HGTV's Raisa Kuddus & Austin Coleman On First Home Fix Exclusive Interview
By: Felicia Lee
For many first-time homebuyers, the biggest challenge is getting the most from a limited budget. This may mean settling for a less-than-perfect home — maybe one that's too small, oddly configured, or not quite to your taste — and setting aside part of your allotted funds to make it really look and feel like your own.
This, of course, is easier said than done. Noticing what you don't like about a home is simple. But figuring out the best way to fix it without spending too much can be tricky, especially if you have no experience in construction or design. This is where designer Raisa Kuddus and builder Austin Coleman come in. As both life and business partners, they collaborate to create spaces that truly reflect their clients' personalities and lifestyles. In their new HGTV show, "First Home Fix," they use their talents to help first-time homeowners seeking to create memorable spaces on fixed budgets. Kuddus and Coleman share their inspirations and tips in an exclusive interview with House Digest.
They build their creative processes around their clients
So I am curious to learn about your new show, "First Home Fix." Can you tell me a bit about how you got the idea for the show?
Austin Coleman: Well, we had a business working together, so we would describe it as a boutique real estate, design, and development business. And then some representatives of the network kind of floated into our wheelhouse, and everyone just kind of started collaborating together. So it was really more that we had a business in play, and the network ended up being able to chime in. And everyone's been working together for the last few years to build this concept out.
Raisa Kuddus: Yeah, we started off, the network kind of wanted us to go more beach-driven, but then they saw all of the skills that Austin and I had when it came to doing stuff ourselves, so we kind of tailored it more to be teaching clients how to do a lot of the stuff to save money.
Could you tell me a bit about your creative process? How do you and the homeowners you work with decide on which design ideas to use?
Kuddus: I think at first we started off with a creative brief where I asked them a lot of questions, not only about their home, but about their personalities. And those really intimate questions can help me figure out what kind of person they are, which helps me figure out what kind of design style they need. So then we work on mood boards, go back and forth, and then we all decide together that this is the direction we're heading towards, and that makes the whole process a lot easier.
Coleman: And usually in that process, we end up spending a lot of time with the clients, everyone, we get to learn their personalities, and that really helps a lot with the design, to really understand, because sometimes it's hard to understand what a client wants just from asking questions or having them fill out a questionnaire, and a lot is pulled from the social time and interaction we get to spend with them through the whole thing.
Kuddus: Yeah.
Balancing their relationship and business partnership has been an adventure
HGTV
How long have you been working together, and what is it like for you two to work together?
Coleman: Well, we've been working together about five years, a little over five years. And what is it like working together? It's really nice, but it's like any relationship. Sometimes it's trying, and there are ups and downs, but I think we kind of pull from some of the core principles of our relationship, just having open communication. We always try to have fun, and that's kind of the basis of our relationship, so then we take that into our workspace. And we have this saying that we say to each other, anytime things are starting to get a little bit tumultuous, we say, "well, what are the chances we're going to have fun regardless?" And then the other will usually answer—
Kuddus: "A thousand percent!" But I also think we both have incredibly different perspectives from our different backgrounds, and that's something we really like in our relationship because we both have our own individual hobbies and passions, and it gives us a different look on every problem we come to, so that really helps just give us a rounded solution.
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