Blood, Sweat, and Pig's Ears

The Key Ingredient to Finding the Right Project House

2026-11-02T17:48:06.051-05:00

Last month, I shared advice for aspiring home renovators: 5 Suggestions for First Time Renovators - October 5, 2026. This post will add to that by pointing out the value of patience in the house hunting process, the key ingredient and something I’m still working on.

There have been times when I’ve waited as needed for an ideal match. And looking back on my home renovating career, my best profit margins and also most enjoyable pig’s ears were the ones when I was the really thoughtful in this home search process.

It goes without saying that buying a home is a major investment, something that should be carefully considered. However, with the economic pressure of the real estate markets, fluctuating interest rates, and competition from others in the buying pool, the urge to pull the trigger on an offer can be immense. And when you factor in families, academic calendars, and proximity to friends, extra curriculars, or places of worship, sound judgment can get clouded too easily, leading to a circumstance that is less than ideal and overly burdensome on the driving factors of a project: budget and schedule.

I get it. I've been there. More than once because I really needed or at least felt as if I had to have the next project house sooner than later. Jumping into the deep end has certainly taught me some valuable lessons. And I’ve gained a lot from working my way through and out of some gnarly rehabs. House hunting more mindfully is prudent though, and for me at this stage, elaborating on the value of patience feels obligatory.

Learn from my missteps. Avoid being swept up by the pressures impeding on thoughtful timeliness. Have a solid grip on what everyone involved wants and needs, mix in time and money implications, and then pour on the patience so you can land on a property that makes solid sense.

5 Suggestions for First Time Renovators

2026-10-05T16:41:03.541-04:00

Last week, I received a note from a hopeful renovator asking for advice before they began searching for property that was to become the first project house.

For some folks and seasoned rehabbers, these suggestions go without saying. But to others, I hope this is helpful. Certainly, it's worth factoring in.

1)Think small - Much of your capital improvements will be based on the size of the home. For example, a new roof will be calculated by the required squares of shingles. HVAC calculations will be rooted in cubic feet. So many scopes and trade estimates will be arrived at based on square or lineal footage. So, if you're just getting your feet wet, smaller is safer.

Of course, the sales price will be based on square footage as well, but I'd rather have a small house to sell in a great neighborhood than a mansion that less buyers will be able to afford. The bigger, more expensive house will help the comps more on houses that are smaller.

2) Consider the School District - This is easier said than done because these sorts of homes will potentially be in short supply, and even a pig's ear will be come with a high dollar list price. However, if you can get your hands on the right house, success will be much more likely if the designated schools are well regarded. If/when you ever become the seller, it'll be easier to connect with a buyer if you're in a zone committed to educating its kiddos.

3) Remember Storage Space - From the beginning, a first-time home renovator should be mindful of the value of a garage, shed, or barn to store materials, tools, and equipment during a rehab. Plus, when the trades come in, you'll want your stuff out of their way so they can be safe and efficient in carrying out their designated scopes.

And if/when you move in, you will be glad to have some place to park, store bikes, yard equipment, decorations, etc. I've yet to hear someone say, "This house just has too much extra storage space."

This is going to come off as sexist, but in my experience, when potential buyers are sizing up your goods, men seem to appreciate storage space more than female buyers. Bathrooms and kitchens sell houses, and a garage or barn can seal the deal with the dudes.

4) Go for the Worst of the Best - Keep your eyes open for a run-down home in a nice area. More than once, I've invested in the worst house on the block, and sometimes the entire neighborhood. When you do this, there is no place to go but up because all the surrounding home values will help yours.

Side note: Most don't want to own the ugliest house on the block. I'm always pleased to see others step up their game when I start making noticeable improvements to the local eyesore.

5) Lock down your Pre-Approval - Hold off on a serious search until you know what you qualify for in combination for what you're comfortable investing in. I've been surprised by lenders willing to assign me more than I expected or needed but also be humbled by rejections. Before you find the perfect house, officially determine where you stand.

Happy house hunting and renovating.

Nicole Curtis and Weeping Mortar Joints

2026-09-07T16:44:45.538-04:00

My blog stats reveal two noteworthy things, and one that surprised me. What is plain is that home renovation queen and Rehab Addict Nicole Curtis and weeping mortar joints are subjects my blog readers want to know more about. The interest in Curtis was not a shock. But the visits to this site to read about weeping mortar was a surprise.

As I laid out in my Response to TV Viewers series, I have never met
nor spoken with Ms. Curtis. However, I respectfully and humbly consider her as a reason, direct or indirect, I had my chance to renovate three of my pig’s ears on American Rehab Charleston and Restoring Charleston.

Writing about her shows ended up being a good thing for me.

From the start, I appreciated the Rehab Addict and the projects it's star rehabber has taken on because in my own way, I could relate—condemned or unwanted property, jacked up additions, and salvaging materials with value. But I also liked the authenticity that came through. And something about how the projects unfolded felt organic, rather than overly planned out or orchestrated. And in the aftermath of making my shows, I am envious regarding this.

As much as I understand how Nicole Curtis in the title is a draw that leads to my posts on her, but weeping mortar joints still has me scratching my head.

Growing up in the Midwest and then the second half of my life in the South, I’ve had limited exposure to weeping mortar joints. My first rehab was my introduction to this sloppy style of bricklaying. However, I am guessing that it’s widely used in some parts of the country or continent or planet, because folks online are steadily finding Blood, Sweat, and Pig’s Ears, starting with WMJ posts.

So, to Nicole Curtis and weeping mortar joints I say, “Thank you.” And to site visitors looking for more about each of them, here are links to previous posts.

Nicole Curtis

Rehab Addict Nicole Curtis on DIY - April 24, 2012

Welcome Back Rehab Addict - Feb. 9, 2013

Nicole Curtis on Rehab Addict Grabs my Wife’s Attention - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 9 - Feb. 11, 2026

Weeping Mortar Joints

Embracing Weeping Mortar - July 13, 2026

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar - July 20, 2026

Grinding or Raking Weeping Mortar Joints - July 26, 2026

Chipping Off Weeping Mortar - August 3, 2026

Scaling Back on Blog Posts

2026-08-17T13:38:39.072-04:00

I kicked off this year with the Response to TV Show Viewers series from January and into July, with those articles falling into a Monday-Wednesday-Friday pattern. Since then, I've posted on Mondays while considering how this blog will fit in with my other work and writing.

Going way back, finding balance has been bumpy for me. And it was like this when I first started working for myself, and similar yet different after marriage and fatherhood, with me continuing to struggle to get a reasonable grip on some sensible, productive, healthy dynamic since.

Trent Fasnacht

These last several years have created new challenges and a fresh search for equilibrium that feels right. Within this ongoing phase, I've developed renewed appreciation for Blood, Sweat, and Pig's Ears as my place to share writing and then direct people who reach out.

For now, I am going to scale back here and Substack in order to refocus on larger writing projects. I will begin posting on each at the beginning of the month, coupled with a commitment to maintain this approach into 2027.

Until then, thank you, and have a great rest of your summer.

7 Phases of a Home Rehab

2026-08-10T07:39:27.342-04:00

Introduction – The process of finding the right project house is a prelude to rehabilitating it, and its own brand of fun.

1. Acclimation – Getting familiar with the property more deeply, including neighbors and surroundings.

2. Reckoning – Understanding and accepting what you’re actually dealing with and how to take on the challenges.

3. Bones and Deadwood – All the prep behind the sheetrock that should be buttoned up before rough-in begins.

4. Nerves and Tubes and Systems – Roughing in of plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and technical wiring may not be sexy, but it will make the house feel like a home when everything works as it should and is where it belongs down the road.

5. Glimpses – My favorite phase—insulation and drywall—when the house begins to look and feel as it was planned and imagined.

6. The Awakening – The finishing layers that will be seen, touched, and enjoyed begin to pop, sparkle, and shine room-by-room.

7. Home Stretch – Water is on, lights work, controlling room temps is seamless and it’s safe to bring in appliances, furniture, and window treatments.

Conclusion – For homeowning rehabbers, this is the honeymoon phase of the renovation. In the case of the flip, it’s bittersweet, a mixture of so many things that culminate in the final goodbye.

Chipping Off Weeping Mortar

2026-08-03T05:36:25.927-04:00

Recapping briefly, my first pig's ear had weeping mortar. And what made it a larger issue in the eyes of many was that it had been painted, greatly impacting the impression of this bricklaying. This was my first exposure to this style of masonry, and I wasn't sure how to deal with it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one visitor suggested I grind it all off, that I rake the joints. However, I knew this was more work than I wanted or needed to bite off. Since this house had been condemned, a livable situation that was a casualty of an out-of-control dryer fire, I had a long list of pressing scopes of work. And the clock was ticking since I’d agreed to a twelve-month timeline with my lender. Even if I could have connected with someone willing and able to carry out this task, it would have certainly wrecked my limited budget.

Raking the weepers myself wasn't an option. First off, flying solo grinding out joints that totaled nearly two miles would have worn me out. And I was hesitant about my ability to estimate the time (or pricey blades and bits) the grinding/raking approach would have required. Nearly everything about this option was unappealing. At this point in my career, I had years of construction experience but not much logged in residential work. Although I was curious, I knew in my heart (and gut) that starting down the raking path was a mistake. More than intimidated, I was certain I must avoid opening up what would be a huge can of worms.

I had an issue that needed a solution and eventually landed on chipping off all the weeping mortar. The picture above shows approximately fifty square feet of joints or 250 lineal feet. If I tried to rake all these joints, besides the time and cost, I would have had to take precautions so I wasn't breathing in grit during the hours of work I would be taking on. And I'd be faced with pushing through unavoidable fatigue, battling the chance that the grinder might get away from me and either damage bricks, or jerk into the wooden shutters or the frieze board under the soffit.

If you look at that picture again, keep in mind that I was dealing with this amount of chipping times a little over forty, greater than two thousand square feet. But as I mulled it over for several days, I became more comfortable with chipping it off as my best remedy.

Rather than jumping in, I decided to do a small sample area on the back side of the house, just to see how long it took and then ultimately looked. I did about two square feet in less than five minutes. Plus, I was surprised by how much I liked the textured joints this chipping created, and to me, it was better than the painted weeping mortar I currently had.

Two thousand square feet seemed immense until I arrived at my plan to break it all up into bite sized sections—twenty-five square feet at a time. I estimated that each would take around thirty minutes, adding up to about forty man hours. I built myself a 4’x8’ cubed scaffold to work the top half of the façade and fell into a daily groove. Then, I’d slide the box frame into place for the next day and move onto some other work on my list.

