the cost of labor and materials. But if you’ve got two crews working—”

  “Assume a straight hourly cost for labor. So, like, painting the first floor will take six hours at blah blah dollars per hour….”

  “Then yeah, sure, I can estimate costs.”

  “Great! You guys can talk on camera about how tricky it is to get permits from the Landmarks Preservation Commission and the kinds of issues you’re likely to run into in an old house like this. The house is ours now, so you can start taking apart walls or ripping out carpeting, even, if you want to find things. I know Brandon has already talked to an asbestos abatement company, and we’ve got electricians, plumbers, and structural engineers on standby.”

  Travis nodded. “We’ll need all of them. And an exterminator.”

  “But what do you think of the house?” Brandon asked. “That’s the real question.”

  Brandon looked earnest and hopeful, as if Travis’s opinion mattered here. But it didn’t; Travis was contractually obligated to renovate the house as Brandon and the network saw fit. On the other hand, Travis did like the house and knew it had the potential to be a beautiful home. If Brandon didn’t obliterate the house’s character.

  There was something here. Brandon clearly cared about the house, about this project. His taste was questionable, but he was knowledgeable about how home renovations worked. And there was a lot he wasn’t saying. His whole demeanor was practiced for TV, but Travis sensed that there was a lot going on underneath the surface, and a part of him wanted to get at whatever that was.

  “I love this house,” said Brandon. “I can see potential everywhere. Don’t you see it too?”

  Travis took a deep breath and nodded, because he could. “Yes. But honestly? It’s a huge job, but the house is charming and I’m excited to get started on it.”

  Virginia clapped her hands again. “And I’m excited to start filming!”

  Chapter Three

  THE VERDICT from the various city permit agencies was that they could do just about whatever they wanted inside the house as long as they preserved the outside and kept some of the original character of the home inside. The only thing they could really do outside was change the paint color, but that was okay with Brandon. He was mainly concerned with the inside.

  Brandon couldn’t help wondering a little how much his name had greased the wheels.

  He took some of Travis’s arguments about the house to heart. He still intended to tear down walls, but he could move the wall sconces Travis liked, preserve the curly maple bannister, keep the iron grate over the fireplace, keep the glass doorknobs on most of the doors, and things along those lines. He still wanted to do a modern kitchen, but maybe they could pick some antique-looking treatments for the bathrooms or do a feature wall in the living room with wallpaper that evoked the right era.

  The initial filming was going okay. If the dailies were anything to go by, Travis came across a little stiff on camera, but Virginia insisted it worked. Part of the story would be
that Brandon dreamed big, and Travis would have to tell him why he couldn’t do everything he wanted. That was good, because Brandon worried about going over budget. Two hundred thousand dollars, his budget cap for the project, was an absurd amount of money, but he knew it would go fast.

  In addition, Virginia insisted that viewers really liked when there was some kind of crisis in the house that had to be fixed. It added tension and kept people watching. So they were supposed to make a big deal out of any “surprises,” even though the budget accounted for all the bad things they expected to find. Travis played along, putting a particularly dramatic inflection on “asbestos” as he explained for the camera that it was very likely everywhere in the house.

  Brandon wasn’t totally sure how to feel about Travis. On one hand, he seemed kind of grouchy, and he clearly wanted to fight Brandon’s instincts to modernize the house so it would sell for top dollar, even though he’d gone along with the plan since their initial meeting. On the other hand, Travis Rogers was smoking hot. He had a lean but well-muscled body, likely formed from manual labor and not the gym. His light brown hair was a little shaggy, and he seemed to have his razor set for “scruffy beard,” because he always looked about the same level of unshaven. So there was some art to the I-don’t-care facade, but Brandon liked it.

  Of course, the world still thought Brandon and Kayla’s divorce was caused by Kayla cheating on him. The tabloids reported that Brandon was brokenhearted and lonely. Although he hadn’t welcomed the shakeup to his life, “brokenhearted” was perhaps stretching things, though late at night, he might admit to being lonely. On the other hand, he didn’t have time to be lonely, not with getting the new show off the ground. Most days he went home after filming, stuffed takeout leftovers in his face for dinner, and fell immediately asleep.

  Now that Brandon was helming a show as a solo host—contrary to the usual Restoration Channel blueprint of having happy heterosexual couples host all their shows—he felt like he needed to appear asexual on screen. He owned a mirror, so he knew he was a decent-looking guy, and he needed to remain the sort of handsome, nonthreatening man Restoration’s mostly female viewership liked to tune in to see. So even though his divorce was like a license to have sex with anyone he wanted without having to explain to the wife at home, even fantasizing about making a move on the project manager on his own home renovation show, with cameras everywhere, was an imbecilic idea. No matter how sexy Brandon thought Travis was.