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!
Reflecting back on the experience, I am pretty amazed at what I was able to pull off in such a short time. I wish I would have pushed a little harder to be able to meet the Brothers. I think that given the work this show asks of the homeowner, it only seems fair that you would get a quick 2 minute hello. They did mail us a cheque for $160.00, but that barely covered the cost of the cleaners I hired. Not to mention the thank you gift I bought for our tenants who were required to be out of their apartment for the day. I would have way rather had the chance to meet the Brothers!
Below is a clip of the episode we were on, thank goodness for the wonderful world of youtube! It is so fun for me to watch this, although a little bit "cringey" because my style has really evolved since this house, it was 8 years ago after all. I especially love when they are joking around in the playroom I worked so hard to pull together!
Jonathan and Drew, if you are out there reading this, I worked REALLY hard to make my house beautiful for your show, next time you are in Vancouver, I think you owe me a meet-up at Starbucks. Vanilla latte please. Have your people call my people!
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