This no-power-tool approach wasn’t difficult, there was minimal dust, and I settled in on one five-by-five-foot area each evening after work, then double or tripled up on weekend days until it was all knocked out.

A month after starting, the end result was unique. I found it distinct and tasteful, contrasting with what I’d inherited at the closing. It felt like progress while the rest of the house was still looking pretty rough. And in a small town full of doubters, I began to win over a growing group of interested observers.

Links to recent posts on weeping mortar:

Embracing Weeping Mortar - July 13, 2026

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar - July 20, 2026

Grinding or Raking Weeping Mortar Joints - July 26, 2026

Grinding or Raking Weeping Mortar Joints

2026-07-27T06:26:31.385-04:00

Embracing Weeping Mortar - July 13, 2026

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar - July 20, 2026

As written previously, the first house I ever bought to renovate was a property with weeping mortar joints. And what made this more of an issue to the look of this home was that the brick façade had been painted.

Weeping mortar
Pig's Ear #1 - back side

There were many challenges I was ill-prepared for, both as a new homeowner and also in my role as first-time rehabber. Two biggies were the flood of discouraging comments from uninvited visitors. And the second was the fraternal twin: unsolicited advice. In most cases people were unwittingly thinking aloud. But I didn’t need hecklers making me aware of how this place would require much

more than a little TLC. There’d been a bright red tag on the door saying CONDEMNED – Unsafe for Human Occupation that had delivered that message from moment one.

During one of these visits, when I was immersed within the mix of work I faced, combined with the potential I saw in my mind’s eye, one chatty gray beard peppered me with how he thought I should deal with the solidified ooze framing each brick in my exterior walls. “What you need to do,” he said, “Is go down to the rental house and rent something to grind it off.”

Although I listened politely, I was less than stoked about this as a possible item being added to my growing to-do list. Yet still, I wondered if I was being hasty and mulled the idea over in my head for a few days.

And now, I want to explain why that recommendation may be the ideal solution for others, but for me it’s still in a mental file in my noggin that’s labeled No Bueno.

Perhaps I’ve accumulated more experience with the sort of equipment required to grind or rake these sorts of joints. It might just be that this man was unfamiliar with the rabbit hole/can-of-worms scenario he was proposing for me. And that’s what it would have been. Again, this is just for me. For someone else this might be a Jim Dandy solution to weeping mortar.

If I’ll get my money’s worth out of a tool, I’ll buy it. Otherwise, I am always grateful when I’m able to rent equipment. And if it’s something I’ll need for more than a day, and it’s possible, I’ll plan it out for a weekend since there is oftentimes no charge to have it on Sunday. It’s kind of a buy one, get one hack. And no one appreciates the BOGOs more than this guy.

So, if I rented some sort of grinding tool, I’d have been determined to max out my usage, getting the most out of the rental. I’d have planned on jumping on this grinding work to bang it out until I was either finished or forced to wrap at a stopping spot on Sunday. And this was why using a grinder didn’t seem like a solution for me, since it’s labor-intensive work, and I suspected slow going. I knew that after a few hours, my energy gauge would have been buried on E. And you don’t want to operate a tool like that when you’re out of gas. It’s dangerous and can get away from you quickly. And in my case, a loss of control would mean damaging my bricks. Plus, being cautiously practical, I suspected that I’d have been dissatisfied with my amount of progress. It wasn’t negativity over someone else’s idea. It was experience chirping in my brain.

Rake bits
for vertical joints

Rake Blade

In order to rake the joints of an eighteen square foot home, I would have needed a crew, and maybe multiple grinders and the ready supply of blades and bits to maintain momentum while the clock ticked. In 2000, I was new to Coastal South Carolina. I didn’t have folks to lend me tools, and I had no friends, family, buds, or former teammates to pitch in and help. I was a one-man team and raking the lengths of my WMJs was a job best suited for a squad. And no matter how I tried to plan it out, the bottom-line kept coming out intimidatingly pricey, even when I used super conservative guesstimates.

I should have been more appreciative of the suggestion, since it ultimately forced me to think it all out and then arrive at the right course of action for me on this project house, which was Chipping Off Weeping Mortar (coming soon).

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar

2026-07-20T10:03:10.934-04:00

I know what it’s like to own a home with weeping mortar joints. Furthermore, I get how it feels to have neighbors and visitors who are less than enthusiastic about this look. Not only can this sort of façade be polarizing, but time can also make it an issue homeowners feel compelled to address, especially after hearing people groan, say, “Ew! Yuck!”, or even ask with genuine sincerity, “What do you think they were trying to do here?” as they stare at your solidified ooze.

In my previous post I explained how someone might consider Embracing Weeping Mortar. But here, I’ll introduce two other options.

I suspect that the group of renovators who can say, “I want to grind out or chip off all the joints of my brick house!” is a small club. And it would be wonderful to imagine the possibility of waving a magic wand and having your sloppy joints disappear. But real-life solutions beyond sorcery do exist.

Let’s say that you’re like I was, finding yourself in a situation where you feel as if you absolutely must deal with a weeping mortar situation. Besides mine—a painted brick house where the uniqueness of this style has been eclipsed—I can think of another circumstance that would make this condition tougher to ignore much of these joints being damaged badly.

Perhaps over time, a multitude of chunks have been victimized by Mother Nature and her weaponized freezing and thawing. Or maybe someone started yanking off invasive vines, and in doing so they accidentally broke off large sections of the weeping mortar.

What now?

If these joints have been damaged, I supposed there are ways to repair or make these no-longer-uniform spots less noticeable. However, if the area(s) of concern is/are widespread, other measures may be taken. For one, grinding out the joints and replacing them with fresh mortar is one possibility. Or as I did, you can chip them off.

Certainly, I suppose there are ways of patching and repairing the damage. But there are two huge issues with this. First off: cost effectiveness. And secondly, a big question: Will the repair work end up being more noticeable that the damage looked before mitigation or corrective measures were taken? I believe this is highly likely.

Because of these practical considerations, I will go on to explore two other options in detail.

Grinding or Raking Weeping Mortar Joints – July 26, 2026

Chipping Off Weeping Mortar – Coming Soon

Embracing Weeping Mortar

2026-07-13T05:15:58.189-04:00

The first home I ever bought and renovated had weeping mortar. And these joints were critical to my opportunity to buy this house because it made the home look unsightly. I believe they scared other potential buyers off, not because this style is distasteful, but because the brick ranch had been painted and it made the property uglier and seem more hopeless, or more of a daunting challenge, than it would have otherwise.

Painted weeping mortar of Pig's Ear #1

Over time, a theory formed on my part that previous owners had ultimately decided to paint the façade after a master suite was added. Matching brick can prove to be trickier than one might imagine, and my deductive speculating has grown to presume that the old and new brick weren’t alike enough. In my Sherlock Holmes of renovation mysteries mind, the paint job established uniformity that resolved this elementary dilemma.

This experience made me into a fan of weeping mortar, as long as it’s not been coated in paint. And since then, I can be cruising through some unfamiliar neighborhood, and this unique exterior coursework style will grab my attention. And I truly appreciate it for the aesthetic statement it makes.

Although I am no bricklayer, I have laid a few pallets worth of brick and block over the years. And not only have I been the mason, I’ve also been the person buying materials and the tender mixing up the mortar. So first off, I am aware of the extra time and money it takes to pull off an entire house that showcases these oozing joints. And I can only imagine how much waste and extra clean up this adds to a project.

Still, when the work is finished and colors and textures contrast, it can be striking. And that’s the look that is easy to embrace.

My most favorite example of these joints is when they’re coupled with rust colored brick. And this may just be me, but I’ve really been taken in by homes with white windows and trim that add some visual pop along with well-manicured ivy that has been permitted to creep up to the soffit.

Like the lawn and hedges that need regular attention, these green leaves and vines must be kept in check. But I think it’s worth the commitment and effort, because for me this condition on the right home, when carried out effectively and properly, makes a memorable and quite fetching impression.

If you have weeping mortar, I hope my take might allow you to appreciate it even more than you did. However, if you are looking for options to divorce yourself from these sloppy joints, I’ll post about potential remedies in posts that follow.

Moving Beyond Weeping Mortar - July 13, 2026

Final Post of the Series - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 71

2026-07-06T04:45:12.789-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 70 - July 3, 2026

Apologies from me have been long overdue. So many worked hard on my behalf making American Rehab Charleston and then Restoring Charleston. I wanted to do better, to be better, and was far too short-sited on the ways things would play out. As I’ve mentioned, despite how I may have appeared within each series, I am aware than I was out of my depth in these circumstances, and for that I am sorry, for both myself and others. The most recent posts were intended to recognize efforts of the key construction protagonists who made me look capable and competent throughout ARC and RC, as I was actually struggling to keep my head above water for most of this experience.

On the production side, diligence on the part of producers gave me a shine that only they were capable of doing. For example, at times, it seems as if they often had me wearing blue to make my eyes grab attention, perhaps distracting from my asymmetrical mug. They kept me focused by scripting much of what they needed me to say, and this took a toll on all of us. Remaining patient with me throughout could not have been easy. The teams of people that had come to record me in action were used to working with pros, some trained, others naturally gifted. Although I showed up, put in time as asked, I was just unable to deliver on camera as they needed.

There were many times when I would say something in a filming, almost as producer’s would have liked, only to have an auditory hiccup make what I’d said unacceptable. Maybe some people can just rewind and say what they’d just said over again verbatim. But I never got there. At least not as easily as most would have liked and my efforts led to a stuttering issue, something that I’d never had to deal with before. I’m not sure how this Porky Piggishness works. Maybe it was my brain and mouth in some sort of conflict over pressurized calls to speak with so many listening. I had bright moments, but the skips in speech increased over time. This oratory accessory was not permanent though, and eventually faded away sometime before the pandemic, as casually as it had waltzed in.

I’m mentioning this as a lead in to talking about my appreciation for the show producers. I still don’t hold much confidence in the dos and don’ts of the television industry. I felt like I did a lot more incorrect than I did right in working with them and I continue to be uncertain of many things, off camera and on. I do candidly have serious concerns that more than a few might see my doing this—mentioning names without role/contribution precision—as further examples of my flaws and unworthiness. However overblown this may be in my head, I am using it as an explanation for not mentioning the champions on the production side by name.

Enough of the pity party though.

Within my dive into TV, I felt the red-hot desire to hit home runs on camera for the teams around me. And through this, opinions were naturally formed about addictions taking root for those desperately trying to deliver for people supporting and pouring into them. However, other than high doses of caffeine, I am able to report that I remained drug free for the duration and aftermath of this TV foray. And there are those you will see this position as one more issue.

