A Marietta family’s home renovation is being featured on an episode of Home and Garden TV’s Property Brothers airing at 9 p.m. Wednesday and midnight Thursday.
Melissa and Joe Durham sold their too-small East Cobb house in May 2013 citing a need for more space to accommodate their many house guests and two growing children, now ages 6 and 4. The only problem? The budget. Enter Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott.
“We had watched enough television on HGTV to know that you have to be open to something not aesthetically pleasing at first. We had kind of a fixer upper budget,” Melissa Durham said. “We actually sent them kind of a different application we sent them some crazy pictures of our family. We sent one that was all of us dressed as The Incredibles.”
Following many rounds of applications and interviews, the couple that wanted more house for less money got selected in July 2013.
Durham said they actually purchased their fixer-upper in August and renovations began in September. For the show, the family was able to select a couple of key spaces to be renovated — they chose the basement to be transformed into a livable space for visiting family and friends — the rest they did themselves.
“With the Property Brothers they present you with the scope of work and the amount of money that it will cost which is the budget we will use. For television our budget may be presented as about triple the amount because they get a lot of sponsorships and donations they have to account for,” she said. “When we went upstairs to do our renovation, there was no budget for that.”
Over the course of the four-month renovation, which ended in November, the Durhams were parents, professionals and renovators. Starting the day taking the kids to school, working — the two own and operate Vineyard Imaging and Printing and Joe Durham works as a football coach at Lassiter High School, being parents in the afternoon and ending the day going to work on the house every night after the kids went to sleep became routine.
“Every night for about four months we would drive over there and do work,” she said.
Durham said the renovation on the rest of the house was made possible by the help of family and friends and donations from local businesses such as Lowe’s and Home Depot.
“We had some friends and some family who made calls and told people there is a family in Marietta and they struggled for a couple years and they were picked (to do the) show and they have the rest of the house to renovate themselves,” she said.
The family underwent some hard times back in 2011 when Joe Durham lost his job at the same time as his mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Melissa Durham said they could not have kept their family afloat without the help of local Marietta organizations, including MUST Ministries and Mount Paran North Church.
Though there are still some renovations to do to the upper floors and the outside of the Durhams’ new home, Melissa Durham said they love it.
“We truly want our home and our story to encourage and bless others. As (God) takes care of us, we can turn around and give to those in need,” she said in a subsequent email. “Just this week alone we have had 17 people pass through town and stay with us and have a bed to sleep on. Everyone has had somewhere to sleep and that’s something we could have never done in our other house.”
The Durhams’ episode of Property Brothers will also feature several Marietta locations including Miss Mamie’s Cupcakes, Lassiter High School and Queen of Hearts Antiques and Interiors.
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