I'm just so sorry this happened to you.
[Rose] I hired a contractor.
The contractor took off with $80,000 of my money,
and then I was abandoned,
and I felt stupid.
I just love this little house.
We're gonna fix this.
[Erin] Rose Myer moved to Mississippi from California.
[Ben] Two years ago.
And she found a house that was perfect for her.
Laurel has everything a person like me could want.
I'm a former English teacher.
I was a drama major at one point, so I thought,
"Let me find a small town that has maybe a theater."
Boom, Laurel. How about a museum?
Boom, Laurel.
Lots of people, small town.
I saw this house on a website.
Sight unseen I said, "I need to have that house."
It was in really bad shape,
but it was affordable, and I knew I had some
extra money that I'd be able to fix it up.
When I got here, I saw that it wasn't livable.
I did my due diligence. I got references.
I made sure that the contractor was licensed.
I just picked the wrong one.
I gave him a lot of money up front, and he didn't meet
the deadline when he was supposed to be finished.
She paid him 50% down, and he did about 10% of
the work, and then took the money and ran.
My house is gutted,
sitting there just down to the studs.
So I'll be so happy.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I moved into a tiny little temporary apartment,
and now a year and a half, two years later,
I'm paying rent and I've got all my belongings in storage.
The sooner she can live here, the better.
It's been a long road.
[Erin] Let me tell you what's great about this house.
All the hard work from the beginning is done for us.
This is the Low house.
Daisy and John Low built the house originally and then
lived here for 20 years.
and they had department stores in downtown.
So it's three bedrooms, three baths,
it's 1,700 square feet.
You got it for $125,000.
You've already put at least $80,000 into it.
And you got $150,000 to make it livable?
-Yes. -Not just livable.
-She's gonna be beautiful. -Beautiful.
[Ben] We're two years into this.
What'd you like about it to begin with?
So I loved it because it's on the perfect street
with a little park. -[Erin] It's my favorite to walk.
[Rose] And good bones, actually.
[Erin] The shape of the house is cute.
This house is literally stripped bare inside and out.
[Rose] Yeah, down to the studs.
It's already so far along that it's gonna be faster for us
to get it here in just a few weeks.
Perfect. [exhales heavily]
-Yeah? -Perfect.
I wanted that color house. I wanted that color house.
[Erin] Paint the whole house.
Color drenching it in this deep, dark, moody green,
I think is going to set it apart from all the other houses
on the street.
We add screens to the front porch, a new screen door.
Paint your front door, you have existing.
I think a terracotta color would be pretty.
[Rose] That'll just set it off.
Give you board and batten siding.
-Love it. -[Erin] Some landscaping.
We want to make this house come alive.
It feels naked and stripped down.
I'm so, so happy that you made it that color.
-That's just the color I wanted. -[Erin] Good.
-It's your superpower, Erin. -[Ben] Color is her superpower.
[Rose] It is.
There's really nothing to see inside,
but you want to walk through it? -[Rose] Sure.
[Erin] And we'll talk about it.
[Ben] It really is a great street.
[Erin] The best street for walking.
I've pushed a stroller 100 miles on this street.
-Here it is. -[Erin] No doorknob.
-That's a -- you know. -It's fine, we'll add one.
[Ben] Huh.
-[Erin] Home sweet home. -[Rose] Home sweet home.
Bare bones.
Well, you can see daylight coming through the plywood.
[Ben] A little paint and a light fixture, and you're good.
Well, maybe a little sheetrock.
When you first bought the house, before any renovations,
this was the living room.
So, talk to me about the layout and the rest of the house.
-You made it bigger. -[Rose] It was a two-bedroom,
two-bath, and I saw the potential to add.
So I had an architect draw up some plans to add
a bedroom and bath.
[Erin] So now you have your primary bedroom
and your bathroom, laundry room,
then two guest bedrooms that each have
their own bathroom.
And then you have your kitchen and dining room.
So here's what I'm thinking.
Really the only things we're changing in the living room
that are here now -- we lose this door that goes to
the kitchen right now and make this one bigger.
[Rose] That'll open it up, yeah.
Yeah, and that gets you into your dining room and kitchen.
I like the sink.
That's the original sink that was right there
under the window.
And when the contractor gutted everything, he took that sink
to his storage unit.
-I was just lucky to get the sink back. -[Erin] Dang.
But he did keep my other two sinks
and my vintage pink tile that was on the original bathrooms.
So he literally tried to take everything,
including the kitchen sink. -[laughing] Yeah.
-Exactly. -Can I use it?
-Do you want to use it? -Oh, I absolutely have to have it.
I would be happy with just a good scrubbing.
I'm kind of rustic.
Her life is as eclectic as her taste.
I've had a vast career, many, many different jobs.