Regarding my verbal fumbling and stumbling on camera, that was pureness. No cue cards or teleprompters were used in the making of either series, not by this guy or anyone else, never in the three years. Producers and I ground it out painfully together, from the pilot to the final day of RC. No shade cast toward newscasters, SNLers, or others. I’m envious, wondering if I could have even pulled off using those sorts of aids.

I worked with at least four different production companies. And I’m still foggy about who worked for which, those serving as independent contractors, members of the interior design teams vs. production, and on and on. I will say that of the things we really needed going into making Restoring Charleston in 2016, the one addressed was the experience of the production crew that the network executives were able to surround me with. In lieu of reality show backgrounds, we had producers more seasoned in home renovating. Maybe not condemned houses, but highly applicable knowledge and that was critical in us all working together to meet the tight schedule requirements.

As I touched on in a previous post, settling in down on the region’s historic peninsula for three months is a major expense for anyone. But along with this, was the cost of time and the extra wear and tear this choice placed on the production team. Without traffic, St. George is an hour from Charleston. But coming and going Monday through Friday, getting vehicles from parking garages, etc. and then dealing with rush hour traffic equated to nearly three hours of stressful commute adding in to each long workday.

It must have been thrilling to stay downtown. And crews were troopers about any supplemental burden this created. However, it couldn’t have been easy. And as I mentioned before, I should have suggested they stay somewhere closer. Easier scoots back and forth on I-95, like coastal situations on Lake Marion, would have done the trick. Then they could have escaped each weekend to the Holy City for R&R. Budget wise, this would have been best. But being candid, I was oblivious to much of this until afterwards. That’s on me and another thing I have regrets over.

In 2016, my imagined adversarial presence with producers seemed to evaporate and I was included more into the circle of collaboration. This was not just helpful to me, but it made the summer more enjoyable, and in my view, it led to greater productivity. Over the course of three months, I learned to really appreciate while simultaneously trust the producers. These days working and filming throughout Berchador and I am unable to say enough hearty things about this crew I still feel blessed to have gotten to work with. I may be wrong, but I think they’re the blend of a team that could pick up next week where we left off a decade ago, the production/construction combo working together on opposite ends of St. George through triple digit heat.

With this appreciation for the teamwork and natural comradery we developed, I am also wholeheartedly grateful for several crucial producers who looked out for me. They advised and mentored me discreetly, pulling me aside as needed, whispering in my ears like veteran teammates or wise older siblings. I listened and it was life altering advice I’ll likely never be able to appropriately repay them for. In some perilous ways, these strangers who’d quickly grown into confidants and friends, also served as my guardians, saving my family from what I came to realize would have likely been devastating missteps on my part. Although I would like to mention these folks, as much or more than the contractors, they very specifically advised me that their anonymity was paramount for their own careers. I see this as cloak and dagger means and methods of thoughtfulness. So, for them in particular, I’m obliged to write of my nonspecific gratitude. You know who you are and I am forever appreciative beyond my words.

Throughout this experience, I had perhaps been too overly focused on the boatloads of positives. Many can say I was naïve and too trusting. And yet I survived. We survived. And the shows are still out there getting attention. Could it have been better? Clearly, yes. But could it have been worse? Absolutely.

I caught a shooting star in one hand and then was pulled and pushed out of the path of an erratic rolling boulder. And for both of these, I’ll always be indebted.

FINAL POST OF SERIES

Josh, Chris, and Jason - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 70

2026-07-03T07:31:35.957-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 70 - July 1, 2026

The end of this response series is leaning heavily into the fond memories of those who made it possible.

My three-year experience was broken into parts, clearly focused on the periods of taping the home rehabs for each TV series. The bulk of filming the pilot episode took two weeks in March 2014, the three months of what producers called the five-episode pick-up happened in the first quarter of 2015, and we made Restoring Charleston summer 2016 with any planning and post-production work happening in between.

American Rehab Charleston - 2015

As I described in my previous post, Bob Fleming, the general contractor brought in to help us make the first episode of American Rehab Charleston, was the inadequately recognized hero who got us started on our way. Although there were many factors to us moving through each step of this experience, I don’t see how we could have gotten through March 2014 without Bob.

For the 2015 filming, the dynamic duo of Josh Hofbauer and Jason Dandridge were the miracle workers making me look masterful.

Jason Dandridge filming Restoring Charleston

Jason’s talents mirrored much of Bob Fleming’s in how he commanded his troops. In addition, I believe he may have membership in some legion of carpentry wizards, wowing me with his fractional math on the fly, in his head, factoring in multiple floor heights fluidly, considering thresholds and the materials and layers of multiple additions. I’ve done this, but not near as effortlessly, needing to double and triple check my figuring, while backtracking and scratching my head throughout. I’d never worked with someone as capable as Jason in these critical scenarios.

He and Josh were an impactful combo and it was easy to take their teamwork for granted.

From the start, Josh reminded me of someone I’d known for years, and we quickly fell into step together on site and while being filmed. He was juggling the list of scopes in his head at once, the work I normally did. He handled it admirably, with added pressure of producers pushing the breakneck schedule. And to make it all even more difficult, he and the trades were forced to stop working throughout each day so I could stumble through multiple takes for the camera as they waited motionless and quiet out of view. I don’t know how Josh or any of them managed or how they truly felt. I imagine it would be like driving a car in heavy traffic while you’re trying to wolf down lunch, frequently being directed to pull off to the side, shutting down the engine, checking your phone, cranking back up, as you react to each whim and seemingly urgent need of a variety of production crew members.

Josh Hofbauer

I think the majority of the guys were so proficient at their work, that they thrived on weaving their way through the extra wrinkles of the production schedules and activity. They plodded without big reactions, as if they privately knew the experience made them even better and gave them entertaining stories to tell down the line someday.

But speaking for them, they couldn’t have all been okay with me taking credit for what they did. No way. And I do understand that and am sorry I was unable to take more of a stand in this regard. Not only would it have been the best way to go, as I’ve said before, I think authentic appreciation on camera, intertwined into each episode, would have made both series better and more helpful for viewers trying to learn.

By the time we started filming Restoring Charleston, Josh had returned to Michigan. But Jason lived with his family in the Upper Dorchester part of the county, and I was thankful he was willing to put off his other projects and focus on the Appleby House. With ARC under his belt, Jason had a solid sense of what the producers were doing and needed from him. He knew what he and his crew could do late at night, after everyone had gone home, and what must wait until regular hours when the producers and I had returned. The value of this aptitude is difficult to explain, but his experience in this regard had a sizable impact and the achievement of what many had told us was impossible: renovating both homes in nine weeks. Even more, he and his team did it with producers in the mix. A monumental accomplishment. This was not me. I was just a middle-aged cheerleader narrating his orchestration.

Chris Brace

It was similar to Chris Brace remaking the cottage on the other side of town. And even though that house was smaller, this was a steeper mountain for the Brace Builders crew since they were rookies in TV rehabbing. To make this ride even wilder, they were an hour away from familiar territory and his shop. I’d only worked with Chris once before prior to this, in an easy role for me as a volunteer in his efforts transforming a house into a women/children’s shelter. Because of this tie, I knew what type of stellar work he did. And although I enjoyed working with Bob, Jason, and Josh, none of that fun was captured as effectively as the comradery producers found a way to feature with Chris and I getting down and dirty in episodes six through eight.

Like my feelings about Bob Fleming, it’s hard to imagine how I’d have gotten through this experience without the talents, skills, and efforts of Jason, Chris, and Josh.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 71 - July 3, 2026

Bob Fleming: Unsung Star of the Pilot - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 69

2026-07-01T06:52:29.616-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 69

In the filming of American Rehab Charleston, producers needed a hero shot. I’m not a soldier or emergency person, so I had to be coached up by the showrunner who said, “You’re the hero here, Trent. You’re the one saving the house.” Restoring some property no one else seems to care about is hardly worthy of glorified status. But this person and their crew had been assigned to me and part of showing up required cooperation, a willingness on my part to go along with what they were trying to get done.

To be clear though, not only am I unheroic, but I also wasn’t even the driving force on these two weeks of work, certainly not like what I usually do on my projects. An executive producer was leading efforts to create the pilot, and this person had hired an amazing general contractor named Bob Fleming to oversee all the renovation activities over and around me.

Bob Fleming
Classic Remodeling and Construction

It had all started with a programming director reaching out to me before I found, bought, and then redesign the home, I had dropped way down the list of truly significant. And on the surface, it looked like I was the guy. But below that, to anyone paying attention for a couple minutes, Bob was the true commander on my house project. And although I admired the depth of his experience, the respect his crews had for him, and the commitment he granted toward what was being done on the house I’d invested in, it didn’t feel great to be sidestepped.

With time, I could have done what he did for us. I wanted to. Except it would have taken me months. Producers only had two weeks, and he pulled it off seamlessly. As a compromise here, since they wanted and needed to bring in someone like Bob, I think it’d have been best for all if I’d just sung his praises on camera. Nothing over-the-top or grandiose, just honest acknowledgement that was deserving because Bob is a true contracting master, perhaps what I could have been, but heights I came up short in reaching.

This use of the general contractor may shed some light on the differences between the production company and HGTV/DIY, something I’d unknowingly stepped into. And maybe the folks in New York thought I was hunky-dory on this circumstance. Again though, there’s so much I didn’t know about.

So even though I was the subject of focus for the hero shot in the intro and the series, the real Houdini of the pilot episode house project was Bob Fleming and Classic Remodeling and Construction.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 70 - Coming Soon

Claiming Undeserved Credit is Awfully Unpleasant - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 68

2026-06-29T21:14:08.278-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 67 - June 26, 2026

Early into my TV phase, filming a scene for American Rehab Charleston, the showrunner pulled me aside, and delicately said, “You need to stop saying 'we'.” As previously described, off camera was an army of tradespeople and designers and producers working hard each day for months.

Something that felt normal throughout this experience was that in the grand plan, beginning to end, the rehabs were a large team effort. Of course, having a deluge of people all at once instead of a daily trickle was a big adjustment. But having involvement from plenty of others in the middle is common on most of my projects.

What had made it feel somewhat typical were these usuals, beginning to end. I’d measured up the house after becoming the owner. Then I reworked it on paper before planning out how to take it on, with much of this thinking going on organically as I cleaned out and organized anything left behind.

Throughout filming I began to understand all of the parts and scopes of the project that would be excluded. And this allowed me to get a handle on the finishing and buttoning up of loose ends after everyone else left. Overseeing the last leg until I sold also felt like familiar territory, a pattern all my project houses shared.

