When I first pulled my nerves together enough to start this blog and put myself out there in 2008 I could never have believed I would ever be typing this out. If you would have even tried to convince me a year and a half ago I would have scoffed, but here I am typing out the words 'WE MADE AN HGTV SHOW!'. Yeah, this can't be real. There will probably be a lot of these !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in this post

And yet, photographic evidence seems to confirm this really happened and wasn't just a really really good dream.

You might remember that we up and went down South to New Orleans last spring for a bit of an extended time...

My first taste of the French Quarter, the magical Jackson Square!

And while we had a very full, fun, exciting time, we also were also hard at work. We renovated and transformed a house there! It was a once in a lifetime experience, and nothing I'd ever imagined myself having the chance to do, let alone document it all and have to look back on and enjoy forever? What a bucket list moment!

It was a long road to get down to the Big Easy, and one I didn't walk alone. It was all the work of the amazing production company who took me under their wings about 16 months ago! This is not a process I have any familiarity with so when they reached out initially I almost didn't respond, thinking it was a mass email scam of some sort. I mean really, who expects an email like that to be the real deal???! But I did and I definitely made the right call. They are the most supportive, generous, genuine and accommodating people. Really, I could go on all day, but they hatched the idea of us going on a renovating adventure and let us pick where we wanted to go, then a very special gal at HGTV US told us to go for it, and the rest is history.

One of the long, hot and amazing days we captured! This was one of my favourite days of filming, we got so many of the local sights. The best part of this whole experience has been the people. The people who got us to New Orleans, the people who welcomed our family into New Orleans, the people who worked with us day in and day out to capture this adventure who felt more like family by the end of the first day, and the many many people who helped us make the transformation and renovation happen!

and of course, people like you. Every single time you have clicked on to my blog, left a comment, liked an instagram picture or sent an email you told me that you liked what I was putting out there and that keeps me going. That is something I can never thank anyone enough for! THANK YOU!

So, all this hard work, waiting (I WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU FOREVER AGO!!!) and amazing adventure boil down to a show called Big Easy Reno. It means you can come along on the adventure with us and see the beautiful city of New Orleans through my eyes. All from the comfort of your home with a lot less of the stress and mess involved LOL. You can get all the details and more info on the show on the Big Easy Reno Facebook Page. Please like and share!!! And definitely tune in on December 12 at noon ET to HGTV (us only right now, sorry canadian friends!!!) to watch it all unfold!!!

EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxo Holly