If you spend any time watching traditional broadcast or cable television, you've no doubt seen commercials for a large company that promises to repair your home or business after a fire or water damage as if "the damage never happened."
That seems like a bit of hyperbole, but there are people who specialize in restoring damaged properties and bringing them back to life. That's the premise of the new HGTV series Renovation 911, which premieres Tuesday night on HGTV. Minneapolis-based emergency restoration experts and sisters Lindsey Uselding and Kirsten Meehan specialize in assessing and repairing damaged properties while working with insurance companies and homeowners to ensure everything is brought back to its original beauty. And maybe even sometimes improving it a bit.
Lindsey oversees logistics and insurance, while Kirsten manages construction and design and I recently spoke to the sisters, who talked about how they got into the business and the challenges they face when dealing with this specific type of restoration.
The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Let me start with you, Kirsten. It's interesting to me the different paths that the two of you took to get where you are right now. It seems like you pretty much knew really early on what you wanted to do. You were working in high school for your dad in the family business. And it seems like that's always the direction you were headed.
Kirsten Meehan: I think that's really kind of you to say. Because looking back, I didn't think I knew what I wanted. But at the end of the day, I kind of knew what I always wanted. So yeah, it just always fit for me. I love demo. I love painting. I loved hanging out with the field staff of my dad's company. I like joking with them in the field. Often at my dad's expense. I loved learning. I loved going to college and being able to paint and having my friends say "How do you know how to do that?
So I was always the go-to person because I'm the only one who knew that much about the process. So yeah, it just kind of formed to be absolutely my identity. You're right on.
Q: And Lindsey, you had a very different path. You worked for several different companies outside of the field and worked for quite a while at Target. And this move seemed like more of not a reluctant choice, but it wasn't something that was a natural choice for you.
Lindsey Uselding: When my dad came to me in 2013, we sat down and laid out the pros and cons list of working together. And to be honest, the cons outweigh the pros at the time. But I knew the opportunity for me and that the future was wide open. So with me in my business mindset, I felt like I could make a positive impact on the business. That was what really sold me - the possibilities of the situation.
Q: Working for your dad is challenging, no matter who your dad is. And I wonder how much of your drive is just driven by the feeling of "Hey, I want to show him that I can do what he can do. And maybe even I can do it better." Does that provide a little extra incentive to accomplish things?
Kirsten Meehan: I'm super similar to my dad. And so we butted heads a lot. We are both are a bit of a perfectionist, we want the job to be perfect. But we sometimes get there in a different way. And I have always really, really taken to heart that I want his respect. I want him to think that he's done a great job in teaching me. So I look up to him. It's kind of hard to put into words how much I admire him. But we're also just so alike that it got a bit messy before Lindsay got to the company. I would call her and be like, "I don't know if I can take that." And she'd say, "I think you can do it." So I've always wanted him to know that I adore him. But also make sure that he was proud of me and respected me.
Lindsey Uselding: I've always leveraged my dad for business advice. My mom is usually my sounding board for advice around my family and my kids and my relationships. My dad was always my sounding board around my athletics and my career. So my dad had listened to me, problem-solving throughout college, and obviously on to my Target corporate path. And so when I sat down with him, I said, "Okay, so are you gonna micromanage me? Are you gonna let me fly?" And he told me "I'm gonna let you fly with you, just me continuing to be your sounding board." And so with that deal, I said, Absolutely. That's a deal. And he did it. Did I do things over and above him? Not always consulting with him? Absolutely. But after the consult, he supported me. And together we've tripled the company.
Q: How did the two of you connect with the producer at HGTV? How do they find you guys?
Kirsten Meehan: That is a crazy story. My best friend from forever from childhood was in LA, and she met an HGTV producer. And she was telling them "You've got to meet my best friend and her sister. They have a construction company in Minneapolis. And this producer gets that all the time. But my friend just didn't give up on it. And finally, the producer said, "We'll just have to start filming on their cell phones and have them send me some clips." So we started doing that. Our family filmed us, our co-workers filmed us. Friends came to job sites in the film. And we sent them to her and she kept asking for more. So it went from this crazy idea to they made a reel, and then they made a sizzle reel. Then they offered us a pilot. And here we are a few years later with a full-fledged eight-episode season. It's crazy. You know?
Lindsey Uselding: I had really no expectations. We were always going to film things that we thought were cool. But what we thought were cool, we didn't know if HGTV or these producers and production companies would think is cool. Because this is our life. But with each step, we just decided, "Okay, we'll do it." We had very few expectations in terms of what was going to happen next. We figured "We'll send all of this in and then we'll never hear back again." Then we would hear back and send more in. So it was pretty surreal if we're being honest.
Q: What has proved to be the most difficult part of this process? Obviously, if you've seen HGTV shows, you know what it looks like. But what was different about it when you were actually going through it?
Kirsten Meehan: It was very interesting asking our clients if they would be okay with having a camera or a couple of cameras and a whole crew coming into their home and filming the whole process. So that was definitely a standout big difference for us. But once we got them on board, my biggest worry is that it would cause a rift between me and Lindsay. Just because we are very good at staying in our lanes, and we do have different strengths. And that's why we work together so well. So that I think going into it scared us both a bunch that it would cover any sort of rifts in our relationship. And it absolutely didn't. But it was just a lot more time than I think either of us thought it would be.
Q: Lindsey, I wanted to make sure that I talked to you about the insurance aspect of it, which is one of the things that fascinated me with the couple of episodes I've seen at the show. Dealing with insurance companies in any situation is not the easiest. Can you talk a bit about how you navigate that and do insurance companies prefer working with someone who knows the process as opposed to just working directly with the homeowner?
Lindsey Uselding: So this is all we know, right? This has been our business since 1977. We've gotten to the point where this is what we do and we try to do it very, very well. There are a lot of insurance companies that respect us. We are on preferred contractor programs where you go through a pretty rigorous screening process to be on these programs. You know, you have to have so many years in business, carry pretty heightened insurance, all of those different things.
So over the years, we've built a really good reputation in our community. And we definitely owe that to our dad, who really built the founding principles that we do quality work, we have the best service and we're going to be a family-oriented company for our team. And carrying these principles out, people want to work with us.
The big thing about this process is that from the insurance company's perspective, you're going to get like for like. This means if you had granite countertops, you're going to get money to get granite countertops put back in your place. That's the biggest thing. If something is damaged beyond repair, you are going to get compensated for what you had. And the most important thing we can do is share with the insurance companies why we think certain things should either be replaced or restored.
That's what we do best. And I think finding a contractor that has that expertise when you have an emergency is really important.
Renovation 911 airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.