I was a law enforcement officer.
I was a high school English teacher, a bartender.
I was a state regulator.
And then you have a vintage, enameled...
OK, Erin keeps telling me about this stove.
[Rose] Built in Los Angeles in 1953, this is the Cadillac.
I think we can be fun and quirky in this house
and lean into this 1950s aesthetic that you love
so much. -Love it.
I think there's gonna be, like,
floral wallpaper moments and color.
I'd love to see greens, copper, turquoise.
I'm a kind of 1950s boho-cowgirl.
-You had plans done. -Yes, ma'am.
Can I walk you through what layout we think would actually
work better? -Yeah, sure, sure.
[Erin] So what we would do is, we would just close off
this door so you have more room to work with.
[Rose] That makes sense.
[Erin] So now, peninsula would come out here from this wall.
[Rose] Ooh, I like that.
[Rose] And your beautiful antique range
would go on that wall as well.
Then the sink under the window, and then fridge built into
cabinets over here in the living room.
We'd refinish the original hardwood floors,
splice in some solid oak in the kitchen and dining,
something that matches the original flooring.
Then we blend it with a stain.
On the right, this got closed in --
I want it to be pretty French doors.
-I think it'll be beautiful there. -[Rose] OK, I'll take it.
[Erin] Because that will go out to the back patio.
I just want to do whatever we can to make this kitchen
feel like a fresh imagining of 1950s style.
I love it.
All right, so with the budget, we would not do these rooms
back here, the original
bathrooms and bedrooms.
We'll be able to sheetrock floor and paint those rooms,
and they'll be livable, OK?
-Those are guest spaces anyway, not the priority. -Right.
[Erin] You'll be able to finish those down the road.
-Absolutely. -So let's talk about your bedroom and bathroom,
which you definitely do need. -[Rose] All right, oh, my getaway.
-[Erin] Uh-huh. -This was all a carport.
-This was the outdoor carport. -[Erin] And you just took it in.
[Rose] I just put it in the plan.
-[Erin] So you got more square footage. -[Rose] Yeah.
I kind of like what you had planned.
-Yeah, your plan is good. -Walk us through it.
[Rose] You know, bedroom -- it's huge,
you know, a window's on either side.
The bed'll go there.
[Erin] So we need to bring in vinyl plank flooring,
something that matches the original flooring
in the living room and kitchen, color-wise.
Add sheetrock, lights, paint, everything.
[Rose] Huge closet. That was so important.
Storage.
[Erin] I think we could have fun with color in here.
What did you have in mind for the bathroom?
[Rose] Under the window, freestanding tub,
and then a shower -- I liked them separate.
[Erin] That is the layout that makes the most sense.
So we could do toilet tucked away over here on the right.
[Rose] Perfect, yeah.
[Erin] Your vanity against the left wall.
For your vanity, it'd be cool to have a built-in
architectural moment.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
That's the only thing that ain't broke, right?
Right, yes.
-So the electrical all looks great. -Yeah.
I mean, you can see it, which is unique for us.
The plumbing, at first glance, looks good to me, but we would
want to get that all checked.
That's how we'd spend $150,000.
-What do you think? -What do you think?
The little changes that you all are making are just
things I didn't think about,
and I can't wait to have my perfect house.
-We can start building something, like, today. -Yeah, get going.
-I don't have to move out? -You don't have to move out.
-[Rose] Call me when it's ready. -[Ben] We could go to lunch.
We could go to lunch, and we could literally
come back and get started.
Come back, start laying some floors.
I'm gonna change my outfit.
We're fixin' to sheetrock right now.
There's a lot of it to do.
We're gonna get a head start before the big sheetrock team
gets here. -[Katie] That's right.
All right, let's rock this sheet.
[Erin] Been waiting a long time to say that?
[Ben] I have, since I arrived this morning.
We are going to demonstrate how to install gypsum board.
[saw buzzing]
Coming through.
We got four sheets up, and realized we really need
another crew to come in and help.
Well, while you did all that, I figured out
every color selection for every wall, every trim, every door.
[clunking]
-What are you doing? -Tearing it up.
That's new.
I know, but look down the line of this thing.
In the center of almost every single one of these pieces,
you've got a belly.
The previous contractor -- it's just not framed properly,
and it's all sagging. -[Ben] What in the world?
How they've spaced out everything is what's
causing the sag.
I think we're gonna have to take this off,
because over time, it's just gonna sag and work its way out. -[Ben] It'll fall.
We're gonna have to pull all this down, reframe it.
Time, money -- what are we looking at?
For us to come in and take it all off, reframe this how
we need to, and put up mostly new soffit material,
we're probably looking at like two or three days,
and I would say a couple grand. -Jeez.
[Ben] So all the soffit and fascia have to come down.
