Better Than New

by Nicole Curtis

  Things moved quickly. We shot the reel, and Mary Kay and her cameraman left. I was on pins and needles.

  Summer was over, so I went back to Detroit to get Ethan, feeling much more secure in Minneapolis than I had been at the beginning of the summer and excited about the new possibility of the TV show. Returning home, what did I hear from Mary Kay and John? Nothing . . . just crickets.

  Being superstitious, I didn’t want to call them and jinx things. I tried my best to just put it to bed and not think about it. I had a lot going on. So I focused on getting Ethan up to speed in school, running around like crazy showing houses, and starting work on the 20K house. After a couple of months, I figured, Okay, having a show wasn’t meant to be. I’m not going to stress out about that. But then I got an e-mail from Mary Kay saying, “We’re shopping it around and we’ll let you know if and when we hear something.” Hope has a way of flaring up like a fire you thought had gone out. In spite of myself, I started thinking about the show, and dreaming of everything I could do with it. Still, I heard nothing and just went back to work.

  The house was a lot of fun to renovate. When we first arrived, a family of squirrels was living in the ceiling. When we went outside, they would run outside and throw nuts at us. Squirrels are territorial. They didn’t care that I held the deed. I was in their space. We discovered a nest of babies that were in danger from the ceiling crashing in. So one day Slade crawled into the attic and caught the squirrels. He said, “Nicole, I have to throw them down to you.” I ran upstairs, held out my shirt like a safety net, and safely caught each of the babes. As an animal lover, I would never disturb nature, but had we left them, the squirrels would have died. Slade had made a huge cage for them, and his wife and kids were very excited to have the squirrels at their house for a while before releasing them into the wild. I think of moments like this when people say, “Oh, you flip houses” (as if it’s that easy). Ethan came by every day after school, and we set up a cardboard box in the dining room and ate dinner there every night.

  Summer soon turned to fall, and the house was done in record time. I took some quick photos and listed the house on Craigslist and MLS at the same time. The next morning, as I was driving Ethan to school, I got a call from a buyer who asked me if I could show the house in an hour. He said, “I hope you don’t have any offers, because I’m a cash buyer and I’m pretty sure I want it.” I thought this was too good to be true. After all, it was a buyer from Craigslist. I dropped Ethan off and drove to the house. The buyer had been in the house for only five minutes when he said, “Would you take five thousand dollars less for a cash deal?” Yeah, yeah I would. Just like that, my twenty-thousand-dollar historical investment house was sold. That little house proved what everyone else didn’t believe: There was a market for restored old homes that didn’t have open-concept floor plans or granite counters. The neighborhood I loved so much wasn’t lost; indeed, it was ready for a comeback.

  At the 20K house, Ethan was part of my crew.

  Right as I sold the house, I got an e-mail from John Kitchener. “We’re sorry. We tried. We took it to HGTV, and they don’t want it.” He sent me a promo of the show the network had picked up, Tough as Nails. It was disheartening, not only to miss out on the opportunity, but more so because I truly believed there was a need for a show about historic houses. The one they chose was just more of the same—new construction. I accepted that my show wasn’t meant to be.

  I didn’t have a TV show, but I was on top of the world with the sale of the 20K house. I was hungry and I wanted more. While we had been working on that house, we had also closed on Minnehaha. Work there was slow and steady; nothing could be done on the inside until everything structural was done on the outside. We had different subcontractors working on that, and I was focused on selling houses to pay for all the work. I came across a great deal, another foreclosure on Lyndale Avenue. Christopher and I did the numbers and thought, Why not? The profit from a quick redo and sale on that house would help speed up the remodel of Minnehaha. We would have to finance the Lyndale house, and we were in the process of setting that up when another agent in my office asked me to consult with her clients. They were a middle-aged couple who wanted to get into flipping houses. The agent had shown them several houses and nothing had panned out. I met with them, and after a long discussion, they offered to be my investors on Lyndale. Christopher and I discussed it, and we agreed that it was a good way to get moving on the property.

  I was so busy at the time—getting the Lyndale deal together, preparing for everything that needed to be done on Minnehaha, and selling houses—that sometimes I wouldn’t check my phone until I walked through the door at the end of a long day. One Thursday I got home about seven at night. I walked into my dining room and took off my jacket, dropped my bag on the table, and checked my phone. There was a whole series of missed calls, all from the same number. I recognized it—Magnetic Productions.

  I rang John Kitchener and got a warm greeting. “Nicoooollle!”

  “Hi, John.”

  “I sold your show today.”

  “You what?”

  “I sold your show.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. We need to start filming right away. Are you still working on the Grand Avenue house?”

  I told him about the Lyndale house and he said, “That sounds great. Mary Kay will call to set up a shoot schedule.” A shoot schedule? We hadn’t even closed. Things had just gotten interesting.

