Domestic Do-over Read online

  Everything happened at light speed. Just a few weeks after Brandon reluctantly agreed to do this show, filming began with him doing a walk-through of the house, with Travis trailing behind him as he explained to the camera what he wanted to do. They’d already done computer renderings of Brandon’s design plans, and set up time in a recording studio for voiceovers, so now this walk-through was just a matter of traveling through the house, pointing at walls while he explained the plan, and letting Travis weigh in with his opinions.

  After going through the living and dining rooms, Brandon could tell Travis was holding back. He mostly took notes on a clipboard and pointed out potential issues, but he didn’t offer many opinions. One of the things Brandon missed most about having Kayla around was that he had no one to really play off of, someone who would disagree with him. Kayla had always challenged him in a way that made their designs better.

  And now they were in the kitchen, where Brandon was explaining to the camera that he planned to gut the whole space. The original kitchen was boxy and poorly laid out, but if they ripped everything out and took out a closet at the back of the house, they’d have a big blank slate to work with. Brandon tried to picture himself working in a kitchen this size, where he’d want the appliances to be, where the optimal prep space should go.

  But this was not his house. He might have been charmed by it, but he was fixing it, not planning to keep it. He called on all of his knowledge about what was trendy, what was timeless, and what buyers had been looking for in his last few flips. He described his vision, and Travis nodded and wrote something. Then Brandon walked over to the wall between the kitchen and dining room and put his hand on it. “This wall will have to go.”

  Travis’s shoulders rose. The gesture was almost imperceptible, but Brandon caught it and said, “Travis, if you have thoughts, please share them.”

  Travis looked up, his eyes wide. He glanced at the camera and said, “I still need to take a look to be sure, but I’m guessing some of these walls you want to take down are load-bearing. I’m pretty confident this one is. Of course, that isn’t necessarily an issue. We can do engineered beams to redistribute the load, assuming the rest of the structure is sound. But the more structural work we create for ourselves, the greater the cost.”

  Brandon nodded. “Right.”

  “Not to mention, the fun of doing a house like this is to try and retain the character and old charm, right? So you don’t want to make the layout too modern. And you might want to keep at least one of these walls to increase the amount of storage. You can, of course, put a big island in the middle, but you can’t just have cabinets hanging from air, at least not without making the room feel really tight, you know?”

  “Right. But if we do uppers and lowers along this whole wall, that’ll give us several feet of counter space.” Brandon walked over to the wall along which he wanted to run the kitchen cabinets. “So I’m thinking sink here, under this window, dishwasher here, then we do the stove over here, double ovens stacked here, then the fridge over here. We can put in stainless steel appliances, white cabinets, probably shaker style, light quartz counters, and a neutral backsplash.”

  Travis did the thing with his shoulders again.

  Brandon sighed. “What are you thinking?”

  “Honestly? I think you’re eradicating the integrity of the house. If you put in the same kitchen a buyer could find in any other house in the city, what’s the incentive for them to buy a historic house? Modernize it, sure. I’m with you on the appliances, I think your idea for the layout is sound, but the colors are just so… bland.”

  “What would you do?”

  Travis looked surprised, and he took a step back. “I’m not a designer.”

  “No, but… if this was your house, what would you like to see?”

  Travis walked back to the center of the room. “Keep your layout. But I’d do craftsman-style cabinets instead of shaker. Something a little more in keeping with the age of the house. Definitely stone counters, maybe marble if the budget allows for it. Then something bold for the backsplash. A tile with some kind of pattern, maybe blue or something else that pops. But I’m not a designer.”

  Brandon nodded. The ideas weren’t bad. On the other hand, anything too specific meant that they’d have to find a buyer with similar taste. Brandon had built his entire career as a house flipper on making things tasteful… but neutral. Bold colors and old-fashioned cabinets were such a divergence from Brandon’s usual style. He didn’t want to argue on camera. Instead he just said, “Anything too custom could alienate buyers.”

  “Right.”

  Travis sounded sarcastic, and that irritated Brandon. The crew was still filming, so he took a deep breath and said, “I can’t just run wild with design. The goal is to sell the house for a good profit.”

  Travis held up a hand in a gesture that said he was backing off the argument. “You asked my opinion.”

  Brandon took another deep breath. Yeah, his back was up. He didn’t know Travis well enough to predict where a fight with him would go or how it would end. And he didn’t intend to find out when the cameras were still rolling.

  This was so bad. Travis riled Brandon up without doing much but writing notes on his clipboard. He stood there in tight jeans and a black T-shirt looking sexy as hell, his hair hanging rakishly over his forehead, his stubble creating a shadow on his jaw. Brandon was attracted to Travis, but he could also tell Travis would work against him if given the opportunity. Oh, Travis would hold his tongue because he understood his role as a project manager—do what he was told, keep the project on schedule—but he would silently judge Brandon, and Brandon would know it. And Brandon didn’t know what he wanted more—to pick a fight with Travis… or make out with him.

