By: Kylie Kinnett Photos contributed by: Gino and Amanda Montalvo
Sometimes, when you are so immersed into the hustle andbrbustle of everyday life, you forget to remember and take in your surroundings.brYou start to take the beautiful city you live in for granted. With the newest HGTVbroriginal series, “Shoring the House,” filmed right here in Corpus Christi, thebrMontalvo family hopes to remind those who live here, as well as the rest of thebrcountry, just how special Corpus Christi really is.
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With what started as Chris Montalvo and his cousin, GinobrMontalvo, renovating houses together, soon grew to a business involving thebrwhole family. As projects began getting bigger, Chris’ wife, Amanda, decided tobrjoin in and help with the design aspect of renovating a house.
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Gino began sharing their finished products on social mediabrand with that, their following began to grow more and more. “We would startbrselling houses before we had even listed them,” Amanda says. “Gino startedbrposting more of our work on Facebook and that is what eventually caught thebrattention of HGTV.”
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With Chris and Gino’s wife, Analissa, being the more behind-the-scenebrand business savvy side of the renovations, Amanda and Gino decided to serve asbrthe faces for the new HGTV original series, “Shoring the House.”
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The production company reached out to the cousin duo almostbrtwo whole years ago to tell them they were interested in what they were doingbrand felt as though they checked all the boxes for the new show they were wantingbrto create. After numerous interviews and conversations, we fast forward tobrOctober of 2017, when the filming process began for the pilot episode ofbrShoring the House. “There are so many steps to this process,” Gino says. “Youbrcan be cut at really any time before even making it to film a pilot episode.”
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Now, after a couple of years of waiting, filming, and morebrwaiting, the Montalvo family awaits the premiere of the show, this Sunday at 1brPM on HGTV. The pilot episode willbrfeature the family members renovating a home described as the “ugly duckling”brof the neighborhood. “During the process, neighbors would walk by the house andbrclap” Gino humorously states. “It was just this massive, vacant corner housebrand we were helping to better this neighborhood.”
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While the show will follow a similar structure to otherbrfixer-upper shows, they have put a rather refreshing take on the format bybradding in the element of social media and selfie-like filming. Which is true tobrform, as the concept for the show was discovered through Gino’s social mediabrplatforms in the first place. “A lot of the show is actually filmed on mybriPhone,” Gino says. “It shows that we are really here, every single day,brworking hard on these projects — this is real-time footage and they haven’t reallybrever allowed that before. They let us be ourselves, and I think that will showbrin the episode.”
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Gino and Amanda’s hope for the show is to really shine abrlight on our city. Being Corpus Christi natives, they take immense pride in ourbrcommunity and want to share that with the rest of the country. “We were bornbrand raised here, our family is here, and we are raising our children here; webrhave no intention on leaving,” Amanda says. “We want to restore and bring valuebrto the community and showcase what an amazing place this is to live.” They add thatbrthey have seen what these types of shows have done for cities (Waco, forbrexample), and simply hope to do the same for Corpus.
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However, they need your help! In order for the show to bebrapproved for a full season, the pilot episode must be a success! So, thisbrSunday, August 26th, at 1 PM, tune in to HGTV. The views that countbrtowards their ratings must be LIVE views. This means, even if you DVR the episodebrand watch it later, it won’t help them out. So, turn on every TV in your housebron Sunday at 1 PM and flip to HGTV. The more live views, the better. Then,brafter you watch the episode, head to HGTV’s website or Facebook and leave abrreview using the hashtag #shoringthehouse.
