Taylor Spellman, a veteran of New York City’s interior design and home-staging game, is launching a new show on Discovery+.
The premise of the series, “One Week to Sell” is simple: Spellman’s interior design firm swoops into a sad home that’s languishing on the market and gets one week and a $10,000 budget to transform it into a must-buy.
The show debuts today with the release of the first three episodes. New ones come out weekly on Wednesdays.
The properties featured in the show are in New York’s tri-state area, where sales have soared since the pandemic began last year, as buyers sought bigger homes with outdoor space.
But some of the homes Spellman works on are in dire shape. A dank, dark brick kitchen, misshapen rooms, ghastly carpeting and dated wallpaper are some of the challenges she confronts each episode.
“Once I give this the hug it deserves, it’s just going to be money,” Spellman says in one episode after she salvages a rickety, run-down table from the roadside and refurbishes it as a buffet table for a dining room.
“It’s about creating a place that feels like home,” she explained. “If I can’t create that feeling in a home then it’s not going to sell.”
Spellman’s aesthetic trends toward contemporary minimalism, but aims to be functional so people can comfortably use the space. Her work is punctuated by bright and bold colors, artwork she creates herself and eclectic elements.
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Spellman is no newcomer to TV. The interior designer, who launched her eponymous firm in 2016, co-starred on Bravo’s “Yours, Mine or Ours” and has made appearances on “Million Dollar Listing New York,” helping Ryan Serhant style his listings. (She’s also done design work and staging for condo developers including Ben Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate Group and Michael Shah’s Delshah Capital.) This will be her first series all about her interior design business.
Starring in her own show has been a decade-long goal for the designer, who got the green light to begin filming last fall.
“If you’re able to get a television show, it’s marketing that you can’t otherwise get,” she said in an interview.
Though Spellman, her team and the real estate agents who appear on the show aren’t shown wearing masks, screening and testing was done on the set, and cast members were diligent about wearing masks to and from the set, she said.
Real estate reality shows have been popular from the beginning, but they’re finding a new audience as streaming services embrace the genre. Netflix launched two in the last couple of years: “Million Dollar Beach House” starring Nest Seekers International agents and “Selling Sunset” with agents from The Oppenheim Group.
By comparison, Spellman’s show is all about the work, less about the drama. Instead of backstabbing, there is good-natured banter between Spellman and her deputy, Kate Wasserman Dickens, a friend since childhood.
The designer said her show offers lessons on affordable, do-it-yourself interior design.
“People at home could actually do something that would make their own home and their own family feel better,” she said.