Good Bones Recap: Season 8, Episode 2

“Secret Sanctuary on Singleton” takes place in the southern half of Bates-Hendricks, a regular Two Chicks neighborhood. Mina says this part of Bates-Hendricks has become one of the most desirable areas to live in Indianapolis in the last few years. I don’t buy it. I don’t care what any real estate numbers say or how dramatically different this area was when Two Chicks started improving its “cockroach-infested, strip-clubby streets” (their words). I drive through there every day on my way home, about a mile away, and it doesn’t hold a candle to the best neighborhoods in Indy. Let’s be serious about this before people start buying houses there sight unseen or waiving inspections. End of PSA.

The $35,000 chop-and-pop—which refers to removing a bad part of the house and replacing it with a taller addition—gives Mina the warm fuzzies because it reminds her of the houses the company started off doing. Already half-demolished, she sees the potential for how awesome it can be.

But first they need to see how not-awesome the foundation is. Project manager Cory makes Mina go first into the crawl space so he doesn’t get bitten in the face by a raccoon with rabies. When she squeezes through a tight hole in the floor, it feels like the episode should be called “Spelunking on Singleton.” The good news is the base is salvageable and the house isn’t a teardown. That’s two for two this season!

With that business squared away, Mina sets the reno budget at $265,000 with a target list price of $370,000 for a $70,000 payday. Kudos to the production team for putting a camera on a bird nest that delays demo—the crew can’t move it while eggs remain. Cute stuff. Mina and Tad squabble over how to remove the back of the house … and does it even need to be said that Mina is probably right? Tad wants to kick down the back wall, a more adventurous option to Mina’s way of taking it off with the excavator. Tad whines that it’s “so boring!” Austin commiserates because the house was already demoed when they got their hands on it, so there wasn’t much left to do (read: have fun destroying). The edit makes it look like Tad petulantly tosses a demo fork into some rubble, still pouting, but who knows.

My former recapper-in-crime Kristin would love the dining room—not all Two Chicks houses have space for one, and it’s her pet peeve. The rest of the floor plan contains four bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths, and there’s a flex space by the kitchen that Mina wonders how to use. She consults Indy architect Todd Rottmann. Before we hear his great ideas, Cory pipes up with a vision for a walk-in pantry hidden behind faux kitchen cabinets. Not as fun as “Find the Pantry” is the game of “Find the Sewer Line” the crew plays in the backyard. It’s just gone. Was it removed accidentally, buried during demo, left under the newly built deck? It’s a mystery. Hiring a company to come locate it is an unexpected expense. It goes to show what you’re in for if you decide to flip a house.

Moving on to the design, the new floor product Mina chooses is called “loose lay,” and I really need Kristin back to maximize the giggle potential. These vinyl planks lend themselves to creative patterns like herringbone. For the kitchen, Mina promises a “sick range hood thing” and a custom kitchen island matching a dining room table. Designer MJ is excited about polished nickel hardware instead of the usual brass or black, but he’s not feeling the pink floral wallpaper that Mina wants for the main bedroom “because [she’s] a grandma.”

The custom kitchen work heralds the return of Iron Timbers, our favorite Good Bones craftsmen. For the hidden pantry, cohost-turned-ambiguously-defined-crew-member Karen goes crazy asking for two levels of secrecy with another layer of faux doors, and the Iron Timbers elder statesman says, “You are insane,” with his eyes—or at least it’s edited that way.

As we speed through the staging, we see that the kitchen island is so tall that it might set a world record. It literally sits at Mina’s rib level. And you’re a true Good Bones fan if the black ironwork in the stairway looks familiar. Mina’s vision for a serene, spa-like interior comes together with soft colors and natural textures.

A homebuyer and her friend arrive to look at the spiffy cottage, which has white paint, copper gutters, black windows, and a modern natural wood porch. I don’t love the copper gutters on the front—they create an awkward outline of the lower half of the house, and they are a splurge I would have liked somewhere else. But I love the green front door.

I pause to admire the gorgeous turned legs on the dining room table by Iron Timbers. They also did a marvelous job with the pantry door. Double cabinet doors reveal a spice rack—and you can push on the doors to make the whole wall swing open to the pantry. Great idea, Cory! On camera, the soft brown paint upstairs looks a little drab. I hope it’s richer in person. But I love that they painted the doors and trim the same color for a cocooning feel.

The prospective homebuyer makes an offer at full list. I take back what I said about the desirability of south Bates-Hendricks. I’d want a hidden pantry, too.