Hanging Tight onto the Juggernaut Notion - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 42

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 1 - January 23, 2026

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 41 - April 23, 2026

To use the word reluctant, rather than openly admitting my fears, would soften things up to make the mishandling of my opportunity to be on TV different than I should. Without a doubt, I was in a precarious position because I’d moved ahead with the networks without having clear, spelled out plans, or at the least, some form of vague parameters on what we were moving ahead with together spelled out in a documented form.

That was the opposite of wise. It would be like driving to the west coast without a map or navigational system for guidance, just being okay asking people which way to go enroute. Even the uber faithful would set off with a reasonable strategy.

My handling, or lack of, might be an example of the warning about not meeting your heroes. I revered HGTV and that created a weak spot in my ability to evaluate circumstances. That’s an excuse I’m willing to own.  

Big picture, looking ahead down the long road, and even now in hindsight, sticking with our thought out and talked over planning would have been better for all involved—my family and I, contractors and tradespeople, the production company and its employees, and the dual networks. Victories around the table. Ignorantly, I just thought we’d gravitate back to where we needed to be. But in the end, it falls on me to admit that I knew to put things down on paper, at the least so that the network and the production company could have a written record of what each of them were saying to me.

In benefit of the doubt concluding, producers had a lot going on, many more rehabbing shows than ours in South Carolina. Which only goes back to the responsibility being on me, even if I realized it too late. From the point of in getting turned upside down, I was in salvage mode: doing whatever I could to still get on the home improvement juggernaut to save face.  

*

In the final days of pilot filming, a Charleston news crew was dispatched to come visit. They wanted to grab a few minutes of footage of the activity, maybe interviewing me and members of the production team or contractors.

On one hand, this development sounded really good to me. I wanted as many of our friends and neighbors as possible to have some confirmation that I hadn’t been blowing things out of proportion for three months, that I actually was working towards an opportunity with HGTV/DIY. Local news coming to see me and us would legitimize what we’d been telling people, not because we were tooting our horns, but because we had to explain as part of getting ready. Although not everyone we’d told would have seen me on the news, word would have spread and that would have been long overdue enough.

Yet, being candid for those reading as well as myself, this possibility made me uneasy. What I said and how I said everything on camera for this pilot episode would be edited by the network producers. But if I was interviewed by one of the local stations, they’d have been able to craft it however them deemed appropriate and necessary. And that made me uncomfortable, and probably the showrunner as well because the network needed to control the tone of the episode and they didn’t know just what they had on film yet.

We were starting on the outside and this really had me off balance from day one—I’d never really gotten over the start-at-the-end plan-of-attack. I’d been trying to explain someone else’s, or some committee’s choice, but it had been a two-week struggle.

Sequencing of a rehab is critical to its schedule and budgeting. Some wiggle room is alright, but wackiness like starting on the outside costs a lot of time and money. I’d been solidly stoked about the project before everything was flipped. But my enthusiasm and confidence were shaky, rocked off my point-of-view foundation.

Typically, interior demolition is an exciting phase, my first chance to really see how the house is built or has been added onto. Potential to utilize natural light becomes clearer. I begin to understand the history of the home better by seeing what’s beneath plaster and sheetrock.

And building the carport for the pilot would have been such a fresh gust of life onto the half acre site. This addition was over five hundred square feet of area to work under. The completed, connected side porch would have created a covered thoroughfare into the front part of the house that was being reestablished as the heart of the home just inside from the one-of-a-kind front porch. And having the new roof on, a leak free interior was also something that would have thrilled me, organic energy I needed on camera.

I could have easily talked to local news folks about this approach, but what we were doing really made me jittery, frail without concentrated effort, and lacking the needed conviction that was lost within the surprising change of plans.

So even though I’d been shooting straight about this chance to rehab my next house for producers, and local news would have made it all known right then, I was okay that they been told to stand down. The production company reps called the station, discouraging reporters from making the trip. It was made adamantly clear that local newspeople would not be given access to the project, me, or anyone else working on behalf of the networks. They didn’t really need to explain why. I realized it was for the best.

It was one of many missed opportunities and another example of my own, private over-optimism.