  As the realization sank in that I had a chance of having my own TV show, the first people I called were my grandparents, then my parents, then my brother. I thought, I have this wonderful opportunity—why wouldn’t I share it with my family? Christopher was working more than sixty hours a week and Slade had a couple of weeks to give me, but then he had to leave for another job. I told my family, “We’re doing this together. This is going to take off!”

  My dad and my brother, Ryan, agreed to come to Minneapolis to be part of the show. They signed contracts with Magnetic, and Ryan brought my cousin along as an extra pair of hands. We jumped right in on restoring Lyndale, and straightaway some big problems became clear. In filming a TV show—as with restoring a house or building a business—the devil is in the details. You’ll always be hurt worst by what you don’t know.

  The process was brand new to everyone involved. When you watch a home repair show on HGTV, everything looks organic. It’s like the camera just happens to be there at the exact moment the plumber makes the crucial hookup, or while the carpenter finishes installing those new shelves. The host explains it as if everything happens without a hitch. But all that is a TV illusion, carefully crafted by professionals.

  We were far from professionals. The truth was, Magnetic had never done a show like Rehab Addict. Along with The Vanilla Ice Project, it was the first docu-reality series for Scripps (owner of HGTV and DIY Network). It was a new business and they were still straightening out the kinks in their own operation. We were filming willy-nilly. And I was lost—at one point I even agreed to hair and makeup after they said, “She looks scary on TV without makeup.” For two episodes I looked like a bridesmaid from 1987 as opposed to myself. I quickly ended that. Anytime anyone was doing anything—installing a patch in an oak floor, taping new drywall, securing a sink to the wall—we’d film everything, with no idea of how it might be used to create episodes. We didn’t even have a formal story editor or producer, which is the very first thing any TV show should have. So basically we just shot all day without an outline or direction, which was—in hindsight—insane. It would be like cooking everything you need to feed a family of thirty Thanksgiving dinner and then to realize that you only have one guest coming and they’re vegan. Needless to say, much of the footage ended up on the cutting room floor.

  The filming made the job site chaotic. Things quickly turned testy. My brother had left behind a girl he had just started dating in Detroit, the woma
n who would become his wife. So he was homesick from the minute he landed in Minneapolis. My house was packed with five guys and me, meaning nobody got much privacy or alone time. In addition to filming and renovating, I still had my real estate business, sometimes doing four open houses in a weekend. Everybody thought everybody else wasn’t doing their fair share of work.

  On top of everything, one of my allegedly “silent” partners wanted to tell us how everything should be done. When I was tiling a bathroom floor, he showed up with notebook and pencil in hand, pulled up a chair, and watched me work while he took notes. Then he researched tiling online or in some home-improvement book and came back with suggestions on how it should really be done. It was the worst kind of irritating. No surprise that tempers got mighty frayed before long.

  Our family of four.

  To make matters worse, money was short all around. People assume that when you have a show, you’re raking in the cash. Our show was still being shot as a pilot, which meant there was no money being paid out. If the network liked it, they would order a whole season, which typically would be thirteen episodes. In the meantime, I was responsible for paying everyone and buying everything. In the six months it took to finish the Lyndale renovation, we cobbled together all of two and a half episodes. Not a great start. Oh, and you only get paid per episode—known as an episodic rate.

  We had been working at Minnehaha around the clock, and it boiled down to about $2.25 an hour—I was right back to the days of my strawberry field wages. There was nothing to do when we finished Lyndale but wait and see if the network liked it. No one wanted to stick it out in Minneapolis. My family headed home and Christopher and I finally called it quits.

  The one good thing that came out of all that frustration was that the identity of the show became clearer. Of all the mistakes we had made starting out, one of the worst was that we didn’t have a distinct vision. Was the show going to be about me and my family and crew, with everyone develop­ing as a character? Were we going to play off interpersonal dramas? Once everybody left, it became clear that Rehab Addict should be about saving old houses, period. Those months spent filming the Lyndale house were a learning experience for everyone, and learning experiences are rarely pleasant.

  Lyndale had become this huge, out-of-control project. Funny, because looking back, I now see it as a really simple project, especially given all the houses I’ve done on the show since. The good news was that the network liked what they saw and ordered a whole season—thirteen episodes. Magnetic hired a story producer and two shooters/producers. This was a huge deal for them as a new company and a big deal for me. There are not too many people in the world who get their own TV show. I knew I had to deliver if I wanted this to be sustainable. With a new film crew and a new plan in place, we all moved on to Minnehaha.

  But after seeing what little money there was to be made, my family decided to stay in Detroit and not continue on with the show. I couldn’t blame them. I was at least at home while filming and I had my real estate business to supplement my income. We moved forward. Ironically, Christopher stayed a contributing member of the “cast” because, like it or not, we still owned Minnehaha together.

  John Kitchener had kept his word when he promised the next project would go smoother; he threw me a team composed of three experienced workaholic women just like me: Liz, Katie, and Christina. I watched and learned as they taught me how to outline episodes and story produce. The goal was to only shoot what we knew we wanted to put in the show. We had Post-it notes on a wall outlining the four major segments we’d need to cover for each episode. Once the segment was shot, down came the note. Lyndale had been an education in how a show like Rehab Addict works, how the episodes are formed. Minnehaha was where I put that learning to use.