As always, I was solidly tuned in to what help I'd need to restore the property completely, but since I narrated the project and progress on camera, my actual role was diminished substantially, even more than I’d expected or realized going in. And since I was doing so much less than usual, I considered saying “we” as a compromise, a stretch on what I felt was normal and what was truly going on around me each day or off and away filming off site.

Back to this moment of directions from the showrunner. After laying out my points, making it clear how I felt more comfortable using we, this producer explained it in a way that was close to something like, “I hear what you’re saying, but you’re the only one on camera. Viewers aren’t going to see anyone else. So, you need to try harder to say, ‘I’ and ‘me’ instead of ‘we’ and ‘us’.”

In my view, giving deserved credit was not just the right thing to do, in a business sense it was prudent. As I fully understood, genuine appreciation, recognition, and acknowledgement inspires people. Giving due credit was another form of payoff; currency paid out to the skilled craftspeople we desperately needed. It was the sort of thing that fueled the necessary willingness to keep grinding.

In the back of her mind, I think the producer understood this and she astutely added, “It’s okay. Everyone gets it. They understand what we’re doing here.”

With effort, I got better at all of this, but it was a private, unappetizing battle. I’m not sure which was worse, the moment I accepted credit and had it recorded, or watching these scenes play out on the television screen months later.

The thing is, everyone is an absolute. And since there were dozens of people impacted, it was an overgeneralized embellishment. Everyone didn’t get it and I couldn’t blame them. Who wants some home rehabbing blogger in spic and span clothes accepting their deserved glory? Who would want to watch a show with their families where I’m being celebrated for their efforts after months of coming in early or staying late, missing time with them, friends, and neighbors?

The producers weren’t contractors. They sincerely didn’t understand what they were asking or how it might have made the tradespeople feel. I did and I should have worked harder until the TV creators understood.

To me, going along with this credit taking approach was just another misstep on my part. I suppose I was trying too hard to accommodate producers. It was such an amazing opportunity, and I didn’t want to seem difficult, as if the break had gone to my head or that I was ungrateful. This expectation was just another beyond my navigational skill level.

This serves as another example of my failed leadership. I could have called a meeting with the producers, maybe even brought the contractors in. This sort of air-clearing heart-to-heart would have gone a long way to ease heartburn. And it would have paid dividends the production company was unable to understand but benefits they surely would have felt.

In my opinion, with no TV experience backing it up, it would have been better if I’d done the normal thing on camera: pointed out how the tradespeople had come through for all of us. Just the normal attitude as a customary way of thanking them for their parts.

And just because those on the construction side were getting paid, that didn’t lessen the sting of me getting all the acknowledgment. Financial compensation is not a legitimate bandage, not when someone like me knows better, or should have been in a better position to do right by those with the utilized skills and talents.

As I’ve steadily admitted, I didn’t know television. But my career in construction and renovating meant something. Other than HVAC work, I’ve done most of the other trades and scopes at least once. And except for plumbing and electrical, they’ve been solo missions. But that didn’t qualify me to be recorded as if I was the site superhero with all the answers. Part of the fun of each project is learning, growing as a renovator, and adding onto my own cache of knowledge and skills.

What I’m trying to make clear is that not “everyone” got it because that’s not how it was. And believing something like this is nonsensical. Producers expect to be mentioned within a production’s end credits. Contractors deserve appreciation as well and my part, even though I was being cooperative, is/was the opposite of this gratitude, what is a vitally important ingredient in any construction effort when it’s genuine.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 69 - June 31, 2026

The Gray-Haired Golden Rule - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 67

2026-06-26T11:50:51.048-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 66 - June 24, 2026

The start of this blog in 2011, aimed for something of a how-to tone, sharing advice and writing the steps to help aspiring DIYers progress through their own rehabs. Yet with the reflective storytelling, it’s understandable how some may consider it memoirish or a hybrid how-to/memoir. And this whole series is closer to the second of the two genres.

This post is more than a response to questions or comments. It’s backstory worth sharing as I conclude with cheerful memories making Restoring Charleston.

The Golden Rule is a universal beacon for civility: treat others the way you want to be treated. The Gray-Haired Golden Rule, is this guidance with a twist: treat seniors as you’d want someone to treat your own grandparents. And if you don’t have solid relationships with your elders, Lord watch out for the silver headed nearby.

In 1994, I moved into a Cincinnati apartment managed by a widow who was spread thin and beginning to fray. Oversights and reasonable lapses led tenants of this twenty-unit building to move out. However, I stayed. And by year’s end, it was down to just us in this three-story brick in Hyde Park.

Rather than virtuousness, my hanging in there was rooted in my grandparents and this landlady reminding me of them. Perhaps it was because her life had mirrored theirs—the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor leading to WWII, followed by the post-war boom, space race, and the seventies. For the lack of a better way of describing it, what loomed was some hazy obligation to help her as I would want someone to be there for my own elderly relatives.

After becoming disoriented out and about in the Queen City, this childless woman found herself at The Christ Hospital. She had no family in the area, and it had taken me two weeks to figure out where she was. Due to cautionary abundance wrapped in legal reasons beyond me, TCH staff was obligated to detain her.

It eventually became clearer how this would culminate in her becoming a ward of the state, whatever that may have meant. After I tiptoed around this news, she revealed how she was well aware. “I know what they’re saying, young man,” was her reply.

Mrs. Drollinger never said my name, and young man registered with my ears like an accepted nickname that she used at her convenience.

She understood the future she might be faced with but wasn’t having it. Even though it appeared as if her fate was sealed, she then set me straight as she grabbed a phone and opened up the yellow pages. “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” she said before adding, “And I’m getting out of here.”

Then against some tall odds this detainee proved the hospital know-it-alls wrong and found a way to be discharged.

Five years later, after buying a condemned house that I was determined to rehabilitate, inspiration was drawn from this triumphant pathfinder from my past. And when construction authorities explained how bringing on a full-time GC was paramount, her words echoed in my head. When some said the smoke smell was unconquerable, I remembered her resolve. When the twelve-month schedule was deemed inadequate, I reminded myself that “where there’s a will there’s a way.”

And just like how it worked out with the hospital forecasters, the construction expert’s pre-determinations were sidestepped.

What would eventually inspire me to find a way of reconnecting her with distant family living in Oklahoma, was an oven fire in her apartment. My first attempts to put it out with my pintsized extinguisher didn’t work and the 9-11 operator dispatched the emergency brigade. Then, after persuading this septuagenarian to step outside, the army of responders flooded Linshaw Court as we walked out the front entrance.

Although the flames had been snuffed out—the third time had been the charm for my extinguisher—they’d come prepared for the worst. Besides the hook and ladder truck, there was the fire chief, an ambulance, and a couple other red vehicles.

The building’s owner was genuinely amazed. And naturally, passively, she simply asked to herself more than me, yet aloud, “Is all this for me?”

We were just into the first summer week of 2016 and I was filled with intense excitement, nervousness, and a healthy anxiety that would keep me necessarily focused until the circumstances wrapped in August. The production phase, the process of filming the projects for Restoring Charleston, had begun in the small southern town of St. George.

The Appleby House sat on the edge of town and had been vacant for fifty years before being condemned by local building officials. At least, that’s what I’d been told and everything pointed to this being true. Following an invitation to have a look, I took a chance and became the owner. The windows and doors were still partially boarded up, and I was likely a schoolboy the last time the wood siding or trim had been painted.

Appleby - Before

After thorough reviews, I felt at ease about structural integrity. It looked decidedly worse than it actually was, my type of project house for sure and ideal for a TV rehab.

Built circa 1895, this home had been crafted by skilled tradesmen of its era, surviving over a century of scorching summers and countless hurricanes while racking up more years than anyone still alive. It was laced with artful interior trim, mantels, and doors that were salvageable, with heart pine floors to accompany bead board walls and ceilings.

Occupied by spiders, dead rodents, and one mummified cat, it was a prime candidate for generating Halloween season unease. Although some locals were convinced that this place was inhabited by ghosts, I’d been all through the home, alone multiple times with only a flashlight keeping me company. I felt no creepy vibes nor heard any questionable noises. Nothing had given me serious pause.

In the early days of getting up to speed with the task at hand, producers had been overheard speculating on Appleby as the most challenging rehab effort in the network’s history. This may have been a stretch, but still, it made me feel good, this possibility of being placed atop this unofficial mountaintop.

Coupled with my faith, what allowed me to be worry-free in that moment, was my confidence in the pros mobilizing around me. But being straightforward, fair to myself, I’d taken on more awful with much less help. It was simply a great old home, with palpable potential, and too special to ignore. By way of the pictures I’d taken and emailed, the producers in New York and Los Angeles had fallen for it too.

In this first week, the site was humming with grips and assistants busy setting up cameras and equipment. There were production crews staffed by people from all over the country, along with dozens of local contractors, tradespeople, and an interior design team. A production trailer had landed in a back corner of this parcel, strategically placed to be out of site throughout filming. A large storage container for equipment, supplies, fixtures, and materials was behind the office box. Dumpsters, work trucks, and trailers filled the fringes of our lot. The planted cotton field directly behind us was off-limits, but vehicles had spilled over into the vacant area across the street. Icing on this cake was an air-conditioned restroom trailer—one side for women, the other for men—tucked within an enormous cluster of towering azaleas. In three decades, I had no memory of any jobsite perk topping this.

In addition, were the two other houses on the opposite side of town. This St. Geo trio had been acquired to revive this summer, yet we were only rehabbing and filming two of these three simultaneously. Without a doubt, it would be my greatest professional challenge yet. The third home had been placed on the back burner. Along with apologies, were network assurances of them returning next year to be part of its rebirth.

This bustling scene was radically different from my first pig’s ears in the early years of the new millennium. Suddenly, from some dusty corner of my mind, a question leaked out, “Is all this for me?”

More than a case of me hearing voices, it was a spewed memory in the form of a rhetorical question. Insinuations of unworthiness were absent here, with me willing to believe that travels on the road to this point had made me deserving.

Then this internal monologue was interrupted. The sound of cheerleaders practicing on the other side of the street busted through the usual cacophony of jobsite activity—barking and banter, tools banging, equipment revving. These peppy teenagers were likely hoping to witness some filming or perhaps even get captured on camera.

The atmosphere was circus-like.

“Is all this for me?” Those were the words spoken by my landlady years back as we emerged from the smoke-filled building as vehicles of the rescue fleet took positions in front of our near-empty building.

Now, it was as if she was pridefully haunting me, like a fifth grandparent.

