Active Rain's Portland home stager Maureen Bray of Room Solutions Staging recently completed the design work for multiple episodes of HGTV's hit show "My First Place."
Two of the episodes we did will be airing this week on HGTV -- check your local listings as this info came from the HGTV website and your local times may vary.
Tuesday Feb. 16th @ 5:30pm Pacific time:
Heather has a very tight budget for her first place in Portland, OR. She finds a vintage foreclosure that she falls in love with, but she's competing with dozens of professional flippers who'd also like to snap up this low-priced home to make money off it. Heather decides to go for broke, bidding at the top of her range & well over the asking price. Then, once she gets the house, she finds out that it needs major repairs.
Thurs Feb.18th @ 5:00pm Pacific time: After chasing Mark's career across the country and back for five years, he and Maribelle think they're ready for an extended house hunt for their first place in Portland, Oregon. But as they struggle to find the balance between a fixer-upper and a wreck, they take a gamble on a short sale and make an offer without seeing the inside! Then, they fall in love with it only to be forced to wait as the bank considers their offer against six others. When they finally do win the contract, they enlist the help of Mark's father, an experienced contractor to decide, is this a fixer-upper or a money pit? He gives the thumbs up and Mark and Maribelle stop chasing the dream and start living it.
Tune in the See the "After" of this episode!
Our goal in both of these episodes was to give the First-time homebuying couple the style & colors that THEY wanted for their First Place. Since both homes were bonafide "fixer-uppers" and no work was done prior to our design work -- it was quite a challenge, and very different from staging! Future episodes we completed (to be aired in March & April) will show transformations of a master bedroom, an outdoor patio, and another living room.
P.S. Thanks to Julea Joseph in Chicago for referring the producers of My First Place to me when she heard they were coming to Portland!
Staging That Sells Portland Homes!
Portland home stager Maureen Bray of Room Solutions Staging was a Featured Designer for HGTV's popular show "My First Place" 
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GREAT ARTICLE!!
GOTTA LOVE HGTV!!!!!
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congrats to you Maureen Bray I hope to get to see the show! I just love watching it...
Maureen- Congrats!!! I've already set my DVR for it. A Toast to you!
Wow Maureen, that's fantastic news, can't wait to see. I wish, HGTV would head this way. "HGTV if you're listening, it was almost 70 degrees yesterday, wouldn't that be nice"! LOL, kidding aside, I'm soo happy for you, great accomplishment!!
Congratulations Maureen! I love watching that show and now I will know who did the room! How exciting.
Hi Maureen, thanks for the reminder. Will set the DVR tonight. Guaranteed that I will have a BIG SMILE on my face when the roll the credits! AND maybe I'll join Kathy in toasting your successes except that she's in Florida so our toasts will be hours apart. (-:
Maureen....I'll be tuning in to see the results.....GREAT exposure for you and your team!!!
Cheers!! Iwant your autograph!!
Ooooh, the suspense of dealing with a fixer-upper ! The show will be awesome.
Thanks everyone for your good wishes. It was fun to work on these projects!
David ~ Unfortunately, the show's budget did not allow for anything other than furnishings .... the homeowners would be fixing up their homes after we brought in furniture and decor ..... but having one room furnished for them made them happy and hopeful they could then tackle the big projects ahead of them.
You go my fellow HGTV friend! I'll be watching.
Hi Julea ~ HEY your episode in Naperville was on tonight too!!
I hope you'll give my design work the "Julea Joseph seal of approval." You know the challenges yourself all too well: tight budget, must make the homebuyer happy, must look good on TV -- a tall order on these two projects!! My favorite one is airing on March 9th, replaying on April 7th -- be sure to watch that one. :-)
How exciting!!! Congratulations, and I will be looking for your episodes!!!
Maureen,
Wow! Great news, I'll be sure to catch the two episodes...I'm sure on both episodes your designs look fabulous! Congratulations!
Maureen, I saw the episode tonight. That lady was bound and determined to get that house. Too bad the repairs were hefty. I thought it looked fantastic, loved the circles, they were thrilled with the room, how nice would that be. What a great project to be apart of!
hi Elaine ~ Really good to see you here again :-) Drop in more often, OK??
Hi Michelle ~ Check your local times as they're different in various time zones ....
Hi Cindy! OK you saw it -- the circles. what you didn't know is that this buyer was crazy about mid-century style and CIRCLES. So, pleasing the client. They edited the part where she talked about her design wants .... :-) I guess that's show biz!!
Congrats on the show, Maureen! I missed tonight, but will keep an eye out for it on Thursday.
While watching that show I have often thought, "A stager did that.' How nice to know I was right. And how wonderful for you, to have your work appreciated and acknowledged! Congratulations!
Maureen, that's fantastic news! Congrats! I will be watching and taking notes so that should HGTV ever come to Kitchener-Waterloo ON maybe we can do the same thing!!! I'm definitely going to watch those episodes as I really do enjoy that show!
Good for you, Maureen! It's so great we know so many stars here on AR! I wish they would film some of these shows in Conn. Happy Staging! Julie
Maureen - I can't wait to watch these episodes! Congratulations on this opportunity.
I have been witing for this news to break! YEAH! Can't wait!
I missed it this time around, but I will check my listings and set dvr for the next one. This is so exciting!
Crap - I was out to dinner last night and miss you and me!!!
Congratulations Maureen. I'm sorry I missed the show but will look for it in re-runs. Did you have a good experience?
Hi Julea ~ LOL you missed your own episode too -- that'll show you to watch the listings!!
hi Michelle ~ One of these episodes is on tonight at 5pm pacific time (Thursday Feb 18th) and all 5 of the shows I did will be shown on multiple reruns.
Congratulations--great show! I will watch it tonight and look forward to the "transformation".
Hi Maureen - I looked for the show at 5 p.m., but after checking the HGTV listings, I think the show is acutally airing Pacific Time at 8 p.m. I hope that's correct because I really am looking forward to seeing the show and your work!
Hi Diana ~ It was on at 5pm, Portland time today .... maybe a different time in Seattle, based on your cable or satellite company?
Anyway if you miss it -- try to catch the episode airing on March 9th -- MY FAVORITE ONE of all -- beautiful new house, super nice couple, and we had enough time to have the furniture custom made for them by a local manufacturing company.
Hi Maureen, I just saw the END only of your second transformation. LOVED the white sofa with the brown and blue. GREAT job!
Thanks Ginger -- glad you liked the color combo -- this was a challenging project (for a lot of reasons).
The wait is finally over! We saw one of the episodes (the challenging one with the big tv) and have the other on our DVR. Congrats again on landing this gig. Great to see a local stager getting work on HGTV.
Hi David ~ Watch the episode on March 9th ... that's a great one. I'm glad that the City of Portland's diverse architectural styles were displayed in this series.
Congratulations Maureen! What a fun room - love all the color!
Thanks Michele ~ the bright colors helped cheer up this home, which needed a lot of work that was planned for after the "reveal."
Hey Maureen...CONGRATS!! I am proud of you and like others, wish HGTV filmed in SW Florida...larger towns have more opportunity and I am excited more AR stagers are getting the TV work!! Rock on MB!
Hi Kathleen ~ Thank you! It is really nice that A/R has been responsible for many of us finding work on HGTV. Be sure to tune in to My First Place on Tues March 9th -- that one was my favorite design project of the 5 that I did.