Does that mean that it just used some of the budget that we had,
or did we account for this? -Yes.
-Nope. -OK.
All right, let's pull some more down.
So I'm gonna be $3,000 more creative
than I was going to be.
That's a good way of looking at it.
Chris and his guys are gonna reframe,
redo all the soffits and fascia.
We also have insulation going in.
[Erin] Rose is gonna love that.
[Ben] I mean, really, she's got
a new roof, new windows, new insulation. -Yeah.
-It's good stuff. -It is a new house.
The challenge is gonna be making it feel like it has
the historic character of an older house.
[Ben] I don't think that I'm even considered a part
of the sheet rocking crew. I'm just here to move stuff.
Oh, excuse me. I'm in the way.
I think I'm slowing them down more than I am helping.
Do y'all need some help? No?
Nope.
["Run These Streets" by Safari playing]
[Ben] Wish I had a jacket on top of this sweatshirt.
-Look at this. -[Erin] It's 40 degrees today.
You do need one. Look, this is awesome, Chris.
We got windows.
-We got siding. -[Erin] And siding.
And we have walls.
So, because we have walls and rooms, we can talk to
Stubbs about cabinets. -What's up?
-[Ben] Hey, hey. -[Erin] Hi.
Y'all better get in here before you freeze to death out there.
-It's cold. -It's coming on through.
-Do you see this? -[Stubbs] Oh, did I.
The sink was original to the house.
Miss Rose has been saving it so we could use it again.
This is just one of three immovable objects in the room.
-I want to say, "Design challenges"... -[Stubbs] Absolutely.
...that you'll have to base your measurements off of.
Immovable objects, but Stubbs is an unstoppable force.
[imitates explosion sounds]
Number one, these French doors.
And we have this big mama sink, number two, that goes under
the window, but then, number three, immovable object.
-This is her stove. -[Stubbs] Is that not a fine piece?
[Erin] It's beautiful, and it's the most important thing to
her that it works in the room. And we have to build around it.
-And it should land somewhere here on this wall, -Right.
between the peninsula and this run of cabinets.
The stars have to be aligned so that it all lands perfectly.
It's gonna take some magic and careful measurements.
All right, that looks pretty good.
Love it!
The board and batten siding is up, and that's the painters.
They're prepping.
[Erin] She loves green, which works for me because it's
my favorite color, but it's also her favorite color,
and she wants green everywhere.
[Ben] Here's the thing that you have to remember with this project --
we are taking a project that was already started,
and we are trying to finish.
We gonna make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
That's right.
[Erin] The house looks done when you drive by.
I mean, it looks naked. There's no landscaping.
But it's pretty cool to see how fast this house
is turning around, really fast.
-Well, we didn't have to demo it. -[Erin] I know.
-Knock, knock. -Good morning.
[Erin] Good morning.
Did you see how fancy we're getting over here?
I did. I love the color.
[Erin] I'm pretty excited about it.
And it didn't change her budget that much to do it.
-That's gray. -Grayish green.
-I thought I was seeing green. -She likes greens and pinks.
I've seen the shower tile.
We chose this exact tile because the original bathroom
was one of those pastel pink tile bathrooms,
and she wanted -- the contractor that took her money and ran,
she wanted him to save all that in the bathroom.
[David] I'm sorry to hear that.
I know, so this is me giving it back to her some way.
You should be good to go,
it's just running bond for the walls in the shower.
-All set? -No.
We got a problem.
OK.
I want to show you something on this ceiling.
You know these old ceilings are never level.
And this was a carport, so this is the original ceiling.
You got 41 inches.
And if I were to go over here,
we're looking at 42 and 3 quarter.
-We're an inch and three-quarter out. -OK.
So if we do a running bond, you're gonna see it out of level.
-That will be noticeable. -Oh.
-[Erin] What do you typically do when you got this problem? -We try to hide it.
I mean, there's several different patterns we can work with.
Can you just show me some examples?
-I can, sure. -[Erin] We'll pick one.
So running bond would look terrible at the top,
because it's horizontal, running along with the ceiling.
It wouldn't be parallel. It would do that.
-[David] OK. -[Erin] That's what --
That's the running bond. We did one shower like this.
We run a row up top.
And then once we got that, we ran like a band.
[Erin] Yeah, that is pretty.
I feel like it's a little modern.
-OK. -What's it look like, we just do...
[David] That's just a vertical stag there.
Yeah.
I just don't love that pattern for this house.
It feels a little bit modern, too.
Why do people never do...
...vertical running line?
I feel like people don't do this a lot,
but I like the pattern.
It feels historically OK for the house.
It's also gonna hide the problem with the ceiling.
-Good idea. -I think it'll look great.
-I think Ms. Rose will like it. -Thank you so much.
