So here we are…

To get into all the details of what we went through when building our house, well, let’s just say it will take more than one sitting for that! At some point, when I’m not feeling too emotional and I’m ready to get into the nitty-gritty details of what we went through (and where it led us), I’ll give you all the details! But until then, we’ll start off with this: we had a really bad experience when we were building our custom home in Nashville and because of that, Brice and I learned to do so many things on our own. For that, we will forever be grateful.

Late nights, early mornings, never getting a day off — that’s what our neighbors saw when we were finishing our house so we could finally move in. One of those neighbors, Emily, was our biggest cheerleader. Her family cheered us along, bringing over lemonade, offering help and support, and when we finished, celebrated with us as if it was their own home being completed! Just because we were able to move into the house didn’t meant that projects were over — matter of fact, that’s when the fun stuff was actually able to start! From custom closets to outdoor decks and everything imaginable in between, we had so many ideas we wanted to create to make our house a home.

Finally we took a little break from our projects because we had our first REAL client — none other than our cheerleader, Emily. I redid a bathroom in her studio and from there, the calls, texts and dm’s began. Emily has a connection like no other. She literally knows everyone! To make a very long story short, Emily introduced us to Sarah and that’s how it all began.

Sarah, a former producer for ABC for 11+ years, just moved to Nashville and came over to hang out and meet. After a quick tour of our house, the “you need your own show” comment came out of her mouth. That was something people would say from time to time, probably because of our reversed roles in the build process, but we always blew it off because let’s be real, who would want to see me and Brice on TV?!

Two weeks later, Sarah called to tell us a local production company wanted to film a sizzle of us. We had no idea what that meant. Basically, it’s a 3 minute video about us that they would use to pitch to networks in hopes of getting a pilot for a show. Riverside Entertainment came over and filmed a days worth of video they would condense to 3 minutes and see if it resonated with any networks. After months of virtual meetings, phone calls and back and forth with networks, we got a call that changed everything!

The “undisclosed network” that seemed to be the front runner turned out to be The Magnolia Network. The fangirl in me wanted to say “YES” before I ever heard the proposal, but after filming a pilot episode redoing a neighbor’s house, the “YES” came easy when they offered us a season of our own show.

Now, with one season in the books of “Making Modern with Brooke & Brice,” our world has been turned upside down and we are scrambling to find the words to say, create gaps in our schedules to do anything outside of work and projects and still take it all in so we can enjoy the journey. And while that may all still be a learning curve for us, what we have figured out is that we are SO incredibly grateful that Chip and Joanna Gaines, The Magnolia Network, Discovery+ and Riverside Entertainment would take a chance on two really normal people that had no idea what it was like to be on TV. We have figured out that most people have a side hobby they’d like to make a side hustle, or a passion to do something on the side, they just didn’t really know how and where to start. And that’s what I love most about this opportunity to have our own show: we get to inspire people to go after something they thought was unattainable or they were scared to start in fear that they would fail or wouldn’t know who to turn to for help. We love that through our journey of starting our design/build business, while both holding down full-time jobs, people feel inspired to DO more, FIND their passion or START back at it; this is the “why” behind us doing the show!

We could have let a really defeating situation ruin our house building experience and leave a bad taste in our mouth for years to come, instead, we decided to find the silver lining in a really difficult situation, learn from it, be willing to adjust and change, try something new and trust in the process. And here we are: grateful, excited, nervous, ambitious, encouraged, stressed…all the emotions you should feel when you’re on the cusp of doing something GREAT!