Sweeten Founder Featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Jean tells Extreme Makeover why a licensed general contractor is important
Sweeten on the set! Founder Jean Brownhill stopped by the set of HGTV’s hit show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to lend her advice on licensed general contractors (and muscle!) for a deserving family’s renovation. Check out the behind-the-scenes footage of her visit.
Planning a home makeover of your own? Sweeten handpicks the contractors to match each project’s location, budget, scope, and style. Follow the blog, Sweeten Stories, for renovation ideas and inspiration and when you’re ready to renovate, start your renovation on Sweeten.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (00:06)
Jean! Hey, how are you?
Jean: (00:07)
Hey, I’m great. How are you?
Design Team Darren Keefe: (00:08)
I wanted to introduce you to our builder, Dave.
Builder Dave: (00:10)
Hey, nice to meet you.
Jean: (00:11)
Hi Dave.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (00:11)
Jean’s with Sweeten.com, and she specializes in matching homeowners with renovation experts. And so she’s seen demos, renos, and all the kinds…(laughs).
Jean: (00:22)
Oh, yeah, we literally have seen everything.
Builder Dave: (00:22)
Yeah.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (00:23)
We’re really glad to have Jean from Sweeten here because we have this un-permitted breezeway that the Holtzclaw’s inherited. And she knows what it takes to solve these problems.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (00:33)
A lot of times that happens, you’ll buy a home and you think you can renovate something that’s been un-permitted and it’s like peeling back layers of a nightmare, right?
Jean: (00:40)
It’s like a Pandora’s box. So once you touch one thing, you know this?
Builder Dave: (00:45) Sweeten brings homeowners an exceptional renovation experience by personally matching trusted general contractors to your project, while offering expert guidance and support—at no cost to you. Renovate to live, Sweeten to thrive!
Yeah.
Jean: (00:45)
Everything has to be up to code.
Builder Dave: (00:46)
Yeah.
Jean: (00:46)
You can’t just fix the electrical. You have to fix the plumbing, you have to fix the structural, and the foundation. And I think that people think that like, “Oh, I don’t need to hire a licensed general contractor. You know, it’s too expensive or it’s too cumbersome.”
Builder Dave: (00:57)
Yeah.
Jean: (00:58)
But the reason why there is a license to be a general contractor is because you have people’s safety in mind. And this space is obviously not that.
Builder Dave: (01:06)
Absolutely.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (01:08)
So first thing that we need to do is strip all these walls. So we’re going to demo all these walls, get it down to studs.
Jean: (01:12)
Amazing.
Builder Dave: (01:12)
All right.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (01:13)
All right, You ready?
Jean: (01:13)
Yeah.
Builder Dave: (01:13)
What are we waiting for?
Design Team Darren Keefe: (01:14)
All right, I got a hammer for you. Swing away.
Design Team Darren Keefe: (01:20)
Nice.
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Sweeten founder and CEO weighs in on what to know before renovating a brownstone.
Sweeten handpicks the best general contractors to match each project’s location, budget, scope, and style. Follow the blog, Sweeten Stories, for renovation ideas and inspiration and when you’re ready to renovate, start your renovation with Sweeten.
