This is how I imagine an HGTV Anonymous meeting would begin. And I would 100% be on the list of attendees. House Hunters, Love It or List It, Property Brothers. You name it, I watch it if it's on HGTV or the DIY network. However, I stumbled across my all time favorite in the last couple months. Nicole Curtis's "Rehab Addict".
Nicole is not your average flipper. She restores old homes to their former glory (her words, not mine, but a completely accurate description). Working in Detroit and the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, Nicole takes condemned, abandoned, and just plain forgotten old homes and breathes life back into them. I can watch her show for hours. And I have. Shamelessly.
She's worked on a 1904 mansion, a 1920s bungalow, and 1880s farm house, and 1890s Victorian, and on and on. There's no house that she can't save if given the opportunity. After buying one house for a dollar, she literally raised the entire thing 4 feet into the air to rebuild a crumbling foundation. She can do anything.
She isn't always given the chance to save every house though. One episode, we watched as she stood powerlessly by as a home she had been trying to save was torn down. Another, she attended a hearing on a decision being made by the city to demolish two adjacent 1920s homes (they were constructed by a famous architect of the era, but I don't remember who), and the city approved demolition in favor of a new condo development. It can be heartbreaking to watch. I might have cried. (Spoiler alert: I did. Both times. And when she finally sold a house she'd worked on for 2 years. You should all know by now that I have a lot of feelings).
Her passion is something that I can really relate to though, and makes me respect her and what she's doing so much more. She isn't just sitting around waiting for her paychecks from HGTV. She truly cares about preserving the history of these cities; we are just lucky enough they decided to film her efforts. She always makes the challenges and rewards of historic preservation known.
On the one hand, it's expensive. The house she bought for a dollar? Repairing the foundation alone cost around $100k, but it was required by the city so it had to be done. It's not something that everyone can afford to do, regardless of how important they think preservation is. There are also always people trolling her on her Facebook posts and Twitter telling her how much more efficient new construction is, and that they're better off tearing down the old stuff for new. She's always quick to defend what she does though, and challenges "the haters", if you will, to really examine the carbon footprint of new construction and the quality of materials being used in comparison to homes built 100+ years ago.
The sense of community that she is building is as important, if not more so, than the individual homes she restores. Her philosophy is that revitalizing entire neighborhoods has to start with one house. A lot of times she is able to get volunteers out of the community to help, which helps achieve this. By teaching those around how important preservation is and showing them it's not impossible, she's hopefully prepping a future generation to continue continue fighting for these old homes. If you've never seen her show, stop reading this right now and set your DVR to record every single episode. You won't regret it. Plus, there are episodes on Netflix!
The Dollar House Exterior, Before & After
Rehabbed Dining Room. Gotta love pocket doors.
Sitting area. I don't recall which house this was in.
Before...
...and After.
Before: No Porch
After: Amazing Porch! All made from the outline of the removed original porch.
My hands down, ultimate favorite exterior transformation I've seen her do.
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