January 2009 Archives
Later today, we're taking the kids to see Bolt at the Fox Theatre. The Fox is this big old theater in downtown Atlanta that's usually the home of Broadway musicals and major concerts. But they've recently started a movie series, where they'll show recent run movies complete with a pipe organ singalong, wine tasting and some retro cartoons beforehand. It's cool enough to see the films in such a beautiful theater, but the added extras make it even better. This will be the last fun thing we do with the kids before we ship them off to the in-laws' place in Alabama for a week while the redesign crew is here.
Alecia's taking them to 'Bama tomorrow, while I head into work for our live red carpet webcast of the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. I didn't go to LA for it this year, which sort of sucks. But we're using a different production crew and have changed our delivery system, so it wasn't really necessary that I be on-site. Instead, I'll be sitting with an editor in midtown, Atlanta, launching the live streams on TBS.com and TNT.tv while he cuts up the red carpet interviews to go on VOD later that night. If you're the type who watches red carpet coverage of award shows, check it out Sunday at 6pm/et on one of our sites, or watch the clips and look at the photos on either site Monday morning. We could use the traffic. :)
Anyway, I'm going to climb back into bed until the girls get up. The new year post will hopefully go up tonight or tomorrow. If you got our mailer and immediately jumped online, I apologize. But you can build your own year-in-review picture by reading the past posts on this site--and it will be a much more detailed view than I plan to give. If you want my summary, however, you'll just have to check back. Thanks!
Tuesday was our first day of filming for the show Designed to Sell. Originally, we had been scheduled for Monday afternoon, but our designer, John Gidding, was going to be on Live with Regis and Kelly and needed to fly out, so it was moved to Tuesday morning. EARLY Tuesday morning. The crew showed up at 6:30am and we started filming at 7am.
The sun isn't even out yet.
Our plan was to get in some shots between 7-8am while the kids were still sleeping, then a break from 8-9am for us to get the kids up and ready and Maddie off to school and Josie off to a playdate at a friend's house. Usually, I have to drag the kids out of bed at 8am, sometimes dressing them while they're still half asleep. That morning, though, Josie woke up at 5am!! That was even before my alarm clock went off. Luckily, I got her to go back to sleep until she woke up again around 7am. Not to worry, though, as we set her up with breakfast and the Tinkerbell movie in our office. We didn't even hear a peep from her until we checked in again. (Oh yes, our parenting skills are top notch...) Maddie slept through the entire thing -- and all the noise -- until around 7:45.
Our bedroom lit and ready for the first shots.
Our first shots were with the designer, John Gidding, as he revealed his design plans for our rooms. (We had to do all indoor shots first since it was still pitch dark outside!) We worked completely out of sequence, filming our 3rd room first and working backwards to the first one we were "showing" him. It was really exciting seeing what he had in store for us. The whole experience was interesting because each and every scene was filmed three times -- ones with all of us in the picture, then ones with close ups of either John or Bill and I. That meant laughing at jokes 3 times in a row, and showing surprised looks on our faces when we saw the designs 3 times in a row. It definitely took away any nervousness I'd been feeling. That, and the fact that I had to stand between 6'2" Bill and 6'4" John. Every shot you see will be of me standing between them up looking up at them towering over me, with a goofy grin on my face. Not the mention the fact that the host is a 6' tall supermodel as well. I look like one of the Munchkins in comparison.
More set up in the hallway.
As opposed to the pre-production meeting a few weeks ago, the weather was wonderful. It was a little cold and overcast in the morning but slowly progressed to a cool, but sunny, day. It sounds silly, but I was so happy because I think our house looks especially good on nice, sunny days.
Little House on the TV Show
As soon as we finished our final shot with John, he left to catch his flight to New York for his Regis and Kelly appearance. We were then given a break to get the girls ready. Luckily, we already had them dressed and pretty much ready to go because it was already 8:45 and Maddie had to be at school at 9. We rushed her to school and met up with a friend of mine who was having Josie over for a playdate with her daughter for the morning. Josie was so excited just to get to go to one of her friends' houses without Maddie. She felt like such a big girl.
Once the girls were set, we rushed back to the house to get ready for the 2nd round of filming. This time we showed the show host, Chi Lynn, each of our rooms and talked with her about the house and our plans to move. Whereas the shots with John had been mostly stationary, we had to walk around with Chi Lynn. For those of you that know my clumsiness, you can imagine just how well that worked out. Luckily, I can say I only tripped over one of the lights once, and only got my microphone pack caught on the door handle once as well. Those are pretty good stats for me, considering.
I only tripped over this equipment once.
One of our final shots was of Bill and I, as a lead in to our "story." We were filmed standing on our back deck with our coffee cups (filled with water, and Bill doesn't even drink coffee anyway) trying not to act as if we were being filmed. It was difficult because we were standing in the sun to get good lighting, but then also tried not to 1) squint, or 2) laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Of all the shots, I have no doubts that one will be the funniest and most odd.
Once that was done, we were on our own again while the crew ate lunch. Josie and I took Bill to work, and then returned to pick Maddie up from school. Since they were filming the realtor's tour of our house and his reactions during this time, we weren't allowed back at the house until at least 2pm. The girls and I went out to Chick-fil-A for lunch and I let them play in the play area for as long as I could before we left to head back home. By this point I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. Despite our efforts to be as prepared as possible, Bill and I both had still only gotten a few hours sleep the night before (and the night before that.) It was catching up with me.
Carl, our sound guy, is also the husband of a friend of mine.