[Erin] I think that's all that really matters. Great.
[Erin] Rose is trusting us, and she has eccentric taste.
It's all the colors she loves.
I'm using unexpected colors that don't appeal
to most people, and I love it.
So, here's my concern with this house.
The last contractor, when everything went south,
he was really taking this house
in a very builder-grade direction, and that's not Rose.
We have an opportunity here to make the house feel very custom.
Nothing screams custom more than a hand-painted floor.
Agreed.
Bekye Fargason is a decorative painter, which means she really
specializes in painting large scale patterns architecturally.
I had Ms. Bekye help me with the fountain
at Saron and Neal's house,
and then with the tile at the Tommarazzo's.
[Bekye] This floor, it will be such a wow factor
with this house. -Yes.
We need some "wow."
We are trying to save money every way we can,
and Bekye's doing me a huge favor here.
This is our hero wallpaper.
Rose specifically asked for this
exact wallpaper in the dining room.
I love that so much.
It's every color we're using in the whole house.
It's every color that she loves.
I don't want to get this crazy on the floor.
-I do. -Yeah?
I was thinking, you know, checkerboard.
I love harlequins, but I think we need to take it
a step farther. -I want you to.
-We can put medallions in the center. -[Erin] OK.
And then, you know, you put a rose in there.
[Erin] Because this is Rose's house.
-I took the liberty of designing something... -Want me to hold this?
...that I think you'll like.
It has the harlequins, and it has the roses.
It'll have the color pop that you want.
[Erin] It's different roses.
[Bekye] Yeah, different roses in each medallion.
The pattern almost reminds me of like a garden trellis with
roses growing up it. It's just gonna be awesome.
How do you wanna handle the color here?
[Bekye] See, I took these colors right from the wallpaper.
These colors will be the main colors of the roses.
[Erin] You can have the pinks for the pink tile in the bathroom.
I think it's so cool.
How long do you think it'll take to finish the whole floor?
I'm going to say a week.
[Erin] I was nervous when we started, because it was just a box,
and this is the opportunity we have -- wallpaper,
the retro appliances, bringing back pink tile in the bathroom,
and then porch floor that's custom painted
so that it feels almost like a rug.
It is a new house, but it's gonna be a house
that has some historic charm.
-[Josh] Pretty piece of wood. -[Ben] Nice piece of wood, white oak.
Rose is a cowgirl -- rode horses.
She used to live in Texas. She lived in New Mexico.
-She's a Western gal, -Southwestern vibe, too, huh?
Yeah, she wanted tons of bookcases.
Bookcases are expensive.
What if we built some simple plywood shelves in
her living room?
Now, it will be built-in, but not like, you know,
built-in, built-in. We won't go to the ceiling.
It's a piece of furniture that sits in, but I got you.
I want to go real wide on the face frame,
because the whole cabinet is gonna be 15-feet long.
We're gonna build three cases,
and then four-feet shelves in here.
The center, I want to go five feet with cabinets underneath
for storage.
So if she wants to put a TV there, she can.
-I have a header across the top. -[Josh] OK.
I'm working on the inlay for the face frame, so I'm making
the face frames.
Bekye is doing diamonds on the front porch floor,
and I'm taking that as inspiration and carrying it
into the living room.
So we use oak on the face frame, a stripe running up
the white oak, and then the stripe opens up
into the diamond.
She's a cowgirl, police officer,
English teacher.
She's got a little bit of, you know,
rhinestone cowgirl there.
[Josh] Ooh.
So we have a baseboard at the bottom, and a header at the top.
[Josh] This is the center section.
[Ben] I just had a thought.
I originally had said mahogany to add a little bit of flair,
but Rose loves copper.
What if we did the copper inlay?
I like it a lot.
How's this coming?
-Hey Erin, how are you? -I'm good.
It's coming. It's a good one.
[Erin] Marletta is here, restoring the original
drain board sink.
It was in the kitchen when the house was built,
and Rose saved it.
This is gonna be one of those features that everyone
remembers about this kitchen.
It looks great.
-[Marletta] It does, doesn't it? -[Erin] There.
I'm just a little bit worried
about whatever's happening here in the...
[Marletta] No.
That was just nails or something that rusted.
That looks like plumber's putty or something.
Once we etch it with acid, it'll take everything off,
and then we'll prime it and refinish it,
and then she'll be new. -OK.
This is really special, because it's one of their last
original elements of the house from when it was built.
Well, on the bottom of the bowl, it's stamped, "11-17-1949."
[Erin] That's very cool.
And she'll look like she's new again.
Rose is gonna be so, so happy.
-She will be, it'll look great. -That this is, like-new again.
-I love it. -All right.
-Thank you. -Yep.
Marletta first sands it, she scrapes it.