Mrs. Drollinger had been amazed then, just as I was in that moment looking over the energized scene. It was radically unlike my history of solitude on desolate house projects in my rearview, years of long days spent alone, thinking things through by myself. I knew that with all the support, the upcoming months would be comparably different than those early unwanted home restorations; teams and crews tackling the lion’s shares of the work as production assistants brought me coffee, offered water, or took my lunch order each day in between direction and questions with cameras recording.

Appleby - After

I was filled with awe and appreciation, imagining five satisfied faces sitting in the bleachers of heaven, giving me an extra reason to smile as I put forth my best efforts to deliver for producers.

Was all that for me?

My people would answer yes.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 68 - June 29, 2026

Queries Which Deserve Decent Answers - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 66

2026-06-24T10:38:08.141-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 65 - June 22, 2026

It’s understandable for people to watch the show and then send notes with questions or pointed remarks:

“If you’re a historic restoration expert, then why would you do a, b, and c instead of x, y, and z?”

I can easily follow that sort of head scratching.

“Why is the show called American Rehab Charleston instead of ‘American Rehab Summerville?’ Don’t you like Summerville? We think it’s wonderful. What’s your problem?”

“Why is the second one Restoring Charleston? St. George ain’t Charleston.”

That feedback also tracks.

I can apologize for the decisions, any confusion or discontent these choices have caused. I don’t have any hesitations over explaining how I’m not an expert as they’ve read, as I’m described throughout both series. I’ve never said that about myself nor did I talk this over with producers. Rather than calculated deception though, I think some on the production side see me in a more glorified posture than I deserve.

Also, even though I can try to shed some light on program creators using Charleston in the titles, it oftentimes seems to ring hollow, feel like it’s not enough, perhaps due to me not being part of the verdicts on show naming.

People have invested a lot of time watching the shows, sometimes all fourteen episodes more than once. Then they’ve found a way to reach out to me, thought out what they wanted to say or ask, and hit send. Ignoring them may seem optional, but I’m inclined to do something when I can. Now, I haven’t typically stepped in when people have vented online, but I’ve read enough comments to gauge opinions, and diverted those responses to this series.

In 2014, after committing to a four-episode series about my house project in Summerville, the production company downgraded this opportunity to one pilot episode with a chance for a full season. To the surprise of many, we were granted the unexpected, along with a two-episode bonus. Even more shocking, was that ARC rated well enough for us to earn a chance to keep going, to renovate three more houses with film crews in 2016.

Although an actual series being shown occasionally on DIY and a verbal agreement to do more was wonderful, it had not been enough to secure the financing I needed to buy three houses in Charleston. Perhaps my appeals to producers for necessary steps went unrealized because it was the end of the year, the holiday season, and decision makers in New York were focused on more important projects.

Without a valid written commitment, or perhaps a letter of intent, financing for the three houses on the historic peninsula, what it seemed like everyone, including me, really wanted, were out of my financial reach. Even though I was willing to take chances that hinged on over-the-phone directives, bank officials had boxes that needed checked, and written specifics was early in the approval process.

Their preliminary questions were basic:

“What if the producers don’t actually come back?”

“What if they decide not to do all three houses?”

“What if they put you off for a year, like they did before?”

This seven-figure financing, my efforts to form the short-term partnership with lenders, was another test and I did not score high marks. Getting written details from the networks was not an outlandish request. And yet I couldn’t get that done. Not only did my willingness to move forward without a contract make the arrangement appear questionable, but it also made my professional judgement suspect.

And still, my faith more than solid business acumen, allowed me to roll the dice and tap into my own reserves.

After unsuccessful property searching in Summerville, I eventually found three of my sorts of houses—vacant/condemned/seemingly unwanted—in St. George, pig’s ears I could buy with a combination of cash and a negotiated agreement with one of the groups of sellers. Diann had seen the lights, cameras, and activity, and she was in my corner, unwavering. She wasn’t pushing me on yet was staunchly supportive in this gamble.

But then, bank official’s concerns became a reality: the network cut our episodes from twelve to eight and three houses down to two. Although this was still an amazing blessing, it was unfortunate. Even though I extended my trust to Team Scripps, the financiers had known not to, exemplifying why they were sentries of the safes with the money. It stood to reason, that besides not wanting me to default on loans, they likely were trained to avoid involvement with that sort of mis-stepping

I hope this post goes further to answer curious questions of some viewers.

I can now see the runway approaching this series’ end. And I’ll be wrapping on a decidedly upbeat note, sharing fond memories of making Restoring Charleston.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 67 - June 26, 2026

Lines in the Sand - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 65

2026-06-22T18:30:10.147-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 64 - June 19, 2026

Although likely unintentional, HGTV/DIY producers had drawn some lines in the sand when they made Charleston integral within the show title and overinflated their description of me. From a marketing approach it was well aimed. But it other respects it put us down in a hole.

This demarcating may have just happened seamlessly in early stages. Some producers met me, perhaps leaving with a lukewarm opinion. Then more came to film and create a pilot episode. After not wowing their socks off, it’s likely that most producers were left thinking, “What do these details really matter after all?”

And schedulers placed us into 11pm and 1am time slots.

Except we did better than anticipated, leading to a full season. And by the end of 2015, after ARC grabbed attention, a verbal green light for another series had been inadequate for bank officials.

Rather than strictly being a dollars and cents issue, it was more my inability to connect the dots of basic business and secure a legitimate agreement on paper. The network placed a large pie on the table, and there’d been plenty of slices and slivers to satisfy everyone. I saw it but had been incapable of bridging the gaps. And without some sort of written contract, I’d been unable to qualify for the seven-figure financing I needed to secure three houses downtown. And so, I shifted my house hunting further inland.

Summerville thrives nicely without the Holy City. Except for coastal beaches, everything needed is up there in this jurisdiction that spills into all three of the counties that make up Berchador. It’s inhabited by sweet folks, but they’re also proud people. And American Rehab Charleston playing out as if I was down in the more well-known city rather than up in Flower Town in the Pines was disrespectful, hurtful, and another missed opportunity.

If the show had been named “American Rehab Summerville,” it’s likely that more doors would have been opened for us up in this small southern town. But producers had no way of knowing any if this. They didn’t live here, were just visiting for the work assignments, and didn’t have a lot of familiarity. Making it worse, I didn’t leave a strong enough impression for them to bring me into the show naming conversations.

I’m speculating, but it just stands to reason that with the title, and within the series, that I came across to the folks of Summerville as if I was less than pleased or proud to be renovating a house in that town. This wasn’t the case, but who’d believe that after watching the series?

Still, at the start of 2016, I was hopefully oblivious to these factors as I began beating the bushes for three more pig’s ears in Summerville.

Along with traditional real estate searches, online websites, and scouting neighborhoods in search of For Sale by Owner signs in front yards, I spoke with the president of the Summerville Preservation Society, a local real estate mogul, and a neighbor of the American Rehab House. Although the investor was willing to let us renovate some of his properties for the show, he seemed genuinely indifferent about selling me a few of his vacant homes.

The thing is, even though that could have worked, I had no interest in being the face of a show where my status was overinflated, bragging about working in Charleston while actually being in Summerville, and in a position where I’d be claiming to own a house that wasn’t actually mine. This would have me even further from something organic and authentic.

I had a finite amount of savings to work with and was swinging and missing in Summerville. Eventually, with the help of the retired neighbor, I was introduced to the President of the Upper Dorchester Historical Society, and I pivoted my attention to the village of St. George even further away from the region’s epicenter.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 66 - June 22, 2026

Unspanned Leadership Gaps - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 64

2026-06-19T10:23:50.009-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 63 -June 17, 2026

From the start of this TV break, I’d formed an impression that each production phase was operating on a shoestring budget. However, in reality, both shows had been robustly funded. The network had set us up quite nicely.

It was a me issue front and center.

The running theme that flowed steadily throughout this opportunity was my inability to lead as needed. I suppose, as an excuse, I’ll put forth my reasoning that the programming director in Manhattan was in charge. She should have been. But looking back, I think the production company was in the driver’s seat, or at least they thought they were or wanted to be. And maybe this was some sort of male/female issue between them. Again, ignorance on my part prevails. Perhaps, like they wanted and needed me to be an expert of historic restoration razzle-dazzling Charleston, they also needed me to grab the reigns of this break and hit the ground running much more effectively. In this speculative beacon of guidance role that I never commanded, I seemed to have come up short for them again.

I suppose that my leadership style tends to be more organic, and I sure hope authentic. Rather than walking through a door and trying to start steering a ship like Thor in Avenger’s: Infinity War, I prefer to serve while learning and understanding. Eventually my voice will carry more weight, and if it doesn’t, I’ll make more of an effort to bring out the best in those around me.

In my mind, and again this might be my ego leaking out, I think I could have grown into that role. But as I saw it, I was unknowingly in need of knowing and understanding more about TV than I did; the process, sequencing, industry terms, and so much more. Or at least finding a way to pick up these things much more quickly.

I found it disrespectful for me to insert myself too much. And I think most of the producers would agree. Once, while trying to suggest a solution to some filming issue, I upset an executive producer who cut me off saying, “Don’t tell me how to produce!” Within her moment of stress, she’d been candid with me, teaching some of what I lacked, shedding light on the dimness I struggled to work within.

From the beginning, I was out of sync. In 2013, it felt as if some producers were excited to work with me, while others were more indifferent. There were those who were ready to start three months of filming in January of 2014, and others more comfortable spreading the process over fifteen months. There was this same discordance in filming the pilot, the wait in between it and the pick-up, and throughout that filming. And then heading into 2016, some of the team really seemed receptive to the measures I laid out, but clearly, others were unmoved.

Along with this polarization, were the quantity of minds and voices weighing in, deserving of consideration. Not only were some taking my points into account, but they were also simultaneously weaving through the views of others with actual television experience, discussions about me, yet without me. And to add even more nuance to this dynamic, these players were often working together over the phone from each coast and flyover locations in between. FaceTime-types of meetings were less common then and although I was sometimes on a conference call speaking with multiple people, I didn’t always know who was sitting in until someone introduced themselves before their question or comment. So, I didn’t actually know who was in the loop and who wasn’t. I thought they were all comparing notes, but it would have been a lot to keep up with. And adding to this, I was one person and one show amongst dozens.

There was consensus in my takes on the different steps I felt strongly about. But it may not have been resonating as necessarily with the right voices. There was compromising, but I wasn’t negotiating. I wasn’t suggesting twelve things as a setup to get the six we actually had to have. I’d laid out the key things we needed, and wiggle room was minimal. Without the right resolutions and results, we’d be filming rehabs in 2016 on fumes. I never said it so bluntly because I wanted us all to succeed. Pessimism may be in my nature, but I didn’t want to show these cards. And hindsight provides clarity.