  But even with a good episode plan and being organized, there was no getting around the fact that Minnehaha would require a massive amount of labor. At the behest of Magnetic, I hired a general contractor. The contractor assured me he would get the work done on time, and for pennies. Most people assume that because my houses are on TV, all the work and materials are paid for. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. Every dollar counts. Minnehaha, even for its horrible state, was not cheap. The renovation cost easily hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  Christopher was forever complaining about how much money it was costing and how long it was taking, even though he was rarely on the job site. I’d say, “Get your ass to work then, and we won’t have to have as many people on the payroll.” Our relationship was anything but friendly at that point. Imagine Christina and Katie’s surprise when they found Mr. White Collar wearing grubby clothes and staining the basement floor with me. My hope is always that once someone experiences the muscle burn of manual labor, they’ll appreciate what hard work it is. This wasn’t the case with Christopher, but like I said, I had hope. At one point, I had to finish painting the fireplace and Christopher was nowhere to be found, so everyone put down their cameras and there I was alongside Christina and Katie painting into the night.

  As paint went on the walls in different rooms, the majestic character of Minnehaha really began to shine through. And we were wrapping episodes at a fast pace. The show was beginning to come together like a real TV show. However, we were still months behind schedule. Even though the house wasn’t finished, Rehab Addict premiered on October 14, 2010. The intent was that all thirteen episodes would be complete, but Minnehaha was so far from finished that HGTV aired five episodes and then put us on hiatus so we could complete the work.

  During that hiatus, we scrambled to get the footage for the last eight episodes, and when I say scrambled, I mean we worked day and night. Minnehaha was our second home. And in those early episodes, you often see Ethan playing in the yard with his buddies. Ethan was still young enough that he and all of his friends wanted to be on TV. One of my favorite scenes was me having a snowball fight with Ethan. We were living and breathing Rehab Addict.

  Recording voice-over for the first season.

  Once we had filmed the last episode on Minnehaha, the cameras went away, the work trucks drove off for the last time, and the house looked wonderful. Wonderful, but not even close to finished. The magic of filming a TV show is that you decide where the camera looks . . . and where it doesn’t. In Minnehaha, as in every house featured on Rehab Addict, the project is never finished when the final episode wraps. I inevitably have a mile-long punch list of final details to complete before the house can be listed, much less sold.

  Ethan was on always on-site at Minnehaha.

  There I was still working away on Minnehaha, now solo, when I got a call from Christina at Magnetic. “Hey, Nicole. We’re ordering another season.”

  “Oh, good, great.” I didn’t really know what to say. I was exhausted. The good news was the show was a hit. People were identifying with my love for old houses. I wasn’t surprised, but I’m pretty sure the network was. From the start of filming on the Lyndale house, my life had been like running downhill with scissors in my hand; I had just enough control, but not as much as I would have liked. After I finished the phone call, I was excited about the new season, but two things loomed over my head: Christopher had just moved out of the Yellow house and it was all mine but we were still at odds about what to do with Minnehaha, and I also needed to find a house for Rehab Addict, season two. It was almost more than I could process.

  But I took a deep breath and told myself that the more important thing to keep in mind was that Ethan was happy in Minneapolis. I was finishing up work on the house of my dreams, and I had a new career that, although I didn’t know where it might go, was sure to lead somewhere exciting. All in all, there were more pluses than minuses.

  I didn’t set out to be on TV. It never really occurred to me. But I learned early on that opportunities are a gift. When they pop up, you don’t hem and haw about whether it’s the right thing at the right time. You don’t worry about the work and frus
tration they will require. You certainly don’t worry about all the things that could go wrong at any given point. Focusing on potential problems is a good way to freeze up and do nothing.

  Christina, Katie, and me all painting the Minnehaha fireplace (left and center). The finished room (right).

  No. You take advantage of opportunities. That means being a little fearless in going after them. If you always worry about how much you’re risking, you’ll forever say no to potentially wonderful adventures. I mean, despite all the tension, I don’t regret falling in love and moving to Minneapolis or going on TV. Those were risks worth taking. Those risks are the price of admission to living a rich, full life. Most of all, I have no regrets about Minnehaha, my dream house. Even though that house has been like a stake through my heart, I loved it . . . but eventually I would have to learn to let it go.

  Chapter 3

  The Thing with Having a Big Mouth Is that You Have to Back it Up

  dollar house

  Imagine you discover your house is sitting on a bad foundation, a crumbling base full of top-to-bottom cracks and buckling surfaces. Now imagine that’s the foundation of your life, that what you thought was certain and true was actually false. That love was hate, and that the plans you assumed were your future actually were an illusion. What a shock, right? Well, whether the problem lies with the house you’ve bought or the life you’ve made, the answer is the same: Start rebuilding at the bottom, where the problem is, or anything else you build will be doomed to collapse.