She gets any old silicone or glue off of it,
and then she etches it with an acid, and she rolls on
the finish, and it gets in any cracks or pockmarks,
and it makes it perfect.
A lot of painting going on.
[Erin] The kitchen is starting to look finished.
You can see the color story as it's starting.
It's about to get really interesting.
The appliances are gonna change the world in there.
[upbeat energetic music playing]
Knock, knock.
-[Ben} How are ya? -Pretty good!
So your wood's a little different.
We got two different sizes, right?
[Ben] Yeah.
Why do you think the original wood was varying width?
[Mike] It was the style back then.
Somebody wanted something different.
I think they were trying to make it look like
an 1800s cabin. -Good job replicating it.
The rest of the house is an engineered wood.
But the front, the original part of the house,
is gonna have all original oak
and this new oak that matches it.
Are you going to drill all the little dowel holes?
I don't think so.
Now, this probably came with them already in it?
Yeah, from the factory which, of course,
-they don't make that anymore. -Really?
Yeah. It's probably from the 80s.
Well, on that spot where you've sanded off the old finish
and the line where the old meets the new,
you can't even see it. -You can't even tell.
Yeah, it's just aged a little.
By the time we stain it, you'll never know.
Here's my request.
We've got the engineered wood going in the hallway and down
to her bedroom. It's pretty dark.
And I would love if you can find a color that makes sense
with that engineered wood.
You don't want to be a jarring difference.
Yeah, it needs to feel like
it's not warmer than that or cooler than that. -[Mike] OK.
I think I would like to see it, like, 50%.
-Half of that. -Yeah.
We're going to match the color it's just going to be 50%.
It's not going to be as dark.
I'm particular about this.
Before you do the whole thing I just want to see
what 50% would look like on this. -All right.
Rose is going to love that, because she wanted to keep
so much of the originality about the house.
We're going to have retro stove over here
enameled white with the tower on the left.
It's an actual old stove going there.
-Really? Okay. -Yeah.
It's going to be unique.
Yeah, it's gonna be different.
All right, Mike, we'll let you get back to work.
[Mike] All right, I'll get to it.
-[Erin] Yes, thank you. -[Mike] You're welcome.
♪♪
I love how we're gonna have so many period pieces
in the house. -[Ben] Yeah.
[Erin] From the stove to the sink to the floors.
David is almost done tiling the shower, and I love it.
I love that we went with vertical running bond for
the first time ever.
[grunting]
Looks like cast iron, feels weightless.
This tub looks heavy, but it's not.
The tub looks little, but Miss Rose is pretty petite.
Look how pretty that trim is.
[Ben] Uh-huh, does this go on the wall?
[Erin] No, it's supposed to...
Supposed to go on the tub right there.
[Erin] Hold up.
But where? I don't understand.
This tub and faucet were sold together, so it has to work.
[Erin] I was there for it.
It says, add this faucet and these finishes for
the perfect match. -Hashtag perf.
They don't go together at all.
Hey, Katie!
-Ooh, this is pretty. -It is pretty.
These came together, didn't they?
Yeah, this was like a complete set.
[Erin] But it doesn't work.
-[Katie] Oh gosh, OK. -We can return it.
It is so close to time for Rose to move in.
We could still maybe order something different,
or could we get a floor-mounted like we have at our house?
We're gonna have to jackhammer all this concrete
back out if we do that.
Because remember, this all was already plumbed.
-[Erin] Yeah. -Oh, yeah.
From Rose's previous contractor, so we were trying
to work with what we had to save money.
How big of a deal would it be to jackhammer this?
Major undertaking at this point.
It's gonna cost a lot.
This is unusual, because we never run into this
kind of problem this late in the game.
Normally, we make a plan, we order everything,
and we build to suit. -[Erin] And then built to suit.
But we didn't start this project.
We're just gonna finish it.
Maybe like a gasket or something to help just kind
of push against it.
-Like a really thick gasket? -Yeah.
I'm just gonna see what I can find.
Maybe there's a better faucet that would work on a curve that
I could overnight or something.
I'm gonna go try to get gaskets made somewhere.
I don't know how we make it.
Rose is supposed to move in in one week...ish.
-Hello? Hey! -Hey.
-How are y'all? -We're good.
-Y'all good? -Lamar, good to see you.
-Good to see you, buddy. -You got my fridge.
-It's already prepped. -Got the handles off.
If you can't afford vintage restored appliances
or new appliances that look vintage...
...wrap it. -[Lamar] Here's your color.
-[Erin] This is my color. -[Ben] Oh, this is it already printing.
Ms. Rose, whose house we're working on,
she has this retro stove that's white with chrome handles.
This is a very base-model fridge.
Adding color to it, like a real 1950s fridge would have had,
is the next best thing.