*

The pilot filming wrapped on schedule, a week before the Flowertown Festival kicked off, when the town of Summerville would be flooded just a few blocks away with thousands of visitors. Even though producers had heard about this event, as well as the Cooper River Bridge Run on Saturday of that same weekend, the film team was back to their homes in Minnesota and Southern California before they were able to see any of this excitement for themselves. This is another situation where I fell short, unable to keep them in town for the region’s big weekend.

I’d thought I was more prepared for this moment than I really was. Maybe it was hopefulness eclipsing actual certainty. I’d been outmatched and outmaneuvered, wilting when I needed to emerge and thrive. 

This had me in an unenviable position, just trying to scratch and grind out enough out enough to get HGTV, at least once, to avoid going down in flames as some laughable fraudster who'd tried to get people around him to buy into silliness. 

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 43 - April 29, 2026

You Can Do It

I wrote in my preceding post (Step 9) that renovators working solo or as a team need to get a handle on their own capabilities before banging away at the walls.  Although I believed that it had to be included as the next step on my list, I also felt conflicted about posting it because I want to encourage people to renovate and writing about limitations feels like it's going against that attitude of encouragement.  I love resurrecting the run-down properties I buy and really want others to experience home renovating as I have.  My bottom line message is: You can do it.   

 

There's nothing wrong with getting a hand from friends (or hired help), but don't sell yourself short either.  What you're able to do is likely somewhere in between doing every task on the project and getting out of the way, watching all the action from a safe distance, and then writing checks.  Step 9 - Know Your Limitations is intended as a reminder of that.  

Most of you probably learned to ride a bicycle as kids, but you certainly have a few stories about spills you took as you learned to ride.  The first time I rode a two wheeler, I was clueless about the breaks and stopped when I rode into the side of our barn.  As you arrive at the down and dirty truths about what you're capable of as a do-it-yourselfer, you may have some wipe-outs. (see Vinny Had the Right Attitude).  Furthermore, you might find yourself in a jamb and maybe you'll have to call a professional to get you out of your predicament.  It's okay if that happens and just remember that it's part of the business of renovating your own house.   

If you have a home renovation dream of your own, go for it.  Just remember to be careful and exercise basic caution, discretion, and common sense.

 

The Negative Can Be Positive

When I bought my first Pig's Ear to renovate, I was full of hope and optimism.  I was excited because I saw the house's potential.  I imagined how it would look when I was done and accepted how bad it actually was on the day I took ownership.  In addition, I was like Cliff (played by Matt Dillon) in the movie clip from Singles shown below:  I didn't want to hear anything negative.  But people poured it on me.  And the same thing happened with Pig's Ear #2, PE #3, and so on.  As I started each project, I was flooded with comments such as: "You can't save this place.","Are you going to try to do this all by yourself?","You'll never get your money back out of here.","Where's your help?","This house has to be torn down.","You can't have this place done in a year.","Do you really know what you're doing?", and on and on.  This wasn't all coming from one or two people, the sources of the comments were numerous and diverse.     

On the outside I was trying to display a friendly smile and act as if these things were rolling off me like water from a duck, but I was like Cliff and I really didn't appreciate the discouraging words.  I sure didn't feel unstoppable.  I felt vulnerable because I was heading into unfamiliar territory.  I had plenty of construction experience, but I'd never worked on anything that had been condemned.  What I needed was some encouragement and as much as I wanted the pessimists to be wrong, they had to be, because I had no options short of bringing those places back to life. 

I listened like a gentleman, but like Dillon's character described above, that negativity did make me stronger.  That stuff echoed in my head and kept me working even later into the night and got me out of bed early when I was tired and sore.  It drove me and filled me with inspiration.  It motivated and molded me into something more capable.  I'm still polite when someone comes onto my site with words of gloom and doom, but now I'm ready for the barrage of pessimism.  Now, when someone says, "You can't save this house.  Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into here?", the visceral response that usually comes to mind is:  Whatever.  Get out of my way.  Go over to the other side of the street, take a seat, and watch me.   However, what I actually say next is something like, "I've saved houses a lot worse than this one."  I couldn't say that back in the 90's, but I can now.  It delivers the message I need it to so the naysayers get out of my way and watch.

If you're buying an old house to renovate, restoring a classic car, or doing something else people have a tough time wrapping their minds around, be ready for less-than-supportive comments, remember the scene above from Singles, and let the negative energy just make you stronger.