HomeTown Takeover: How We Were Chosen

We are a homegrown, family-owned General Contractor from a “little” town in Alabama that just did twelve renovations for one of HGTVs largest shows ever made. WHAT?! How did that happen? We still ask ourselves this, a LOT! Let me paint a picture for you…

It was 4:45 on a Friday afternoon and I was the last one in the office this particular week. I was rushing to get everything done for the weekend but screening phone calls to ensure nothing was forgotten. A California number called and I answered completely expecting it to be spam. On the other line was this perfectly bubbly woman who, since it was only shortly after lunch in her time frame, was gearing up for a great afternoon as I was trying to wind mine down and get out of the door. It took about 10 minutes into the phone call for me to tell myself, “Hey, you should probably start to be a little nicer… this could be real?” An hour or so later we wrapped up the call with two more Skype calls scheduled for the following week. Just one month later we had boots on the ground scouting locations with the whole team ready to get this show started!

My first question to the Network was “how did you find us?” As many have guessed … our website and social media played a huge part. If you take one thing away from this blog post, take this: your social media and online presence is one of the most important things you can do for your business! Ben & Erin fell in love with a project we had just wrapped up, the rebuild of the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Wetumpka. Our love for historic preservation and creativity is what immediately made our friendship stronger and the perfect fit to help them revitalize Wetumpka.

Many of you have now seen the first episode of “Home Town Takeover” and if you haven’t – go watch it now on HGTV.com or Discovery+! In a couple of days start looking for another blog post that highlights every detail of the Moody House and Tapp18 renovations… you won’t want to miss it.

Until Next Time,

Josie

About the Author: Josie

Josie was born and raised in Montgomery, AL and grew up checking on all the jobsites with her Dad, the founder of Russell Construction. She attended Troy University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human services, never thinking about working in the construction industry. She hated her “first job” and as a last resort began working at Russell Construction in Marketing. It was a big leap as her Dad never expected his family of all daughters to jump in on the family business. However, it came naturally to Josie and she quickly fell in love with it. She is now the Marketing Director but also has a hand in Project Management and Estimating as she wanted to understand all aspects of the business. In 2020 she was chosen to be in the Association of General Contractor’s Top 40 under 40 class. Her hardest but most rewarding project to date was being the lead on HomeTown Takeover: Season 1 as she led all the construction and assisted design with Ben and Erin Napier of HGTV. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Heath, and they have two pups, Champ and Cooper. Her favorite place to be is the beach or anywhere tropical. This blog was her brainchild as she wanted to share everything in her industry that makes her HAPPY with YOU!