  God, all of this was a mistake. Saying yes to this show, buying this house, working with Travis.

  Had he really just been wishing for someone to play off of? At least Kayla would question his decisions with a joke and a smile. Travis would merely shrug and glare at Brandon, leaving Brandon to ruminate on what he’d done wrong.

  “Cut,” said Erik, one of the show’s directors. He’d been lingering behind the cameraman through this whole discussion. The cameraman, who was basically wearing the camera as he followed Brandon and Travis around the house, let out a breath and slumped a little, the weight of all his equipment probably weighing him down.

  “I have an idea,” Erik said, walking between Brandon and Travis. “What if, for contrast, we let Travis make up a plan for the kitchen and we make a computer rendering of it to show how the two are different? Then, when we get to the point where we’re choosing material, we can revisit these plans and discuss, possibly even pulling in some other opinions. Maybe we find a few potential buyers and have them vote.”

  “It’s an idea,” Brandon said, a little uncomfortable with it. He was the expert here, wasn’t he?

  “I’m not a designer,” Travis said again.

  “Yes, but it sounds like you have a different vision for the space. I’m not saying the whole house, just the kitchen. We show Brandon’s rendering, which is very sleek and modern, and then we can show yours, with some more, er, vintage touches. There are lots of possibilities. Hell, maybe we could even throw the renderings on our social media accounts and ask fans to weigh in on which design they like better. Get some audience buy-in before the show premieres.” Erik nodded to himself. “I like this a lot. I’ll talk to Virginia about it.”

  Brandon glanced at Travis, who was frowning. “I mean, I guess I could do something. But it’s still Brandon’s show, isn’t it?” Travis said. “He gets the final say. I’ve never had to sell a house. I just fix them.”

  Erik nodded. “That’s fine. Let’s do the rendering, at least to accompany the footage of you explaining what you would do. Then we can decide what else to do with it later.”

  “All right.”

  Brandon cleared his throat. “Great. Shall we look around upstairs?”

  THE HO
USE was a structural nightmare. Once the cameras were gone, Travis and one of the reno team members checked the footings and structural supports under the house and the beams in the ceiling and attic. The foundation was cracked, a few of the walls Brandon wanted to remove were definitely load-bearing, and there were worrisome water stains in the attic.

  In other words, just fixing the house and getting it up to code would be expensive, and that was before Brandon came in and did anything aesthetically.

  Brandon’s renovation plan bothered Travis, though. Travis might not have a real estate license, but he doubted anyone looking to buy in this neighborhood was really interested in a generic white kitchen. Victorian Flatbush wasn’t modern. That was kind of the point.

  Travis sat on the floor of the living room and finished writing up his recommendations. There wasn’t really much more they could do today, so when Ismael, the head of the day shift crew, came to ask for his next set of instructions, Travis sent everyone home. He locked up the house with a sigh.

  Brandon must have finished… whatever it was he’d been doing, and he stopped by Travis’s spot in the living room to announce he was leaving for the day.

  From Travis’s vantage point on the floor, Brandon was impossibly tall. Travis had learned from watching Dream Home that Brandon’s clothing aesthetic was basically patterned button-down shirts over jeans, and today he wore a long-sleeved navy number with little white birds on it. It was fitted precisely to his chest, showing off what was likely a gym-sculpted body. Brandon often seemed less everyday working-class guy and more like the star of a middlebrow nighttime soap playing the role of a construction worker.

  And yet he was stupid handsome. Even though he had a hair and makeup crew that touched him up before he went on camera, he didn’t really need them. He had straight white teeth and a square jaw and strong arms and jeans that clung nicely to his tight, round butt. It was shallow for Travis to judge Brandon by his outward appearance, but so far that was all Brandon had offered him.

  But then Brandon said, “Erik wants to reshoot you talking about the kitchen design tomorrow.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m not saying you’re right, because every wild decision we make narrows the buyer pool. Kayla and I put blue cabinets into a house once because they were trendy that season, and we had to lower our initial asking price before we got any offers.”

  “I’m not saying you have to take my ideas.”

  Brandon nodded. “I don’t mean to be a dick about it, but I do have some experience with this sort of thing.”

  “I know.”

  “Restoration gave me a list of their approved shops in the region, so I’m going to go home and make some calls. Maybe we can see about getting some product samples.”

  “Cool. Are you allowed to go off-list?”

  “Yeah, I think so. It’s my money, after all.”

  Travis stood. “There’s a flooring store in Red Hook that usually has some good deals. The company I used to work for dealt with them almost exclusively, so I know the staff there. I can put in a good word for you if you want.”

  “That would be great, thanks. I’ve never renovated a house in the city before. I have a couple of go-to places in the suburbs, but it would be better to source locally, if the price is right.”

  “Sure.”

  “What are you working on?”

  “My report on the repairs we need to do. Do you want it now?”

  “No, wait until tomorrow.” Brandon jerked suddenly and then pulled his phone from his pocket. “My car’s here. Gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

  Travis watched him go and shook his head, picturing the white kitchen in the otherwise vintage house again.