I'm so excited about this, y'all.
This is our cabinet color. So this is our wallpaper.
[Ben] Have y'all ever done this before?
[Brennan] Not on appliances.
What's the craziest thing y'all have wrapped?
We wrap about anything, but this is a unique idea.
I have this idea in my mind, and it's gonna be very cool.
You know, it's going to look like that pistachio color of
the 1950s, but it's gonna be a modern fridge.
But what happens if, for instance,
she turns and scrapes the fridge
with a hot cast-iron pan?
It shouldn't scratch with anything in the house.
I mean, it's pretty durable.
You put it on vehicles that go through car washes, right?
Yes, exactly. That's correct.
I think that this idea is gonna revolutionize
the home restoration market. -Market.
Next is gonna be the laminator.
-It'll give it a glossy shine. -OK.
And then after that, it's ready to go, but we've got
another panel that's actually ready to stick on now.
-Let's do it. -I'll hold [indistinct].
-All right. -I'm so excited about this.
So it's not especially sticky. It's just kind of like a cling.
It becomes stickier once you squeegee it.
-It's called pressure sensitivity. -Oh.
[Erin] What I do love about this is it's not a permanent
application, so if she ever wants to change the color
or just go stainless, she can just pull it off.
All right, so if you want to pull it tight on the top
and the bottom corner. -[Erin] OK.
[Brennan] Let's stick it right there.
Hold it tight, Erin.
-[Brennan] All right. good. -[Erin] OK.
[Brennan] That's it.
-Look, you can take this squeegee... -OK.
...and run it straight across.
You want to come this way with it to the edge?
-OK, this is better than a credit card. -[Brennan] Yeah.
You're gonna want to wrap everything, aren't you?
If I had one of those printers, I'd be unstoppable, Ben.
-[Ben] Pine, we have a solution. [Pine] Hey!
Let's see if these work. Gaskets, don't let me down.
-[Pine] Pretty close. -[Ben] It's still...
[Katie] It's really close, but it's not.
-I don't think that's gonna work. -Ugh.
See, this thing's got a curve this way and a curve this way,
so it'd need to be like a potato chip shape.
[Katie] I think I've got to think of something else.
[soft raindrop drips]
It's really real.
That wallpaper that we're using in the dining room,
it's all the colors she loves.
And now the real thing is here, and I can finally retire
my pitiful little tattered printout.
I've got the entire color palette of the house represented here.
That's why this wallpaper is so critical.
You can see it from every room in the house
where it's going to be.
We've got, like, our bathroom tile here.
Here's the walls in the kitchen, but then here's
the cabinetry in the kitchen. Here's the living room walls.
Here's our appliances. There's our front door.
And I know it's large scale, but this is real large scale.
Yeah, this is a 48-inch pattern repeat.
It's really more like a mural than normal wallpaper.
[John] Right.
This is actually a wallpaper that she told me
she's obsessed with. -OK.
[Erin] So this is a surprise. Can we hang some?
-Yes, we can. -[Erin] I want to see it.
This is not a cheap wallpaper.
I wasn't positive that we could, but then, because Ben
can build bookcases and we took that away from construction
budget, it gives me money to buy the wallpaper that
she really, really wanted.
So this is gonna be a little of a bonus.
It's going to make her flip out, I hope.
[Ben] There's no budget for details.
[Erin] We're just being extremely creative here.
[Ben] Our countertops are finally in.
Marletta's been done with the sink,
that was done several days ago.
It's very heavy.
I'm worried about the sink, babe.
-It got wet. -I think it'll be all right.
This is the first vintage piece the kitchen is gonna see.
I really do think it's cool that this is the sink that was
always here, and now it's back. -[Ben] 75 years.
[Erin] Look at this. Now, what's holding it up?
Why we have a gap?
[Erin] It's got these pegs.
The pegs are just little legs that it's sitting on,
so those little peg legs have to be cut off.
Well, I got a grinder.
[Erin] Hey, get it out of here.
You're just going to have to man up and pick it up, boy.
I'd really rather take it outside, not to mess up
nothing in here.
[Ben] Let me tell you, Allan wanted to bring the sink
all the way back outside. Not happening.
I don't know that I've got anything left in the tank.
It is, like, ten minutes till five o'clock right now.
-[Ben grunting] -[Erin] Watch your fingers.
[men grunting]
[Allan] I'm gonna take to the ground.
Stand it up on its back.
-[Erin] So these are what we gotta cut off, OK. -[Allan] Yeah.
We're gonna cut the tabs off.
All right, we're gonna build a cocoon.
The cardboard is just to protect the cabinets,
the paint, and the countertops, so it's -- sparks are flying. -[Ben] Floors.
[Allan] One down.
[Ben] This was the only way that these tabs
were gonna get cut off.