The bottom line is. I was unable to adequately and clearly make my points as truly needed, in a way that resonated and moved the needle. They could say I didn’t try hard enough, and they would not be wrong. But being straightforward and even more honest with myself and as I write, I realize that I just didn’t know how to do it. And that’s on me, further evidence of what I’ve said before in previous posts of this series. I did not meet this moment.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 65 - June 22, 2026

Contractual Limitations with Large Implications - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 63

2026-06-17T04:25:42.661-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 62 - June 15, 2026

I hope it’s been made clear, that although I’ll admit to having a solid grip on how to renovate a jacked-up house, I’m not one to claim to have the recipe for success. At this point, I’ve lived a lot of my life recognizing it as an adventure that comes with scars in many forms. Rather than a world beater, I understand how I’m stepping into something else, the end of my life’s autumn when it’s time to share and encourage.

This series began with me answering questions while offering insight into pitfalls to watch for. The intention was to inspire along with educating by way of owning mistakes. I’m not quite done with this progression of responses, but I’m approaching the landing strip that’s surely up ahead past the clouds.

At the end of 2015, I had a renewed chance to do some noteworthy work: renovate three houses in Charleston, South Carolina with film crews documenting the efforts before producing another series telling three stories. Each project would span multiple episodes. These yet-to-be-determined homes would be in rough condition, with me leading the way in bringing each back to life.

Conservative math worked. Buying a house others don’t want often equates to undervalued asking prices. Costs to rehab are inexact, but experience allowed me to remain steadfast. There would be margins that contained indeterminable profit. And the carryover was potentially even greater; more opportunity, a future of interesting projects working with talented people, and also a larger platform to help aspiring DIYers see and better understand how they could take on a left-for-dead house near them, and against the odds, breathe new life into it.

Getting to where I needed to wouldn’t be easy, there were crevasses ahead, and it was my responsibility to bridge these gaps and inspire others to do the things within their reach.

I had savings to invest for earnest money on short term loans but was well short of what this moment called for financially. I needed investors or lenders. This was no shock to my system, nor my wife’s. We each knew this from the day the programming director said, “We need you to buy three more houses for next year.”

When you renovate property that’s condemned, abandoned, or seemingly unwanted, you need a find-a-way, make-it-happen attitude. I’m not sure how else to push through. Faith and optimism equal needed fuel. In renovation, like throughout the construction industry, people tend to shy away from a four-letter word like can’t.

So even though I knew the assignment was daunting, I’d been conditioned to focus on the ways to think creatively, next steps and greater picture to accomplish the most glaring goal. In my eyes and mind there were clear prerequisites, and it was on me to shed light on these necessities.

Sadly though, I bombed spectacularly, which bled over into the other things I needed.

First, I’d been unable to break through in convincing producers to make adjustments within the original six episodes, editing that would gain confidence of viewers, but also all the people we needed support from throughout Berchador.

Secondly, the percentage of locals who’d heard of American Rehab Charleston was tiny. Everyone I met had heard of HGTV and knew of a few of their most popular programs. And locally, most had heard of Southern Charm. Even if they’d never seen an episode, they knew the Bravo series was actively tapping into some of the Holy City’s popularity. As much as I tried, I’d been unable to resolve our regional blind spot, something that rippled into the short list of pressing preliminaries.

Although these were both very important, neither was as significant as my lack of a written agreement with HGTV/DIY, the network pair who’d opened this door for me back in 2013. This was the nagging liability, a lingering headache that had lasted over two years. I could tell a banker that I’d been on TV and they could see the proof on their desktop computer screens. But they needed more. Having family, friends, and neighbors who’d seen the shows, heard of the series with good things to say, would have helped a lot.

And how much would paperwork with my name and theirs helped? Who’s to say? I’ll never really know since I struck out here as well.

Just before filming the pilot episode, I had received paperwork from the production company. And with the help of a local attorney, I sorted through it. The counsellor had no major concerns, describing the document as boiler plate. However, rather than something prepared for home improvement programming, he explained how this document was written for game or dating shows, rather than what we were doing in Summerville, rehabbing a house. However, it was a necessary formality, and the entertainment lawyer gave me a legal nod on signing it.

But efforts to gain seven figure financing ushered in a need to examine these pages more closely. And it became clear that in order to secure necessary financing, I’d need a valid contract with Scripps or its subsidiary networks.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 64 - June 19, 2026

Candid Off-Camera - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 62

2026-06-15T08:37:38.063-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 61 - June 12, 2026

In some ways, my deficiencies in the world of television were compounding, with the first big mistake from 2013—no network written agreement—now spilling into where I found myself at the end of 2015 after American Rehab Charleston earned us a chance to do more. This hole in my capabilities was like a dark cloud, following, hovering, sometimes sprinkling and other times pouring down rain. My ignorance, my inability to take the right steps left me ill-positioned to focus as needed on my next thing, another weak area for me: effectively making my points clearly understood for producers in other parts of the country.

Even though I’d beefed up my efforts, I came up way short again. Too many of my calls to action went unaddressed. I’m pleased to remember times when my attempts to motivate have hit marks consistently. But not this time. They mostly fell flat, touching down inconsequentially like led balloons. I was hoping folks would dig into what I saw as urgent necessities. But I was unable to adequately stress the win-win-win of my viewpoints, how it was in everyone’s best interests to heartily consider how my input would benefit them big-picture. I was open to counterpoints, compromise or rebuttal leading to other steps that were better than what I felt strongly about. Yet I mainly found myself with good listeners, that were perhaps more inadequately supported and equipped than I imagined.

As I’ve mentioned throughout this series of posts, the producers I worked with were impressive. They were experienced, well-traveled, and talented. I overheard them mentioning household name celebrities, politicians, and entertainers they’d worked with. This was presented mundanely, while they were simultaneously discrete and professional, leaving me holding them in even loftier regard.

Yet being candid, I was surprised with how skittish many in vital positions seemed over the notion that we all could move up and ahead together, something I had wrongly considered more commonly understood than it was. This exemplifies some of my inexperience or perhaps overly wishful thinking. They came across as suspicious that I may be casting some sort of Jedi-mind trickery on them. I’m not sure if this was industry wide, just critical folks I’d been matched up with, or simply me in my own head too much. We would all be missing out, but since it was my big chance, it was on me more substantially.

I needed to rally the Scripps assigned troops and I wasn’t moving the needle. At least not nearly or quick enough. This might be me excusing my own inabilities, trying to sooth ego or conscience, but I began to form an impression that they’d been trained to think more win-lose, as if me and others they were working with needed to benefit measurably less in order for them to achieve worthwhile success.

Since I felt strongly that I knew better than these amazing people, at least in this critical area, this was tough for me to accept and move through. And in this period, I was left feeling powerless, outnumbered or outmatched once again, for some means of inspiring them on the importance to at least think about the key details that would help get us on track and make the most of this opportunity we had been given.

Rightfully so, it was more important to me than it was for them. They didn’t live near in or around Charleston. Their lives, families, and friends were spread throughout other parts of the country. They were going to keep working in TV regardless and I was in no position to help them see how it was in their best interests to get ARC on HGTV in Charleston and be more renovation minded with us all leaning into organic authenticity as a team.

It’s unnecessary to write this in a way that might make a reader hopeful that I would eventually right this ship since most know it ran aground.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 63 - June 17, 2026

House Hunting Made Easier - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 61

2026-06-12T12:44:17.741-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 60 - June 10, 2026

At the end of 2015, it may have seemed as if the network and production company were waiting on me to provide them with photos, estimation budgets, site details for production mobilization, and addresses of prospective houses. But in reality, the three of us had preliminary steps that needed immediate attention and action.

When I begin a renovation, I have a step-by-step process that works for me. I knew early on what to do on my own house project, in a lot of ways from Day 1 back in 2000, because I’d been dreaming about the moment for some time and had construction experience to build upon. Although I didn’t go in with history on a condemned house or fire damage, I had enough fundamentals to get my introductory pig’s ear to a point that felt more familiar.

TV rehabbing, and my cliff dive into it, was so different though. I had no background to build on. Other than what I speculated about as a viewer of This Old House and other home improvement types of shows, I was an empty jar. Still, two years had given me what I needed to sort out so much. There were still loads I didn’t know, couldn’t know really, but what I’d figured out, I felt rock solid on, the things I described in my previous post. I wasn’t totally certain, but I felt pretty good about my takes over what the others and I needed to dig into hot and heavy. These were far from an ironclad guarantee to success, but I held some certainty they’d be sufficient to sweep up more audience share, make some wrongs right, and create energy, enthusiasm, and momentum in my tri-county region of the state. In my head and heart, I felt I had some heightened responsibility toward what Scripps had initiated for all three of us—network, production company, and myself—and for us to put forth reasonable efforts focused on what I’d laid out.

On a normal project house, I feel more capable of driving the job as needed. I know what I can do, the work I really enjoy or knock out because I must, and what I’ll need help with. And if I’m unable to find the right skilled people, I’ll manage on my own to inch forward. Sometimes that means breaking a scope into smaller parts with me doing fractions and connecting with others to take on chosen pieces to complete the whole.

Home rehabbing television was different though. I didn’t know people to call on, nor was I qualified to do most of that. I was left to let a big team reach out to others, brainstorm, and tackle their tasks however they did. And although this removal was a good test for me, an exercise in faith, it was choppy. I was unaware of the progress others were making and it wasn’t work I could measure and evaluate visually. I just needed to hope they were chipping away, navigating obstacles along the way as they moved forward to where we’d need to be in the early months of 2016.

Just like it had been in 2013, we were in a holiday season time crunch. On the surface, my urgency to buy three houses suddenly, right then, would be laughable to the crowd of realtors overseeing the Berchador real estate market. However, with a home improvement series under my belt, and the involvement, participation, and quasi-anointment with and by HGTV/DIY, my aspirations came across as reasonable, more understandable. And the sooner people in Manhattan found us some time on HGTV, the easier this searching would become.

However, just as it had been two years before, I was staring down the barrel of my original oversight of this golden opportunity to renovate my houses for TV: I had no written agreement with Scripps, HGTV, or DIY.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 62 - Coming Soon

Teamwork = Savings, Profit, & Ratings - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 60

2026-06-10T16:39:45.426-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 59 - June 8, 2026

At the end of 2015, I was directed by my main contact at the network to buy three houses for the next year. The program namers had chosen to insert Charleston into the show title, and since the house was in Summerville, thirty miles from the Holy City, this was a precarious move. Far from a widely applicable name, it felt as if the city had been incorporated for reasons mentioned in a previous post.