  This was probably just rubbing him the wrong way because the house had a similar floor plan to the one Travis had bid on last year, but lost.

  The house had been an old yellow brick row house off Flatbush Avenue in Fort Greene. Travis had known the house intimately because his grandparents had once lived in it. When Travis’s grandfather had died about ten years ago, his parents had put the house on the market, and it had been bought by a family that had carved it up into apartments. After Travis had saved up a pile of money to buy a fixer-upper in the city, he’d seen the house up for sale again. He’d gone to an open house and could see dozens of childhood memories embedded in the walls, even though the interim owners had changed quite a bit and let the house fall into disrepair. Travis had made an offer on the spot, but he’d ended up losing the house in a bidding war. That was, of course, the problem with New York City real estate; you could scrimp and save to build the small fortune necessary to buy a house in the city, but there would still always be someone with more money. And that person would remove all the character from the house and cover the inside with gray paint and subway tile and put it back on the market eight months later for three million dollars.

  Travis decided to walk home to shake off the day. He’d have to deliver a truckload of bad news to Brandon the next day—most of what he’d seen in the house indicated that the budget was beyond blown. They’d banked on asbestos and engineered beams but not foundation issues or a new roof. And Travis would make sure these repairs got done before anything else. He rubbed his chest, where his tiger tattoo was inked. Safety was paramount, especially in these old houses. There was no sense in putting some unsuspecting family in a home with modern touches but a horror show inside the walls. But Travis knew full well some unscrupulous developers in New York wouldn’t think twice about it.

  Really, this was one of those houses that probably should have been condemned and bulldozed to make way for something new, but the Landmarks Preservation Commission wouldn’t allow for that, and buyers wanted the hundred-plus-year-old home, not a new one. If New Yorkers wanted new construction, they could buy a condo in one of the new high-rises in downtown Brooklyn.

  Travis’s studio apartment in Prospect Lefferts Gardens was tiny and still full of wallpaper books and tile catalogs even though he’d given up on buying his dream home a good while ago. The city real estate market was too volatile, too much of a financial risk, and he was tired of getting outbid for houses by rich people and celebrities looking to renovate or complete a lucrative flip. Maybe socking away some of the money from this Restoration Channel gig would increase the size of a potential down payment and he’d be able to buy something else in a few months, but for now, the dream was just that—a dream.

  He dropped his stuff near the door of his apartment and sat on the sofa. His entertainment unit on the opposite wall had a lot of shelving, mostly for books. Travis spotted the one on the history of architecture in the region. Well, maybe he could show Brandon some examples of how a house from 1917 should have looked, and they could work on preserving it instead of obliterating its character and charm. Obviously the house should be brought up to code and modernized, at least behind the walls. And sure, take out a wall or two; that would help make the space more functional. But the house should be restored, not renovated.

  Travis dragged his laptop across the coffee table and opened it. For now he’d focus on his report for what the house really needed. In the end, it wasn’t his house; he had no financial stake in it, and Brandon and the Restoration Channel producers would do what they wanted. Despite his reticence about being on television, this was a good gig, and Travis didn’t want to rock the boat too much either. So he’d do his job. He’d make a list of necessary repairs and argue that they’d have to be done in order to make the house safe. And if Erik wanted him to make a rendering of the design he’d use for the kitchen, then sure, what the hell? But from now on he’d make it a point not to fight with the host.

  Not too much, anyway.

  Chapter Four

  BRANDON COULD tell from the expression on Travis’s face that he was about to offer up a report that would utterly destroy Brandon’s budget.

  The tricky thing with a show like this was that though the Restoration Channel was taking on some of the fina
ncial burden, a lot of Brandon’s money was still at stake. He could afford to take some risks, but he still worried about being over the budget. A failure of this magnitude was not an option, and the more work they had to put into the house and the longer the project took, the smaller the profit would be. Not for the first time since starting this project, Brandon could hear his late father—a New York real estate magnate in his own right—in his head, telling him he’d screwed up big-time.

  His stomach churned as Travis came into the living room. A couple of cameramen stood nearby, ready to capture the kind of moment viewers ate up with a spoon.

  Travis had on an old T-shirt that had probably once been black but had faded into a splotchy dark gray. It clung to his chest, revealing defined pecs and a fit body, and his tight jeans didn’t leave much to the imagination either. Travis was the sort of man Restoration Channel viewers would love—he exuded raw sex appeal—and Brandon could already see the social media posts from women wanting Travis to, er, use his tools at their house. Hell, Brandon wanted that too.

  But he had a show to focus on. Brandon looked around the house again and tried to take it all in. He tried to imagine how this room would look with the fireplace reconstructed, with fresh paint on the walls, with some nice stylistic touches. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a clear vision for a house or was this excited to renovate, although he was sure Travis was about to tell him there was a pile of work to do just to bring the building up to code. But Brandon knew even with that, he could do something amazing with this space.