So it was five minutes of him grinding them off,
and then we're good to go. We can put it in.
[Allan] All right, still.
Whew, I love it when a plan comes together.
I have a question, and I'm excited,
because I feel like this could be the answer.
We have run completely out of time.
We've exhausted all the options.
[Erin] It's been three days of troubleshooting the tub.
Ben was talking about what if he could, like, build a box to
hide the plumbing at the end, which got me thinking.
This is stubbed up through the concrete.
Is it possible to just reroute that into the wall
so that you could then mount the fixture to the wall?
The box idea feels a little bit, "We messed up."
It does. It feels like that.
And this is our fix.
[Erin] And so, instead of that, I thought, "Why don't we just
reroute that plumbing behind the tub into the wall?"
We have water lines feeding the lavatory in this wall.
-It goes through this wall? -[Allan] Already there.
So I just found this.
It's a 6-inch brushed brass extender that I think would get
it where we need to be.
We could just come in here and cut some sheet rock out.
I could put a bracket across inside and mount the extenders
to it, and bring this out. -Yeah, would 6-inch work?
-[Allan] 6-inch is a little far. -Kind of in your face.
I would imagine you could probably find them in a 4-inch,
which would be about right there.
So you wouldn't see this bracket on a wall?
No, no, no, it'd be a 2-by-8 in the wall.
Then I would put sheet rock back and repaint it.
You never know, it'll just be pipe stubbed out.
We're talking about a sheetrock patch to make this happen.
You can get the extenders. It's a done deal.
-[Erin] four-inch. -Four-inch.
And this pile of flooring has just been laying here,
waiting to go in.
Bekye is working on painting in the pattern on the front porch.
The humidity has slowed her down a lot.
It was dry as a bone for three months.
And then this week, we have like 100% humidity,
which you can totally see. -Yeah, my hair is terrible.
It's just a mess.
I love how we took a house that was, at first blush,
very bland. There was nothing here.
There were just studs, and it was opportunity.
An opportunity is something that was as eclectic
and eccentric as Rose's whole life story has been.
That's what the house really looks like.
Her life.
It's like a four-leaf clover sitting on the street.
It's a lot of fun to work with someone whose favorite color
is green.
She asked for every room to be soaked in green,
except she wanted this colorful wallpaper with florals.
They're coming up out of the green --
the leaves, the shoots, the stems.
And I think that makes a lot of sense here.
It's so weird how this house has been Rose's house
for years, and she's never lived in it.
She's just had this dream about what her life would be like
here, moving to the South, living in a little old house
in Mississippi.
And it's never been real, and it's about to be real.
It has been a long journey. Welcome to the Myer house.
[gasping]
It's so beautiful.
It's the best house I've ever had,
and it's my little house.
Oh, it's perfect.
The perfect green that I wanted.
I wanted dark, but not too dark.
It's just gorgeous.
And the porch, you actually did the porch.
[Ben] Oh, yeah.
That porch, when I bought this house, was dirty, ugly,
broken, crooked glass, And I wanted it to be screened,
because I want to be able to sit on my porch and look out
and see my park.
But I'm gonna live on that porch.
It's just beautiful.
[Erin] New siding. There was no siding.
A lot of work had been done, but we had to redo a lot
of the work. -I know that.
[Ben] All the soffit, the way that they had
attached it was wrong.
-We had to rework most of it. -[Erin] And new landscaping.
Oh, the landscaping. And a hydrangea bush.
I love it.
It's my perfect house. I'm so happy.
[Erin] We went a little crazy on the porch.
-Can we go look at the porch? -[Rose] Please, I need to see it.
Oh, it's so good.
-[Ben] We've got some surprises. -[Erin] Come on in.
Beautiful. I can't believe it.
This is wonderful. The floor is beautiful.
Roses. This is unbelievable.
[Erin] Bekye Fargason custom-painted the floors.
She does ornamental paintings.
I know her work, and I'm just...honored.
-And we put lots of roses in it. -[Rose] I see that.
Very boho, cowgirl, eclectic.
Everything you told me, everything you showed me was
very eclectic, very colorful.
[Rose] A reading spot and watch my neighbors go by.
It's just beautiful. This is gorgeous.
[Erin] Look, you are dressed like the door, and I was
inspired by it, too, today. -[Rose] Me, too.
-Let's get to the juicy part. -Let's go in.
[Rose] All right, OK.
-[Erin] Go on in. -This is not what I expected.
This is beautiful.
That's great, Erin. This is beautiful.
It's beaut -- and the color is so rich.
All the colors that you shared with me
were a jewel box of colors. -[Rose] Yes, yes.
[Erin] When you get to use really saturated color
like that, rooms feel so cozy. -Cozy.
