Yes she had a previous HGTV show.
This show fascinates me, so I have been poking around trying to figure some things out.
Donovan is a partner/owner of Greymark Construction. They are a custom new home builder. If you go to his website, you will see the spec homes as well as drawings for custom homes.
Alison is an interior designer in Chicago and Las Vegas (she went to school in Las Vegas so she splits her time between the two places).
One reason Donovan seems to miss things is (IMO) he is a new home builder and is not really used to doing home inspections. The houses where the roofs/decks/garage roof were caving in was a bad mistake.
In addition, they have a lot of houses that they are working on at the same time. I think this is why they are using contractors that they don't normally use and may not be as good as their usual contractors. I think this adds to some of the problems they have with not being able to pass electrical inspection, etc.
The mistake they made in the Gibbons Street house by allowing it to go under contract before it was done was also interesting. As of today, the house is still not sold. The people who signed the contract are still arguing about what changes they asked for that were outside the project scope. I assume they are in litigation or mediation/arbitration working it out. The following week, Donovan had a buyer who wanted to put a contract on the house before it was done and Alison was against it. What Alison and Donovan are doing together is not building custom homes. They are building Alison Victoria original designed homes. You are buying a completely furnished home. These are not staged for purchase, you are keeping all the furnishings. Had they accepted the contract with that woman it would have ended up being a custom home and they would have been working for this woman vs creating their own design. I mean, she came in with her own set of floor plans!
What I like about this show is that it's in a city vs the suburbs. It certainly adds a different element to things like when the city was working on the street at the same time they were trying to bring in their own demo equipment. I also like that weather plays a big role in it. So many of the shows are done in mild, always sunny weather, and I think racing against Chicago winters and having huge delays due to snow storms is interesting.
She's also raised some good points about placement of electrical boxes and thermostats on the walls. I would never have thought about something like that, but she considers the tiniest details like that. Last night's show was the big discussion about removing the soffet. I learned something there.
As for her designs, it's not my taste. I haven't really cared for a single room she's designed.
Anyway, this show fascinates me.
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QVC Shopper - 1993
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