Television cameras will be rolling into Wilmington on June 1st as Channel 7 News Boston films its latest segment of “Room For Improvement.” The Finn family’s 25’ by 5’ enclosed front porch at the front of their 1920’s era home has been selected for a makeover.
Last fall, homeowner Kristen Finn e-mailed Channel 7 with pictures of her worn down and rarely used front porch. In December she was contacted and told her room had been chosen for a spring segment of “Room For Improvement,” and this spring Channel 7 sent designer Melanie Murphy, of Redecorating By Melanie, to recreate the old porch into a usable space for this family of four.
“It’s a very surreal thing right now,” said Kristen Finn who went on to say that she hopes the room will be “welcoming, warm and cozy and at the same time have a garden feel to it.” Finn and her husband Jay want a space where they can spend time with their children Ashlyn (age 6) and Patrick (age 10).
Designer Murphy is ready to face the challenge. This will be the sixth segment of “Room for Improvement” that Murphy has filmed since joining the team in 2005. The homeowners gave her a budget of $2000. Her design team also includes an installer and a painter, Charlie Prokop from Custom Painting of Chelmsford, who is donating his time for this project.
According to Murphy, the biggest challenges in this project were “the fact that we had to put down a new floor and it needs a lot of TLC (tender loving care) and to freshen it up so the whole family can use it.” She went on to explain that the Finn family has already had a new floor put in and that will not come out of her design budget.
The floor weighed heavily on the Finn’s mind too. When asked what would she not want to see in her new room, she replied: “anything would be an improvement to what it was. I trust Melanie – the only thing is to not have the floor back!”
The rest of the details of the design cannot be released right now because, as part of the television segment, the reveal of the final design is filmed to show the homeowners’ reactions.
Since the first segment of “Room For Improvement” aired on July 14th, 2005, there have been more than 40 segments filmed all over the Boston area, and these can be viewed on the Channel 7 website. Each one is a couple of minutes in length and includes some background with the family, the work done to the room, and the final reveal.
Many segments are already lined up for the remainder of the year. Murphy currently has five more upcoming projects, some of which include a nursery, an office with a Red Sox baseball theme, and the waiting room in the Children’s Hospital Radiology Department.
The Wilmington segment of “Room For Improvement” will air several weeks after the on-site filming on June 1st.
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