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By Kelsey Anderson
When it’s time to start looking for a new home, some buyers spend their Sunday afternoons scoping outhouses. Others ask friends to keep their eyes peeled for a great find in a chosen neighborhood. Then there are the very few who are comfortable having their search for the perfect home documented forever on national television. Such was the case when Greg Olson and Katie Vigdal-Olson applied to be featured on the Home & Garden Television (HGTV) network’s popular program, “House Hunters.”
The Olsons’ reason for applying to be on the program was simple. “Our realtor and good friend, Kristin Wild, told us about the show and it sounded like fun,” says Vigdal-Olson.
Wild, of Wild Company Realtors in Deerfield, was approached by producers of “House Hunters” last summer. The show was searching for families in the Madison area who were both in need of a new home and willing to let the cable network document the experience. To expedite the process, HGTV sent an e-mail to local real estate agents asking for help in selecting buyers to tape for upcoming episodes in the area. Wild, who has known the Olsons for more than 10 years, decided instantly the couple would be the perfect candidates.
“Greg and Katie were very excited about the prospect of documenting the journey in finding their family’s new home,” says Wild.
“House Hunters” supervising producer Peter Field was just as enthusiastic about them.
“They had a really interesting story to tell,” he says, adding, “They’re an energetic couple with great personalities.”
The program follows potential homebuyers and their real estate agent on the quest to find a new home. Three homes are visited, and the buyers compare and contrast each home while the agent offers his or her expert opinion. Since first airing in 1999, the show has become a top ratings earner for the Knoxville, Tenn., based cable network.
At the time, searching for a new home wasn’t the only journey the Olsons were embarking upon. When Wild was approached by HGTV, Katie was pregnant with the couple’s third child and busy with two young sons, Brady, 4, and Benjamin, 2. The Olson household only got busier in the months following Wild’s suggestion to apply for the show; it was fall before they finally found time to submit their audition tape.
“We waited until October to submit our tape, but we heard from ‘House Hunters’ producers within 24 hours after they received it,” says Vigdal-Olson.
At the time of their audition tape, the family was living in a tri-level home in Deerfield, but with a new addition on the way, they had decided it was time to find a house with a floor plan more conducive to a growing family.
Field and other HGTV producers thought the couple’s story would resonate with many viewers. “They had a typical, real-life situation,” he notes. “They needed to find a home that would be a place where their children would start their lives and grow up.”
“The home we lived in had enough room but wasn’t set up for a family with two small children and one on the way,” says Vigdal-Olson. “We had two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs.”
This transitional period — the new baby was due at the end of April 2006 — put a spur in their plan to find a new home. Because both sides of the couple’s family live in the Cottage Grove and Deerfield areas and community sports play a large part in the family’s daily life, they began their search close to home.
And though “House Hunters” is certainly “reality TV,” it soon became apparent that reality sometimes gets a bit of a boost in the interest of providing viewers with good television.
“One of the conditions to be on the show that viewers might not realize is that the buyers have to have had an accepted offer on a home before the show comes to film,” says Wild. “Deals fall through all the time and HGTV wanted to make sure they were going to have an episode to air if they came here to film.”
The Olsons did have an accepted offer on a ranch-style home in Cottage Grove’s Meadow Ridge neighborhood, and Wild selected two other homes, one in Deerfield and a second in Cottage Grove, for the couple to look at on the program.
Filming of the couple’s episode took place over two days in late October 2005. Suzanne Browning, an HGTV producer from Los Angeles, came to oversee the filming, but the network used a local cameraman and sound technician from Yellow Dog Productions in Madison to capture the proceedings.
“The crew was terrific,” says Vigdal-Olson. “They made the experience very comfortable and fun for us.”
The filming took place in four stages. The first stage was the initial meeting between the Olsons and the crew.
“We talked about the fact that we had young children, our family was getting larger and we were looking for a home with room to grow in either Cottage Grove or Deerfield,” says Vigdal-Olson.
The second and third stages involved talking to Wild and selecting the three homes the prospective buyers would visit. Wild conducted business as usual with her clients even though the cameras were on; she made general comments and asked questions as if it were just another day on the job. Still, parts of the filming necessitated that Hollywood twist.
For instance, both Wild and the Olsons had to bring changes of clothes to wear at each home to simulate the process taking several days. “It took about two hours to film in each home, much longer than a normal showing,” says Wild. “We would walk into a home or into a room and then the producer would say, ‘OK, now do it this way,’ or, ‘Let’s try it at a different angle.’ Other than that, it was truly a reality TV experience. They filmed me doing exactly what I would normally do with buyers.”
Channeling the notion of “the magic of television,” the couple had to act surprised and newly interested when filming inside the home they had already closed on.
“They had to pretend they were seeing everything for the first time but in reality, they already owned the home,” says Wild.
Of the two other homes Wild showed the couple for the filming of the show, one was a new construction build and the other had an unfinished yard. In the end, the couple chose a home with a hacienda-style exterior, a mature yard and room to expand on the lower level in the future.
“We’re on the five-year plan right now,” says Vigdal-Olson. “We’d like an in-ground pool someday and this house has a great lot for that. There’s space to build additional bedrooms on our lower level when the kids are older, and that will be something we work on down the road.”
In addition to new beginnings in a new home (which they moved into in November), the family welcomed daughter Hope on April 20. HGTV was back in Madison during the second week in June to film the final stage of the family’s episode. The network would have typically returned sooner but they wanted to include the family’s new addition in the final taping.
“During the final filming they talked to us about why we chose this home and met the newest member of our family,” says Vigdal-Olson.
Although the episode is completed, viewers will have to wait to see the finished product. Supervising producer Field said that no airdate for the family’s episode has been scheduled yet, but he did divulge that it wouldn’t be any sooner than January 2007. We’ll keep you posted.
House Hunters airs weeknights at 9:00 p.m. with new episodes on Thursdays. |
©
2005 ANEW Magazine / Erickson Publishing, LLC Email
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