From the age of 21, interior designer Veronica Valencia has worked behind the scenes on more than 500 home makeover shows. But at long last, she’s in the spotlight of her own HGTV series, “Revealed.”
On her show, she renovates homes to highlight the homeowner’s heritage, heirlooms, and family history, setting the stage for some extremely emotional makeovers.
To learn more about how she got her own show and what viewers can learn from it, we spoke with Valencia about some of her fondest memories, what it was like raising her kids on a TV set, as well as her top tips for making any home feel more like, well, home!
You’ve been involved with a lot of renovation shows, but this is your first as the star! How did this series come about?
I’ve been in the design makeover world for 15 years, I started on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” when I was 21. And basically, I am a trained interior designer, but the majority of my career has been doing behind-the-scenes design work for television.
So this has kind of been my upbringing. I feel at home on a television set doing makeovers. I love the fast pace. My team on “Revealed” is the same team that I met when I was 21. I’m 37 now. I met them on the road, and we just all fell in love with each other.
The show started because I just got really ballsy when I was pregnant. I asked the network executives to give me a shot at my own show.
I said, “I know I can do it. I do all your shows behind the scenes; you know what I can do.” And so now we’re here.
The show is all about family background. What got you interested in designing with heritage in mind?
I come from a very big Mexican family, and we were proud of who we were. But I grew up in Woodland Hills and went to school in Calabasas in a predominantly white neighborhood. And I sometimes felt different.
I wasn’t ashamed of my background, but I wasn’t shouting from the rooftops that I’m Mexican. But I think it wasn’t until I became a mom that I realized how important it is to be proud of your roots. I want to instill that pride in my kids.
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How do you honor your heritage in your own home?
My husband and I are bicoastal. In our New York home, we have a lot of African masks. My husband is Black and Irish. And a lot of these masks are from his travels to Ghana. So that’s something that’s really important to us.
We also have his grandmother’s Irish china. I’m all about using and living with your heirlooms. Like, that china doesn’t get brought out just on holidays—we use that every day. We use that to have a slice of pizza. I don’t just want to bring it out on special occasions. And I like being surrounded by my husband’s background. I know when he’s eating soup out of a bowl or having pizza on the china, he’s thinking of his grandma. And having these masks displayed, even if it’s just on a small wall, seeing those and being surrounded by those and our children growing up and seeing those, I think that is super important.
And here in Los Angeles, I have my grandmother’s tortilla maker. It’s in our kitchen. And I only make tortillas a couple of times a year with my grandma, but that’s something that’s really important.
It’s all about the little things: something that’s special that reminds you of where you come from and gives you a sense of belonging.
What was your favorite part of filming ‘Revealed’?
Behind the scenes, we had so much fun. I mean, these are my real-life best friends. So this was crazy. I feel like we had so many pinch-me moments. We would just turn around and look at each other, like, “This is wild. Like, what is happening right now?” And my husband works behind the scenes, so viewers will see him and my family in a couple of scenes every episode.
My son, Hunter, literally grew up on the set of “Extreme Makeover.” That boy feels so comfortable with camera guys, directors, he would help paint. So he’s in the show. I don’t know what scenes ended up in the final edit, but he is such a ham.
Did you have a favorite project of the season?
I redid my best friend’s house, which was so incredible. Lauren has been my neighbor since we were babies. She was the one who enrolled me in interior design school after high school. I was a softball player and I hurt my arm, so I didn’t know what I was going to do after high school. Meanwhile, Lauren was going to design school and wanted to carpool so she secretly enrolled me. And I was like, “What do you mean? What is that?” And then the first week, I was obsessed and loved it.
And then Lauren actually joined the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” team as Paige Hemmis‘ assistant and she sent in my resume. So she’s the one who got me into design, got me into television. So then it all came full circle. She needed to redo her home, and I got to make over my best friend’s home. So that was very emotional.
Do you have any tips for homeowners who want to renovate their house?
I just hope the viewers are inspired to just make their home beautiful. It doesn’t have to be Pinterest-perfect. Just focus on making a beautiful moment and on creating a memory of your home. And that could start with the family conversation. Hopefully, I can inspire people to incorporate more family into their homes.
What do you do for clients who don’t know, or don’t connect, to their heritage?
There are a lot of families like that! We had an Indian family on the show, and it turns out, records of ancestors and where you come from in India are hard to find. It was impossible to track down their ancestors.
So in that instance, I really focused on who they were in their upbringing: what makes them think about family, what home means to them.
I had one client who was Jewish, and Shabbat dinners and cooking were so important to their family. And so I just focused on that. So it really wasn’t as much about their ethnicity or where their ancestors came from. But it was really about what made them feel at home. Challah bread, that could literally inspire an entire kitchen design.
So I think that it’s about incorporating your heritage and culture into your home, but also about incorporating that individual family’s values and really diving deep into that.
Source: realtor.com