This possibility added even more to the excitement I’d been through. However, in order for this renewed chance to really pan out, as best as possible for everyone, a collection of key details needed to be tackled while I house hunted.

Now, before I go on, it needs to be made as clear as possible, that I don’t believe I have all the answers. I’m merely giving myself a little credit for picking some things up in 2014 and ’15. When I started all of this in 2013, I knew nothing about TV. This experience was like a big pot of soup with all types of ingredients being dumped in over twenty-four months. My bowl left me with an impression, certain opinions, and basically some rather strong feelings of the most productive way to buy, rehab for producers, and then sell three pig’s ears in Charleston in 2016. I wouldn’t then or now claim to know more than the producers. I’m only writing at this point in time, that based on what I knew then, it would be best for lead players to genuinely consider what I was laying out and then move forward collaboratively.

Beyond a simple to-do list, we needed an understanding amongst the networks, production companies, and me, as a coalesced unit, so everyone could maximize compensation and high ratings that equated to revenue for Scripps. We all had a ripe opportunity for continued support from network decision makers but had to work together and then deliver. And we needed to act quickly in separate yet concerted ways.

First, appropriate insurance coverage was a must. If something unfortunate happened, responsibility should be spread out, rather than risk assumed and potential damages absorbed by my family and I.

Secondly, the networks and editors would need to clean up American Rehab Charleston and scrub the parts in the six episodes that were short sided or inadequate.

The third detail was bigger. As I saw it, producers needed to also do whatever was necessary to air the series on HGTV, so many more of the people of Berchador could have a look. The Holy City was wildly popular and highly regarded. And to many in and around Charleston, relegation to DIY in lieu of the more prestigious HGTV seemed disrespectful. Many felt that a show commandeering the city’s name deserved better.

In this same bucket was the fact that for two years, 2014 and ’15, producers had told folks across the three counties how episodes would air on HGTV. Technically, producers had made good. We had logged time on the four-letter channel. But it was minimal compared to lesser-known DIY and for these reasons, a lot of people, way too many, felt as if folks here had been duped. This didn’t just reflect poorly on me, but the networks and producers coming back to town to continue on.

Berchadorians would be more ready and willing to be part of the upcoming projects if the shows were on HGTV as local folks had been told when we were making ARC. Beyond the prestige, for some reason, DIY was not as accessible or even known about in our area, and this relegation impacted necessary trust, understanding, and enthusiasm that prospective tradespeople and contractors would logically have had if they, their families, and/or neighbors had opportunities to enjoy at least one episode or more on HGTV without upgrading to a more expensive TV provider package that included the DIY network.

Unless anticipated or needed reparation measures were taken and implemented, this DIY vs. HGTV slight would cost us in 2016. I was certain that airtime on the more well-known channel would be critical, going a long way to restore eroded faith. And with this, the number of people interested in coming on board would beef back up, and this would ripple to help keep renovation costs in check. In addition, I held hopes that these amends might carry over to my efforts to take ownership of three houses down in Charleston.

A fourth point was about the production company’s need to oversee the budget. In order for this to work out better for them, and also my assumed plans for these houses, they’d have to improve at managing the renovations. They’d need producers on staff with construction management backgrounds, people who knew how to read the contract documents coupled with a solid understanding of building codes and standards. Apathy concerning important things would no longer fly. I wouldn’t have the time nor money to make post-production corrections on three different properties downtown. And each of the chosen homes would need to be completed before producers left town, nothing short of three certificates of occupancy.

Plus, the production company would need to be mindful of safety measures which are non-negotiables in the building industry. Regardless of whether it was for TV or not, producers must commit to safety as top priority for everyone on site, and that completing the work had to be understood as a close second. Finishing on time and without overspending were also paramount, yet not over and above safety and quality work.

Fifth, I would need to do my part. I had to carry out orders to secure the acceptable properties. Then I’d naturally have to continue to be available for the producers, willing and capable of accommodating their schedules over the next twelve months to film and complete any pickups or voiceover work. I’d need to be able to deliver on camera, discuss the work and histories of three houses throughout the film days, keeping them straight in my head, bringing energy and enthusiasm every day.

Sixth, to maximize profit for the investment, not only would the shows need to be fast-tracked, produced and be put on HGTV quickly, but I’d need to maintain patience. Hopefully not two years again, but I had to be prepared to wait until potential buyers had time to see some of the fresh episodes since the shows would not just promote Berchador and Charleston, they’d be showcasing the renovated homes. If the projects were completed properly, then ratings would lead to profit that could be poured back into more properties. And perhaps, if all went well, this would mean more rehabs to be featured the following year.

And finally, the skilled trades and vendors on site, needed more credit for their efforts, over and beyond contracted compensation. Rather than me getting recognition because I was the homeowner talking on camera, the men and women putting in long hours, sacrificing time from their families, coming in early and working late, deserved more airtime so their talents would be recognized within the episodes. That’s how it had been in the Rehab Addict samples I’d been sent back in 2013, and as I saw it, it was another ingredient for the secret sauce that had been left out of Amer. Rehab Chas. We needed that put back in. And this commitment should be understood fully, documented, and signed off on. This was not just the right thing to do; it was smart business that would make the shows even better while paying dividends in the form of lower renovation costs.

All of these things needed to happen so everyone was able to make the most of the opportunity. But once again, it came down to me. Even though it was the holidays, I needed to motivate producers to take their needed steps. There were limits to what I could do. And as I saw it, if I was going to be shopping for three houses, those in New York, Minnesota, and eventually Los Angeles as well, could designate some human resources to get started on what was needed. It was too late to put first things first, but we were getting another opportunity to get on track, and I was hoping we’d grab it with three hands.

Just like 2013, there was much that needed done and after I laid out my determined considerations to producers, I turned my attention to my part: finding three houses down on the historic Charleston Peninsula. Not closing just yet. Only house shopping.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 58 - Coming Soon

Going After Three Houses in Charleston - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 59

2026-06-08T07:39:36.030-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 58 - June 6, 2026

The network certainly had glorious intentions when producers included Charleston in the first show title while describing me as an expert in the restoration of historic homes. This was a good strategy to gain viewers in other parts of the country, and also different parts of the world. Plus, it was an admirable distinction to have placed on me. But it’s made me look like something of a clown—hopefully more so than is deserved—since many know that Summerville is thirty miles from the historic peninsula. This Dorchester County community is beloved, and it would have suited me better to brag about getting to work there, rather than be okay with it seeming as if I was down closer to the harbor. And I should have also found a way to set the dual networks straight, to get them to send a more accurate description of me out into cyber space.

And yet I was incapable, left dealing with this cursed blessing of being misleadingly connected to Charleston. Coupled with this was the added tax of being tagged as a historic home answer-man, with implied expectations that I was a male version of an actual historic restoration mover and shaker Nicole Curtis, who’d just begun to tackle the epitome of a pig’s ear, the Ransom Gillis House in Detroit.

Ransom Gillis House - Detroit

In 2013, people in my life wanted me to go for it, to see what would come of my early back and forth emailing and phone chats with HGTV/DIY. And in the two-year span, the circle grew to include others encouraging me on—producers in New York, Southern California, and Minnesota, along with even more people in Berchador who witnessed in person the action of the test reel, pilot, and series pick-up filming.

After the six-episode season of American Rehab Charleston made it to HGTV and DIY in the fall of 2015, I received the news that another season had been given the go-ahead. And with that, I needed to find three more houses for 2016.

Of all the diverse minds and voices huddled around me, I don’t remember anyone discouraging me from setting my eyes on Charleston. I clearly had a grand opportunity to make my mark—finding, buying, and renovating the three homes in the nationally adored Holy City.

As I described last week, my pig’s ear to silk purse efforts come down to money math. Initial investment, capital improvements, and estimated profit. And when you factor in the TV element, the potential payoff puffs up.

No one can estimate the exact costs to restore. And the impact the show would have on the final value is also a big question mark. But it was easy to see, that if things were done a certain way, sequentially, properly, a strategic, coordinated approach, then it would make sense and everyone could benefit nicely; the risks we’d all taken would produce wins across the board.

Buy-in on a plan to make sure everyone would get what they needed and a little bit more was the next step.

Using round percentages averaged together on multiple projects, I felt reasonably comfortable moving ahead. Ballpark numbers generated from thin air is an irresponsible way to approach investing in three houses to renovate and then sell. But things were happening fast and this sort of quick estimating was the starting point before tightening up budget-wise.

Based on past pig’s ears, generally, wishfully, speculatively calculating, I felt good about 30/30/10/30 as an initial working guideline. Thirty percent for a house no one else would take on; what would be seen as another gamble. Thirty on capital improvements. And around ten percent for closing costs to sell. The last remaining plus or minus thirty percent would be profit.

Moving forward in December 2015 began here.

I had to find the right properties, and we needed a more effective way of managing the renovation budgets for each home. But the leftover percentage would be the biggest unknown.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 60 - Coming Soon

TV Home Rehabber Legal Exposures - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 58

2026-06-06T13:27:04.874-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 57 - Wednesday June 3, 2026

It was clear that working with HGTV/DIY without a written agreement was a bit of a risk. But I felt it was a chance worth taking. It can be compared to a Wizard of Oz metaphor, wanting to see behind the curtain, or like Alice in Wonderland, crawling down into the rabbit hole. There was real curiosity about having a film crew on my project. And there was deep, sincere interest in seeing and feeling what it would be like being in front of the cameras.

In front of the cameras.
Trent Fasnacht
Restoring Charleston
August 2016

This involvement with producers in New York, LA, and other parts of the country made me feel significant, like I was on the fringe of greater appreciation for my work and efforts renovating my pig’s ears. Plus, I was thankful to have a larger platform to teach people how they could save houses others were overlooking. And when I received a second unexpected email from a production company working with another network, these feelings, this level of excitement, was enhanced even more.

And yet, as much as I tried to apply what I knew, construction and renovation and the way other contractors and I did business, I was finding myself swimming in completely different sorts of waters; the TV and entertainment means and methods and people.

My state issued general contractor’s license was an asset, but it was also the source of what I came to see as untenable legal exposure. Other tradespeople shared this burden with me, but as the homeowner, a “qualified party” and the network described “expert” speaking most for the camera, I was exposed to the greatest level. If someone was injured on my property, I could be named in a lawsuit, even if I wasn’t at fault or around when an accident happened. If the house wasn’t rebuilt per building codes and industry standards, that would be on me also, leading to potential fines or other consequences. The producers were focused on the show, how things would appear on camera. But I was soaking up the bigger picture, on the rehabbing, hard to notice or more extensive issues I’d be left finishing or correcting when they’d all packed up and left town.

