The Time We Were Featured On The Property Brothers As The Dream Home
- May 30, 2017
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 17
Early on in my quest to launch my decorating business, a really cool thing happened. Our home was selected to be the “Dream Home” for an episode of the hit HGTV show “The Property Brothers”. It was a really crazy experience, probably because it was a crazy time for our family. We had our house listed for sale and it had been on the market for awhile. What drew the producers to our home was the kid friendly spaces, which felt like a really amazing affirmation for me. In particular, the family in this episode had 3 kids and had specifically requested a playroom. Because we had our house listed for sale, I had most of our kids toys stashed out in the garage. I agreed to turn my office into a playroom for the show and I had only 4 days to make this happen! What was rather shocking is that the show doesn’t provide you with any help in the staging process, so it was all up to us. Saying that I didn’t have help would actually not be totally accurate… I did have some “help” from my faithful assistants!
The girls were happy to see their toys again! And did I mention that we adopted a puppy the day I agreed to do the show?
Looking back on it now, I realize that it was pretty crazy, but at the time I was running on pure adrenaline! I was both overly excited and pretty stressed about preparing my home for it’s TV debut. I was no stranger to trying to have the house clean and staged but being on a TV show took my stress to a whole new level!
The day of filming, I cleaned right up until the crew politely told me it was time to go! I knew there was a policy in place that I was not allowed to meet the Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew. But I was a bit shameless and stalled as long as possible. I could tell I was making the guy in charge a little uncomfortable…he was probably thinking “are we going to have a potential stalker situation on our hands here?” So I finally left. I may or may not have sat in my car parked sort of in front of the house, waiting to see if I could catch a glimpse of the action. #shameless
Jonathan and Drew did leave me a signed postcard on my counter (yes, I know it was the Production Crew people, but indulge me on this!) as a thank you for all of my hard work. This seemed like the makings of one of those cheeky t-shirts… “the Property Brothers came to my house but all I got was this lousy postcard!”.
Later that evening I was chilling on the couch with my new little puppy and a hard-earned glass of wine. I was doing some online stalking of the show and the Property Brothers.
As I was scrolling around their website, an image immediately caught my attention…there was something very familiar about it. Turns out, Jonathan had posted a picture on his social media feeds of himself standing in my very own family room holding onto Sadie and Stella’s princess dresses!
The caption on his photo was “Ug, I never know what to wear”! This was pretty exhilarating for me, I have to say. To see a picture of this celebrity standing in my family room? Pretty cool!
Looking back, I am still amazed at what we were able to accomplish in such a short period of time to prepare our home for filming. Between raising three young children, getting our home market-ready, and making sure every detail was camera-ready, it was certainly a memorable experience!
More than anything, I remember feeling incredibly excited and honoured that our home had been selected as the "Dream Home." As an HGTV enthusiast and aspiring designer, it felt like such a special moment. Little did I know that 13 years later I would be running my own interior decorating business and still sharing my love of home design with others.
Below is a clip from the episode. Watching it today always brings a smile to my face. My design style has certainly evolved over the years, but I can still appreciate the thought and effort that went into creating a home our family loved. I especially enjoy seeing the playroom, a space I worked so hard to pull together for our kids, and hearing the brothers joke around in a room that held so many happy memories for our family.
Jonathan and Drew, if you are out there reading this, thank you for featuring my home at such a pivotal time in both my personal and professional life! If you ever come back to Vancouver, I would love to work with you!
Here are a few more pictures of the playroom I staged, all snapped in quite a rush on my iphone, so excuse the poor quality!
xo, Kerri
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