CHICAGO — Ten years ago, Meg and Joe Piercy were basically broke. They were stuck in the middle of a home renovation and the contractor had walked away from the job. With a baby on the way, they couldn’t afford a changing table.
“We had no money for a changing table,” Meg Piercy said. “We were too proud to ask for money from our parents and we had gotten ourselves into this mess and our neighbor had just gotten rid of a dresser.”
They grabbed the dresser before the garbage collectors could. For the next few nights, they sanded and painted it. It turned out well. So, well, in fact that their friends encouraged them to sell it. The put an ad on Craigslist.
“So, we sold it for $85 and it was like, ‘Huh, that was kind of fun. I can do this,” Meg Piercy said.
It turned into a hobby for her.
Meantime, Joe Piercy learned the construction trades to complete the unfinished work at their home himself.
The new skills led to a business – home furniture and décor. They now have a 10,000-square foot shop in Logan Square where thy work together to refurbish and re-finish pieces, then sell them.
“Not a lot of couples work together, but we actually work together. And we raise our family together. And we’re actually together probably 22 to 23 hours a day,” Joe Piercy said.
They complement each other with their strengths.
“I feel like our relationship is a little bit like a mullet – like Meg is business in the front and I’m party in the back,” he said.
The couple’s chemistry attracted the attention of HGTV ,the popular cable channel focused on home improvement. They just launched a new show called “Renovation Goldmine.” The show follows the Piercys as they help Chicago-area families find the so-called “goldmine” of valuable furniture already inside of their clients’ homes.
“Renovation: to make things new,” Meg Piercy said. “That’s what we wanted to do with people. We wanted to bring life and light to the inner city, that’s what I was doing. He was doing it through the church. Then the goldmine. The reason it’s called goldmine, is because we are constantly reminding our employees, our kids ourselves, to find the gold in people places and things.”
The show airs on HGTV at 7 p.m. CST on Saturdays.
https://wgntv.com/news/cover-story/chicago-furniture-shop-takes-center-stage-on-hgtv-renovation-goldmine/