Without a written agreement with the networks, or valid contracts with others involved, this situation reached a point of being unrealistic on the side of irresponsible by me. After all, if I’m the celebrated know-it-all, expectations are that I won’t be doing things that are so obviously incorrect. The standard was lofty, and it seemed that I, more than others, was hyper-aware of the disconnect.

There had been so much I didn’t know about television, and this ignorance led to a lot of speculating on my part, guessing about way too much. And that’s a disconcerting place to be when my family was counting on me to make wise decisions.

Before the holidays of 2015, after the full season of American Rehab Charleston had been released, some relief began to settle in. I thought I was finding my way, figuring out at the least, how to tread water in this unique environment. After being tested steadily for over two years, I was directed to buy three more homes. This felt like a strong indication that I’d reached a noteworthy point, that I’d passed enough of these various assessments. Although these trials weren’t life threatening, like running a medieval gauntlet, with the legal exposure it did seem as if I’d managed to finally make it through the bumpy two-year stretch to arrive at some sort of legitimacy or payoff.

In December of 2015, I received a large envelope from HGTV. It felt pivotal, like a significant life moment. I went inside and sat down, anticipating that long-awaited documents to lay out clarity were inside the white packet addressed to me.

Would it include anticipated details and specifics?

Was it an invite to New York, a chance to thank decision makers in person?

Maybe it would be a contract, what I was then realizing I’d need to secure financing for three houses on the Charleston Peninsula.

Should I wait for Diann and the kids?

I decided to open it, so I had time to process whatever was inside, and use that new information or insight to start on next things I needed to be doing for producers. Slowly, I pulled out the pages. And rather than series or network pertaining documents, it was a mass generated invitation to subscribe to HGTV Magazine.

On one hand, I was grateful about being alone. But on the other, I felt embarrassed, deflated, and foolish.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 59 - June 6, 2026

Apologies to the Binyas - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 57

2026-06-03T16:36:06.755-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 56 - June 1, 2026

It feels as if I’m nearing the end of this response series. I think questions have been addressed and background has been provided to answer and help. There are just a few loose ends, views that should not be overlooked or sidestepped, including words of apology to some who have yet to be acknowledged. These may not be obvious to all, but that doesn’t make them any less necessary. And perhaps like my last post, these words may be long overdue.

I was once called an amateur historian. And as with the nickname, Houdini of Homes, I really liked someone pointing out how much I appreciate the stories and events of the past. More than an interesting subject matter to read about or discuss, I’ve grown to fully attempt to consider how the events and periods of history have impacted how, why, and where my project houses were built. Even though others might not concern themselves with these sorts of details, seeing them as trivial, I think this mindfulness is just part of what I do and how I do it. It allows me, at least as I see things, to do a better job making the most I have to work with and turning my pig’s ears into silk purses.

Berchador reveres those who grew up here and have remained to live, work, and raise their own families in this tri-county region of the Palmetto State. I think this is common in other parts, but here, because of its unique history, it’s notably different. For example, the Gullah Geechee call natives binyas—people who’ve been here. And people like me are described as comyas, since I’ve come here from somewhere else. And not being from the South, and even though I’m a Midwesterner, I’m also a Yankee, which I had to learn was more than a joke but is actually a sharply pointed pejorative to keep folks like us in our place.

One of the factors that makes this part of the world so special is its deeply rooted history of not agreeing with folks in other parts of the country. In the eighteenth century, the South Carolina Royalists fought with Britain, against the fellow colonists. These folks remained loyal to King George III. In the nineteenth century, the state leaders were the first to secede from the union. And in the twentieth century, they were defiant over segregation and miscegenation.

Most recently, June 24, 2010, the Charleston RiverDogs held Go Back to Ohio Night. This promotional event echoed chants shouted by locals, binyas whose patience for transplanted buckeyes has grown thin. Along with the rallying cries, select natives wear anti-Ohioian t-shirts, drive cars with likeminded bumper stickers, and one fed up creator launched a website dedicated to this animosity.

As I’ve described in previous posts, I believe an HGTV/DIY show with Charleston in the title would have been better received in Berchador had the houses actually been down in the Holy City. But improving chances even more would have been a home owning renovator, or couple, born and raised right here in the tri-county area. Instead, producers and network executives were left doing the best they could with me, a comya Yankee Ohioan. So, if you’re like me, thinking someone from here would have been a better choice to be in my place on American Rehab Charleston and Restoring Charleston, I understand and you’re probably right.

It would have been helpful had I realized this back then. However, I was oblivious to long term implications and really wanted to take my shot. And in that way, my unawareness might seem as if I, and also, the networks and producers, were insensitive and disrespectful. With certainty I can write how this was unintended. But I can see how some folks from here may have resented the fact that an outlander like me was given such a big platform to speak about this area.

In my own defense, many locals were skeptical and apprehensive about working with people from outside of the South. And although I have come to accept these feelings, those unfamiliar with this area just might not get it. I was willing and able to do it, and really wanted the gig, and since I’m familiar with non-southerners, I was less reluctant to talk and think this chance out. And that comfort was the one thing that might have made me more qualified than a born and bred binya.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 58 - Coming Soon

Unwanted Homes Remodeler - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 55

2026-06-01T12:26:48.517-04:00

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

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 54 - May 29, 2026

There is unique satisfaction that comes with being wide-open candid for potentially a small pool of readers within an ocean of prospects. Although it’s unlikely that I’ll reach all of those who’ve posed questions or concerns, or took time to share feelings by way of clearly, well thought out sentences in the form of emails or DMs, it is more possible that people too polite to ask will get answers to their own similar queries. And then also, maybe someone, after reading this and getting clarity, will clear the air on my behalf, perhaps making a displeased viewer understand in a way that is helpful. Sure, I could have responded to those people myself, beyond appreciation for them taking time along with a few sentences, but who’s ready for the longer version, a fifty-thousand-word answer?

With this response series, from here on, or as long as Blogger is still alive and kicking, I have a place to direct folks, after I’ve thanked them or apologized on behalf of myself and the networks or streaming services. And I say it this way, because there are certainly viewers who feel as if they deserve more than a shrug or being dismissed. After all, people took time to watch me on TV when there are hundreds of other options. And for this reason and others shared, I’ve felt some obligation to respond. And as I near the end, I realize that much of that weight will be gone.

Have you ever felt simultaneously flattered and disappointed? Those are two emotional states that are not often coupled. At least not for me. I read something very nice that had been written about me, it said that I am an expert at historic restoration, or something near to this. What a sweet thing for someone to say. However, I take pride in shooting straight and that is a pointed remark that is off target. And in that way, I was disappointed that someone would write something about me without taking the time to be rock solid on the validity, the sort of description that is important to me and many others. And I think the part of this that has stuck with me, is the reality that many will think, likely have thought or seem to, that this is how I see myself or how I sold myself to land my opportunity to renovate my houses on American Rehab Charleston and Restoring Charleston.

First off, it’s not that easy. Second of all, I wouldn’t nor did I do that.

It’s possible that a producer saw clips of me from the test reel filming, read my blog, and got the impression that I knew most of everything about saving old homes. That’s not a bad thing. Nothing ill-spirited with that. It’s nice. They thought I was more accomplished than I actually am. Wonderful. Thank you.

Or maybe someone sold me and/or the show concept, to network decision makers as an expert in historic restoration. This might be a less admirable, more calculated approach. Yet that’s what salespeople tend to do, are trained to do. Again, that’s not me nor something I did. But someone, in this speculated scenario, was meaning well for me, my family, and perhaps their own interests. And they embellished.

Along with reflecting poorly onto me, it is only short term beneficial for the larger effort that includes all the people who worked so hard to make the shows. It might have gotten viewers to watch, but it doesn’t take long for seasoned home renovators to realize that I’m not as advertised. And then these viewers were permanently lost. I know this, because they’re one of the groups who’ve written to share thoughts, feelings, and concerns. But maybe, this was not who the network executives were aiming for. It could be that they wanted the novice, or the aspirational DIYer, rather than the sage who’d been there, done it, and wanted to come along for my adventure, only to realize that they’d been oversold as I underdelivered on something I didn’t promise or declare.

Imagine this tagline: A guy who fixes up houses that other people don’t want. Sure, it’s accurate. That’s closer to how I describe myself. But it’s not sexy. And most people know sex sells. I’m more of an under promise and then try to overdeliver sort of operator. But I’m not sure those sorts of pitches get the green light on the island of Manhattan. Actually, I feel inclined to believe that those balls lead to foul tips and whiffs up in the Big Apple majors.

How about this longer setup? Check your provider's schedule for Silk Purse, where South Carolina GC Trent Fasnacht takes on houses that are condemned or abandoned, left for dead by the experts, watching and learning how he resurrects these properties he affectionately calls “pig’s ears.”

Again, not sexy, Plus it’s pretty wordy. As I described in the previous post, the milder version is authentic. It's more spot on and not totally awful sounding, but it’s not much of an attention grabber compared to “historic restoration expert in the wildly popular tourist hub of Charleston, South Carolina, the setting of ratings behemoth Southern Charm.”

I’m left to suppose that it’s math.

After all, buying and renovating unwanted homes is math. Money math. Initial investment. Capital improvements. Potential profit.

Home renovation TV must have their own calculations based on viewership or estimated eyeballs, ad revenue, and certainly a bunch of other factors I don’t know about. They did this mathematical figuring and decided that expert in historic restoration in Charleston, SC was the way to go and away we all went.

In 2013, the director of programming said, “Enjoy the ride.”

I’ve enjoyed parts. Certainly most. But reading the emails of disappointed viewers is like being on a rollercoaster when a rider in front of you loses their lunch. I don’t know anyone who would want to be in one of those seats on that ride.

In conclusion, I am not an expert in historic restoration. I'm sorry someone wrote that about me. Although I share much in common with developer and home rehabbing queen Nicole Curtis, known for also taking on the unwanted properties, I am not worthy of that glorifying description. However, I think she is. And there are hordes of other people out there, more experienced in saving old homes, actual experts that probably deserved their own TV shows more than me. I am an unwanted homes remodeler, just a guy who’s been able to turn my pig’s ears into silk purses. Nothing more. Nothing less. I probably should have written and posted about this a long time ago. I just didn’t feel as if I had the right words until now.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 56 - Coming Soon