Our "House Hunters" Story

The day I thought would never arrive is actually here..

..our episode of House Hunters is finally airing on HGTV!

We filmed our episode back in October and were told it would probably air sometime in April.. so when June rolled around and we still hadn't heard anything from the network or production company, we'd figured they had just decided to scrap it. Obviously, that wasn't the case as it is finally set to air tonight at 10/9c. That being said, I figured now was a great time to actually sit down and document our House Hunters experience (though I wish I had done it sooner -- hopefully I can remember everything)!

As many of you know, we moved to Denver last January after Brandon accepted an amazing job offer with one of the world's largest telecommunication companies -- since we only had a matter of weeks to move from Kansas to Colorado (and because we had a newborn baby), we basically rented the first apartment we toured and paid ridiculous prices for it. It wasn't long after moving into our overpriced two-bed, two-bath third floor apartment that we began to get the home buying itch. After doing our homework, we discovered that we could get a great rate/loan with Brandon's veteran status, and actually pay considerably less for a mortgage payment vs. rent. That was all we needed to hear.

Shortly after applying for a mortgage, we were put in contact with our realtor Kyle Sheldon (who is the best, by the way -- we highly, highly recommend him!) and began scouring north Denver for a small, affordable house. Easier said than done.

As you will see on the show, we FINALLY found the perfect house for our little family (in the perfect price range!) and had our offer accepted by the seller the same day we made it. We really couldn't have asked for a smoother buying process and really feel that this was the house was meant for us. I don't want to give away too many show secrets but I figured I'd give a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at our experience with the show:

~ As many of you know, my college major was broadcast journalism, so I found the production process to be extremely fascinating -- it's amazing what they can do with such a small crew (one cameraman, audio person, director, and production assistant)!

~One of the harder parts of filming was having to leave Jax for hours at a time (as I was still nursing him constantly in October) -- my mom watched him for us the entire time and was such a lifesaver! Thanks, Grammy :)

~The crew took us out to eat every single day and I'm pretty sure we each gained 5 lbs. from all of the delicious food!

~We haven't seen the episode yet, but I have a feeling I know what it's about based on the description my mom sent:

During filming, our director had us talk about several different scenarios over and over (our monster sectional, my need for an office, Jax needing carpet to walk on, etc.) so that the writer would have a variety of story lines to choose from.. I guess they decided to go with the sectional story line? Funny story/spoiler alert: We'd already bought new furniture before even filming because we knew we couldn't take that thing with us! 

~I'm not sure how Brandon and I are going to sound in the episode but I wanted to assure everyone that we really aren't that high strung/picky in real life! The director of each episode really wants you to elaborate on every possible problem you see, so we just went with it.

~If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that I'm extremely sarcastic and that I have no real control out of the things that come out of my mouth (or something like that).. I had a few of the moments while filming and I'm interested to see if they make it to air.

~My mom, dad, brother, and his roommate all stopped by for our (completely unstaged) house warming party -- you can see the Wernsman clan at the end of the episode.

~The housing market in Denver is CRAZY and we seriously lucked out finding/buying our house when we did -- the estimated value of it now is nearly $30K more than when we purchased it 9 months ago.

~You can read more about our House Hunters experience/how we decorated our home (which is a work in progress) here.

The infamous sectional (this is the picture we used for our Craigslist ad -- luckily, it sold and we were immediately able to pay off our new furniture!)

Day one of shooting with our awesome realtor, Kyle, and crew!

After you watch the episode, this picture will make more sense. 

Last day of filming (spoiler alert: this is the house we chose!)

My family (after shooting the final "party" scene)! 

Which house did we chose? Find out tonight at 10/9c!