The two women “were bitten by the renovation bug,” and haven’t looked back since.
But this smiley strawberry blonde is so much more than a reality star.
What keeps her going?
What advice does she have for people looking to follow in her work booted footsteps?
She covered all this and more in an exclusive interview withThe List.
That’s how my family is.
It’s all hodgepodge.
And it’s a joke because it’s just why my dad’s second wife… you could’t even make it up.
But just this idea that family comes in so many different shapes, and when I was growing up…
Even in high school.
And I just grew up that way.
Mine was definitely all hodgepodge together.
So yeah, that’s the thought.
Oh, for sure.
This is even way before the kids book.
The area I live in, there’s no homeowner’s association.
I drive around to projects and I’m like, “Oh my god, who did that?
Why did they do that?”
I really just wish everyone would consult me because they’re making really bad choices.
He was like, “I work out.
I work really hard.
Can I get a beard?
Can I look like I have muscles?”
There’s a little bit of back and forth on that.
But I mean in general, the book was just…
I wanted it to be fun and cute but not super cheesy.
And yeah, that was really the hardest part.
Then what would you say the most challenging thing about renovating homes is and which one’s tougher?
I think, I mean, definitely renovating homes is tougher.
But then it’s getting it to print, and getting it across the ocean and all that stuff.
And there are fewer variables to mess up.
In the house process, there’s so many decisions to make.
It’s not just like, “Okay, we need to add a beard to Steve.”
It’s all the finishes, all the floor plans, then you have a budget.
I mean, we had a house fall down last season.
It literally fell down, it wasn’t supposed to do that.
So a little bit more catastrophic things than the kids would process.
I think it does it in a unique way, because it pulls in so much.
Like there’s a girl across the street.
We have the same birthday, and she turned 100 on my birthday this year.
And there was just… She’s everyone’s great grandma.
She’s lived here forever.
I’m the newest newbie.
Regularly I reach out to her daughter.
I’m like, “Just remind her, I’m across the street.
I’m close if you ever need anything.”
Making the idea of family more about not just blood and your neighbors and your friends.
People who need help.
People who need empathy.
And I’ve only just started my career in reading children’s books.
Yeah, it’s just more of that.
I don’t remember watching TV with my parents like that.
What is most exciting to you about the store?
What do you love?
What can you just not wait to share with people?
One of those back-of-the-mind dream projects for a while.
And for no fault of her own, financing and just bandwidth, it didn’t happen.
It finally opened, two months late in the middle of the pandemic.
I think it was June, this past June.
And we were like, “You know what, whatever.
We’re going to do this.
It’s fine.”
We’re not losing our butts.
Like we’re in the Midwest.
Our prices on our show are reasonable.
And if you were to be able to find it, it’s probably 10 grand.
We wanted a store where everything…
There was something for everyone.
We got this like fancy, fancy, fancy couch, velvet.
It’s giant, and it was $4,000.
I think that’s the most expensive thing we’ve ever had in the store.
But the family part is honestly the easiest part.
We have an awesome nanny that’s been with us since Jack was six or nine months old.
And actually, she has an apartment up there.
She’s pretty much…
I mean, she’s family.
She’s been quarantined with us at various times.
That makes everything else doable for both of us because [we’re] working… Yeah.
It’s not a thing working from home when you have kids if someone’s not helping you.
That’s really made everything else manageable.
And we’re filming a little bit less, we’re being more purposeful with it.
We are wrapping up six.
What was your favorite part of filming Season 6 so far?
I had appliances for the houses, vanities.
It was chock-full of stuff.
Obviously none of us were prepared, so it’s like all hands on deck.
And that was my sister’s first day.
Seeing it go from that to how pretty it is now is very encouraging.
Anything specific that we should keep an eye out for?
Next to my home, we have one that is probably my favorite we’ve ever done.
It’s super, super cool.
We just finished it.
I imagine it’ll air towards the end of the season, but just architecturally, really cool.
We can’t get away with this very often.
But we do have that one, which is really fun.
And also this is the first season that mom’s partially retired.
Mom’s still there.
So Cory is one of our project managers.
I’ve known him since he was like picking his nose.
He was my high school boyfriend’s best friend’s little brother.
He’s pretty much family.
Expectations like, “Oh, so and so is going to behave like this.”
We do talk to each other poorly and so this new guy just said we should reevaluate that.
And if so, how did you guys work through that?
It was really early on when we had just gotten picked up.
We always have these ups and downs.
That’s how mom and I have been, honestly, since I was like 6.
We didn’t talk for a year, like my first year of college.
We always figure out a way to get back to it.
You’re just with each other all day, every day, and that can be really intense.
Like, “What did she mean by that?”
And Kelsy would be like, “Nothing.”
That kind of stuff.
Definitely [it] is not as fun or easy as HGTV makes it.
They take a six-month process, edit it down into 42 minutes of the best.
I think that’s why there are those like, “Help, rescue me.
Make it something you know.
I don’t do ballet.
“No, we’re not buying that.”
What’s next for Mina Starsiak Hawk?
Gosh, now, I mean family-wise, we’re just all surviving during the pandemic.
But just a lot more of the same.
Episodes ofGood Bonesair on HGTV.
