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7 Things to Know About Monica Potter's New HGTV Show, 'Welcome Back Potter'
The Parenthood actress and her three sisters share their journey to restore their Cleveland childhood home.
Jason Miller / AP Images
Since the end of everyone’s favorite cry-so-hard-it-hurts show, Parenthood, in 2015, actress Monica Potter has kept busy with an on-screen adventure of another kind: home restoration.
In HGTV’s new series Welcome Back Potter, Monica and her three sisters work together to restore their childhood home in Cleveland that they recently bought after it sat abandoned and in disrepair for years. Each sister has a special skill of her own, but Monica leads the charge for all-things-design of the house.
It’s been almost 30 years since the sisters lived in their family home near the lake, but, as Monica says, “Home is where the heart is, and this is where our heart is.”
Here’s what you need to know before you watch the premiere of Welcome Back Potter on HGTV on October 11 at 9p|8c.
Monica Potter is a DIY queen.
Jason Miller / AP Images
After Parenthood wrapped in 2015, Monica launched her own line of natural home products, Monica Potter Home, with a brick-and-mortar store just outside of Cleveland. She has a serious eye for upcycling and repurposing, as you’ll see on Welcome Back Potter.
The family’s old furniture was still in the house.
Thirty years after moving out, the sisters found their mother’s dining room table and their father’s workbench, among other things, still in the house.
They decided on restoration versus renovation.
Jason Miller / AP Images
Much of the work being done on the Potter family house is restoring it back to its former glory. Floors are refinished instead of replaced, and damaged fixtures are repurposed into new pieces, like the porch railing the sisters upcycled into a wall hang for plants.
Before and After Photos: 'Welcome Back Potter'
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They laugh. A lot.
Monica says they’re “all really weird,” but the truth is they’re just incredibly funny.
Family friends helped with the restoration.
The sisters ended up knowing many of the local contractors and builders working on the project from their time in the neighborhood. This leads to some particularly weepy moments in the show like this one:
Sisters doin’ it for themselves.
Monica and her three sisters did an impressive amount of the work on the house themselves: knocking out walls, ripping up floors, installing wainscoting … but they still manage to make time for goofing off, as sisters are known to do.
Monica’s dad was an inventor.
Jason Miller / AP Images
Many of the sisters’ DIY decor projects for the new house are in memoriam to their father, who passed away in 2004, including a picture wall made from church pews. The brand-new backyard workshop, though, is their greatest tribute to their dad, who could often be found tinkering with projects at his workbench in the former workshop.
Watch the premiere of Welcome Back Potter on HGTV, October 11 at 9p|8c.
