“It’s insanity.
“I was there 6 a.m. to midnight, 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.,” she added.
“It was a challenge for myself and I’m beyond proud of me.”
“It was the hardest that I’ve ever worked in my whole life.
… it was just draining.”
“I’m not gonna lie.
We were all like, ‘What do we do with this barn?'”
She admitted, “It was definitely a challenge.”
“Everything is planned to the T and then, here’s abarn!
… What do we do now?
But that’s the point of it,” she said.
“I just really believe in white paint.
“It’s really fail-proof.
It always looks good, it always looks current, and it always looks timeless.
There’s no white space through time that you think, ‘That looks dated.'”
“But look, white paint it’s a cheat sheet.
Just do it, you know?”
“I was in the middle of nowhere in rural Virginia.
What I learned was that it was all about making them feel comfortable.
It was about having fun and motivating them.”
“I never went to school for design,” she explained.
And instead of people running by, they would stop and take photos of this house.
And I knew that I wanted to keep doing that on every single street in Chicago.”
“He’s like, ‘All right, I’m going to pick you up now!’
Whatever he would normally do with Jonathan, I think he did that with me.
We had a really fun time!”
Don’t expect to see the homes sit empty.
“I chose to ignore the concept of appraisal value,” she toldParade.
“I just wanted to go more for an emotional value.
We are so in love with this little one already.”
“I was like, ‘I know we’re not that cool,'” she explained.
Before long, they were filming “Good Bones,” an instant hit that reflects their personal philosophy.
“We do not flip houses,” Jensen explained.
“We stay in one geographic area so that we can make a difference in the neighborhood.”
She added, “We are rehabilitating an entire neighborhood, one house at a time.”
How do the stars feel about their budgets on Rock the Block?
“Design’s art.
I am not good at adding value.
Appraisers don’t love me, I’ll tell you that,” Leanne Ford jokingly toldPopCulture.com.
I’m here to make a good-looking house.’
And they’re like, ‘Okay, Leanne.’
The other girls, they thought my non-competitive nature was my secret competitive angle.
[But] it wasn’t,” she added.
Ford went on, “How they did the competition made sense.
The victory also includes a 100,000 meal donation to the Turn Up!
Fight Hunger initiative in the winner’s honor.
With a crew this competitive, this all made for an extra layer of drama.
“I can’t believe it.
I’ve literally never won anything in my life,” she toldPeople Now.
But Ford wasn’t the only star who wanted to win, of course.
Mina Starsiak Hawk recognized that “Rock the Block” brought her competitive streak to the forefront.
I stress-cried a couple of times.”
Which Season 1 star was the most competitive?
“I just feel like I have a lot of anger,” she jokingly admitted.
“So I think that turns into fear sometimes, sadness, and then competitiveness.”
“Nobody even wanted to play Monopoly with me.
I’m like, ‘You win.
Take it, take the money.'”
The concept of the same house in four different ways is really fun to me."
But that’s not all.
As apress releasedetailed, the first season was watched by more than 20 million viewers.
Not surprisingly, HGTV renewed the series for a second go-round.
The second season, which debuted in March 2021, continued to be a ratings-grabber for HGTV.
“By every measure, in every demo, ‘Rock the Block’ rocked it!”
Latman said in the release.
“We had about four of the same outfits,” he wrote.
“It was our ‘uniform.’
Makes it easier to film the show.”
“And, let’s just face it, it’s Murphy’s Law,” Pennington added.
