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Planning a massive reno: ‘Don’t’

As if renovating and designing your entire house on your own isn’t enough.
TV Making House 20110606
Interior designer Jennifer Reid

TORONTO — As if renovating and designing your entire house on your own isn’t enough.

Toronto interior designer Jennifer Reid and her contractor husband, Chad Kulchyski, did just that last year while also running two businesses, preparing for the arrival of a fourth baby and living in a cramped apartment with their three young children and a dog.

Oh, and they let cameras follow them throughout the journey for the new series, Making House.

So, do they have any advice for families who want to make a similar move?

“One word: don’t,” Kulchyski said with a laugh in a recent interview in their newly renovated digs.

“Honestly, take your timeline, add a couple of weeks, take your budget, add 10 per cent, because it is going to take you longer than you thought and you are going to be over budget,” noted Reid.

“And you might also want to book regular appointments with a psychologist,” added Kulchyski. “Just a weekly appointment, just to make sure everything is OK.”

Debuting Tuesday on W Network (at 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET/PT), the 13-part docu series follows the couple as they move their growing family into a small rental space so they can gut, renovate and design their wartime house in uptown Toronto.

Their goal is to build an addition on the back of the house, make the kitchen and basement bigger, and add an ensuite bathroom on the second floor as well as a large master bedroom — all in four months before the baby comes.

Reid, a former radio and TV journalist, and Kulchyski had renovated 10 homes of their own before. They’d also watched their own clients live through the headache of renos.

Still, they weren’t prepared for the toll this experience would take on them, and at one point early in the season, Kulchyski is caught crying on camera.

“I hit a bit of a wall there,” he said. “I was in tears . . . . I just kind of broke down. At that point in our lives, I’d just had enough and I just let go a little bit.”

“We knew that it would be hard,” said Reid. “But I don’t think you ever know how hard until you’re in it and you are living in a two-bedroom apartment and the house is behind schedule and we’re both trying to run our own businesses, manage the kids and activities and some sense of normalcy all while trying to renovate and get back in on time.

“Oh, and I was pregnant and felt terrible the whole time. It’s hard.”

The series came about after Reid had won the W Network Experts Search in April of last year.

The prize was a TV development deal and Reid said she came up with the concept for the series, thinking their “real lives seemed so crazy that maybe people might like to watch it.”

The couple says their children were OK with being on camera, but Kulchyski wasn’t at first.

“I got dragged into the whole thing, just kicking and screaming,” he said. “It’s not what I do. I’m a contractor, I’m not some reporter on TV, so for me the whole idea of having cameras around just made me very nervous like it does anyone, but eventually they just kind of just disappear, you don’t even know they’re there anymore.”

And was the turmoil worth it?

“Yes,” said Kulchyski.

“Every second of it,” added Reid. “We now have a house that our kids feel comfortable in, we can live comfortably in, entertain. It’s just a great space for the six of us.”

“The stress level, which you’ll see unfold many, many times through each episode, was sometimes unbearable,” continued Kulchyski. “But long-term, we look around, we’re so happy with everything that we did here.”