Renovation Realities

I'm not sure everyone knew this, but this past weekend HGTV and DIY network from cable television filmed a reality TV show at my house this past weekend. It was a project to renovate a shed in my backyard into a music studio. This is how it went!

Well, it was a crazy weekend! The crew showed up Thursday afternoon, did some principle photography shots. They do these "stylized shots" where they move the camera around from right up in your face, to the room around you, and focus real fast on something else. It may look cool on TV, but you have to stand there forever while they do these, and hold still and stare straight in the camera lense. Kind of crazy. So Thursday, that is all we really did. Friday, they showed up at 6:30 AM, as I was getting Alec ready for daycare. They followed me to daycare, then back home. Kevin was supposed to show up at 8 AM to start shooting, he was about a half an hour late, they have plenty of shots of my staring at my watch.

Once Kevin showed up, we had this Kerosene heater set up to help the paint and such dry, and neither of us could get it lit. Apparantly the igniter was broken, which my dad didn't tell us, so we had to call him, but we finally got this running. this was one of those moments they will probably edit together with Kevin and I struggling. Wasn't too bad, but kind of funny. Next, we started demolition of the interior of the shed. During tearing out the stuff, I kept talking about a mouse that I'd seen in the shed before. Then, when we opened up the old closet, my dad has placed a giant stuffed rat looking thing in the closet, and it scared Kevin and I pretty darn well. My Dad was pranking us all weekend with stuff like that, he had a huge rubber snake in the attic, and a bat ontop of some shelves. Silly, but funny, I'm not sure how much of that will make the final air. When demoing the oil furnace, I thought I had shut the fuel line off, when infact I had reopened it, because my dad had shut it previously. So, when I pulled the fuel line off the furnace with a wrench, number 2 diesel fuel started spilling onto the shed floor, probably my biggest dumb moment of the weekend. I crimped the hose and then reshut the valve. Then, we pulled the doors off of the shed to set the new ones in, which we had to then make the opening bigger for the doors, which was really tough. Once the doors were in, we wrapped for the day, then they set up time elapse cameras for Kevin and I that night. We shimmed the door and then mud and taped a little, till 2 AM.

At 2 AM, Kevin got a call that his wife was going into labor, about 2 weeks early. We started shooting the next day outside of Beamont Hospital, they interviewed Kevin on the street infront of Beamont, where he informed us Pauline had given birth to a 9 lb 6 oz. baby girl named Lyla. Pretty cool moment for the show. Then, I needed a new helper for saturday, so my dad stepped in and all we did was pretty much argue. It should be pretty funny, infact, we gave each other a lot of crap. We went home and built a small deck for the outdoor section of the heat pump (heating and cooling unit for shed, a Daikin unit that I sell - a nice high end high efficiency unit) I was putting in. Also, we painted the ceiling and smoothed the mud on the walls a bit, at the end of the day I stained the concrete floor (which I have to redo because the crew walked on it when it wasn't dry).

Overnight, my friend Dave and I wired up some new lighting (didn't quite finish), and Honor touched up the ceiling paint. I called it a night around 3 AM, then got up Sunday at 6 AM to head to church to do my new parttime job (music team leader at the Rochester location of Kensington Church). I got home around 10 AM, where dad and I started to prepare to hang the indoor section of the heat pump, which we also bickered through (some funny stuff). Then, about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, Kevin showed up again willing to help, and Kevin took over for my dad. Kevin helped me (did most of the work too) build a window and frame for the shed attic, which worked out very well. They took some final shots, and left my house around 7:30 last night.

It was the busiest few days I've had in a long time, but it was a LOT of fun. The show will be the season finale of this season, airing in December or January. I will be watching it for the first time right along with you guys, they do not send me an advance copy. The crew was exceptionally nice, and warm, even though it was 40 degrees outside and they froze their Tennessee butts off. We had a great time with them, they liked our family so much they suggested we do another project for them down the road at Kevin's house, as long as the show edits well and airs well. All in all, it was a very cool experience.

The remaining items for me to do (to receive final payment) are painting the wall and trim (they didn't care about seeing that stuff on air, because they found it boring), wiring and piping my heat pump (all planned out and easy for me, they didn't want me to do it on air because I started to talk through it and they found it too technical, plus they had enough other stuff), gloss coating the floor of the shed, finish the wiring, putting in the doorknob and lock, and I'll be done. I have 2 weeks to send them pictures of the finished project, with the band equipment moved into it.

I'm excited to have the project completed fully! They thought that we hammered out all of the big stuff on camera, which was important.

It was really difficult because it takes forever to do one task, because they stop you so much to get you to explain it to the camera, and then they change angles and make you stop what you are doing. I wasn't prepared for how long everything would take.

But all in all it will be a fun show, I hopefully didn't make too much of a fool of myself! Kevin and Dad were amazing help, and great on the show. I can't thank them enough! I also can't thank Honor enough for letting a film crew come into the hosue for 4 days and take over, she was amazing! I only wish they would have had her featured a little bit more in the show, because they led me into some sayings of "I'm being evicted to the shed" and such, when Honor has been amazing about all of this, and in the end the result is that I get a mancave!

Take care! Jon