-This is beautiful. -[Erin] You wanted bookcase storage.
I did. This unit, who made this?
-I made this. -I know you did.
[Ben] The budget was not really there for built-ins,
so I built these. This was my gift.
We wanted it to feel custom in some way, and so we added
the diamond inlay. That's the touch of copper.
[Rose] Oh, beautiful.
[Erin] It's a little of that Southwest vibe.
[Rose] It is.
[Rose] This is perfect, beautiful.
-You have a lot of cool things. -Yeah.
I love it, thank you.
And look at the floors. I just noticed.
-[Erin] Totally refinished. -[Rose] Original.
By Mike Husers.
Everybody says, "Oh, I want Mike to come back."
And I got Mike.
-You got Mike back. -[Ben] You got Mike.
Yay! You all did beautiful on this.
It's just the perfect room for me.
Well, I want to know more about the stove in the kitchen.
-Oh, OK. -Did you name her?
-Because... -No, but she needs a name.
She does need a name.
She was the muse for this whole kitchen design.
Unbelievable.
This is so beautiful.
Where did you find this color?
This is just a stainless steel fridge that we vinyl wrapped,
so it would feel like retro appliances.
And this was an idea that I had, and I didn't know if it
would actually work.
[Rose] Microwave, dishwasher wrapped.
-[Rose] That's amazing, -But it feels more at home
against this beauty. -It does.
Oh, look at that bad boy. She's gorgeous.
She's so big when she stands alone, but now in her kitchen,
she's just at home.
-And your same sink. -[Rose] She got a facelift.
She got renewed.
[Erin] Yep, Marletta did a restoration on it.
It's perfect, and it's the original, and I almost
lost it, and I'm so glad it's here.
It's a retro kitchen, but it's got all
the modern conveniences, and it's just so spiffy.
Everywhere I look is just a feast.
-Gosh, I love the way you talk. -[Rose] Oh!
You've got my wallpaper. I cannot believe that.
[Erin] Every color in the house came out of the wallpaper.
-That wallpaper was a big wish for you. -Huge.
And it inspired the color palette of the entire house.
[Rose] And that's what I wanted.
[Erin] I'm glad you chose this wallpaper that
inspired everything. -I can tell.
[Erin] We tried to be custom.
Come see how we tried to get custom in your
bedroom and bathroom.
Oh, the hallway's beautiful.
What do you think?
Oh, it's so beautiful.
My bed.
It's beautiful.
Look at those doors, huh?
The double doors, how posh is that?
-You're so fancy. -Look at that tub!
Oh! I got my pink tiles!
[Erin] And your pink tile is back!
My pink tiles and subways and vertical, I love that.
What a vision.
So we had to do it vertically, because the ceiling had
a slope, because this was a utility room. -[Rose] That's right.
[Erin] And we couldn't run it that direction, because it would
make it look really obvious that there was a slope up there.
I love it. This little tub is perfect.
[Erin] It's just big enough for you. -Yes.
This is custom.
This was all ordered together, meant to work together.
So we get it here, and it won't work with the tub.
-The plumbing had already been roughed in. -[Rose] Right.
[Ben] So we went round and round and round,
trying to figure it out. Allen and Pine tied in here.
And so you have a little custom side-mounted.
[Rose] That's so unique. I love it.
[Erin] So we wanted to focus on making the bathroom feel custom,
because so much about the house was headed in this very
builder-grade direction. -[Rose] Yes.
[Erin] So we went custom everywhere we could afford to.
This built-in with its little nook and the storage in
the sides and the sconces built into the mirror.
Little luxury finishes, but it's still eccentric.
[Rose] It's just beautiful. I love it.
[Ben] We had to get creative.
There are a lot of little details you'll keep finding.
I know. I know.
This is the best spot on the street.
It is the best spot. Do you feel relieved?
It's been such a long journey for me, and for it to end up
this wonderful, it's gonna take some time to soak in.
It's not about the house.
The house is perfect and beautiful,
but this journey, the people I've met,
are worth a million bucks, and I couldn't be happier to
have this beautiful house, but it's not about the house.
It's about the people, and I'm just overwhelmed.
[Ben] You gave us $150,000.
We did run into a few lingering problems from the previous
contractor, but even with those problems, we were able to
finish the house for $150,000. And all that's behind you.
-And it looks like triple that. -I have something for you.
-[Ben] She has carried that... -My wallpaper.
[Erin] I took this little piece of paper everywhere I went.
-[Rose] Thank you. -[Erin] You're so welcome.
We are gonna get out of your hair.
Here's a book you can read on your porch.
Read a book, take a nap, whatever you want to do.
-That's what I'm gonna do. -Watch the world go by.
Every day from now on. Thank you all so much.
-[Erin] You look at home. -Great, it's nap time.