As I drove by our house I noticed they were still filming so I kept going and tried to occupy the girls for a little longer. At this point all I wanted to do was go home and crash on the couch while the girls played in their "new" playroom (apparently, it's *new* because I cleaned it and put each and every single toy away.) Having no energy to walk around a store or play area anymore, I drove to the supermarket by our house and parked in the far end of the parking lot. The girls were more than happy to play with their new Kids' Meal toys and climb around the car sans carseats while I vegged out. After about 45 minutes, during which the girls played beautifully, we headed back home again. This time everyone was still there, but they were all packing up their gear and leaving.
Tuesday was one really long day, but also a really fun one. Not at all like I imagined, but also lots of fun. Everyone on the crew is incredibly nice and we spent most of the morning joking around with one another. I AM really excited now that I've seen what kinds of changes they'll be making in the house. I'm hoping potential buyers will be happy with them as well.
Here's a rundown of what we know so far:
Bedroom:
Our Master Bedroom will get new paint (no more mustard color), new carpeting, crown molding, changes to the shape of our windows as well as custom roman blinds and a couple of small items of furniture. There was lots of joking around about the color of the walls and that fact that we have that humongous armoire with a TV in the corner. Yes, it takes up a lot of space, but we had nowhere else to put it at the time and it has served its purpose for us. It will be sent to our storage unit once the makeover begins.
Porch:
Our screened-in porch will get the least work of the 3 rooms. It will be mostly cosmetic, with custom roman blinds on all the windows, slipcovers for the chairs and table, new paint and some repairs to the windows. In fact, they'll be repairing one of the windows they broke. The funniest part is that they insisted on getting a shot of John talking to us about the window, just in case footage of the carpenters repairing it later on would be included. They would need an explanation for that. John, being mischevious, actually asked us on-camera about who had broken it. We were taken by shock, since it was one of their crew that did it. I stuttered something and pointed to Bill who just looked shocked, wondering whether to tell the truth or not. John laughed it off, and I'm pretty sure that won't be included in the final tape. At least, I hope not.
Den:
Our den is the "Poppa Bear" of the 3 rooms (their term, not mine.) Obviously the story will be about how the room is too full of toys and how that might not appeal to new homebuyers without kids. We, knowingly, put the gigantic new Barbie house from Santa in front of the fireplace. It will be mentioned in the show a number of times. There were lots of jokes centered around it. The funniest part is that, in all of my cleaning and prepping the room, I hadn't paid attention to what was going on in the actual dollhouse itself. John was the first one to notice that the girls had posed two of their Ken dolls sitting on the bed in the bedroom. John was impressed that, in his words, we were a very "gay-friendly family." :) This room will get custom built-in shelves on both sides of the fireplace, new paint, a custom coffee table designed by John, and a new sofa (bye bye, futon!) I'm really excited to see how this room turns out. It will be a complete change from what it is now.
There won't be any more filming until the week of Tuesday the 27th.. Usually, they leave one week between the "before" filming and the actual makeover. However, since next Monday is MLK Day, that leaves a short week, so instead they'll be back the week after that. That's a good thing, though. John left us with "homework" to be done before they start the makeover. Ours includes packing up all of our clothes from the dressers in our bedroom, as well as ALL THE TOYS AND BOOKS in our playroom. Here's another before picture, just to give you an idea of how huge a task this will be:
The girls and the dogs will be at my mom's house for that week, so that the crew won't be disturbed when they're filming during the day. Wish us luck that things will turn out okay and that we won't look too foolish on TV. We'll keep you posted!
Since finding out what rooms they'll be making over, Bill and I have been running around like mad trying to get the rest of the house clean and suitable for TV. A few days ago we found out that, in addition to the 3 makeover rooms, they'll also be filming our living room, kitchen, and the girls' bedroom to show the rest of the house (and rooms that don't necessarily need a makeover.) It was a surprise to us, but a good one. We were originally worried they would want to film either of our bathrooms which are still in the process of being redone. As our time until the makeover dwindled away, we became more and more stressed about getting it all done. Luckily, now can be more relaxed and not worry so much about those for the time being.
Still, that means a mad rush to make those "good" rooms look as good as possible. Our projects for the last two weeks have included painting all our interior doors white, installing trim around the baseboards of our floors, spackling and touching up the paint on all the walls in the house, getting the carpets steam-cleaned, repainting the trim on our house, redoing the floor paint on our front porch, cleaning up the landscaping, cleaning off the roof, replacing old light switches and faceplates around the house, and more. Oh, and scrubbing and washing each and every item we own. In other words, not much at all.
Our biggest concern and stress is for the first day of filming, during which they'll be doing the "before" shots. Even though we're getting a makeover, we still don't want to be completely embarrassed by the before shots. After that, though, the stress will be much less. I have no worries about the week when they do the actual makeover work, since our house will be torn apart and messy anyway. I guess our only stress at that point will be about how we look on TV while we try to pretend that we're actually helping do any of the carpentry or painting work.
Until then, Bill and I are trying to plan out our projects so that we can get everything done well before Monday night. Neither of us want to be up late finishing projects, especially when we'll need to be ready for the camera at 6:30 the next morning. With that in mind, I'm off to finish cleaning or painting or washing or one of the other hundreds of items on our to-do list.
Keep your fingers crossed that things go well on Tuesday!
Happy New Year, everybody.
And I hope you have great holidays. And I love you.
I've been playing Barbie dolls. I helped Daddy give Daisy a bath. And I got a My Little Pony painter for Christmas. And I have been taking pictures on my special pink camera. Look at my pictures on the computer.
That's all I need to say. Goodbye! I love you!
-Maddie
Dear everybody,
Can you come here? Santa brought me a Barbie dollhouse and a Barbie car. And Nana and Mic. Santa brought me Barbie stuff. That's all I want to say.
-Josie
