Historic Fairhaven Home Ready for Its HGTV Glow-Up

Days before the HGTV special featuring their home was set to air, the owners still had contractors working on their home.  Thursday, a mason was working on updating the chimney.

It's been a while since they bought the house, but the renovations are not quite done at 18 Cedar St. in Fairhaven.  As every homeowner knows, renovations are never finished when you own a home.

We were thrilled to get a sneak preview of what is set to be unveiled on HGTV's Houses With History Saturday night in the show's season debut.  Rick Marcotte, Donna Ross, and their realtor Dawn Gaudreau, were kind enough to walk us around the home and show us the incredibly intricate work that was done.

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While we can't get into details before the show airs, we can say that the renovations that have been made to this period home are stunning.

"In fact, this 3,600-square-foot structure was never even meant to be a home when it was built," Rick said. The home was originally built to serve as 19th-century oil magnate and town benefactor Henry Huttleston Rogers' potting shed.

"That's why there are so many sitting rooms on the first floor," Rick said. "And the upstairs was originally used as an attic."

If you've always wondered who pays for the renovations on a television show like this, we found out the answer.

"We paid," Rick said. "Truthfully, we really weren't excited about going on the TV show, but we wanted to work with Full Circle Homes.  They were required to renovate eight homes for the new season of the HGTV show, so unless we wanted to wait to be ninth in line, we needed to agree to be on the show. So, we did."

Interestingly enough, Rick and Donna were not allowed in the house for the final three months of renovations.  They had input on most of the decisions made, but some of them were made on the fly by the contractors.

When it was all said and done, Rick and Donna were overjoyed with the results, which will air Saturday at 9 p.m. on HGTV.  We will post pictures of the final result (more recent than what you'll see on HGTV) on Monday.

Will Rick and Donna watch?  Donna says no. Why? She feels like she lived it over and over again.

"I had no idea there were so many retakes when filming a TV show," she said.