Home with Nicole:
The Revival Designs Blog
Redfin recently reached out asking us to share our thoughts and tips with home buyers who are considering buying a fixer upper. We weighed in on topics such as:
Is a fixer upper right for everyone?
What to look for and costly issues to avoid when buying a home that needs a lot of work
Why would you want to consider buying a home that needs renovation vs. turnkey?
And more!
Check out the Redfin article here: What Does TLC Mean In Real Estate? Everything You Should Know
Nicole Nichols (center), owner of Revival Designs, accepting the residential renovation award from representatives of the Cincinnati Preservation Association. Photo credit: Cincinnati Preservation Association
On May 9, 2024, the Cincinnati Preservation Association hosted an inaugural Preservation Awards event to honor both people and projects in several categories related to excellence in historic preservation.
The Wedge Haus won the Preservation Excellence award in the competitive category of residential renovation. You can read more about the event, details about The Wedge Haus’s history and renovation, and all award recipients on the Cincinnati Preservation Association website and via this published piece from Movers and Makers Cincinnati, in which Nicole is quoted about the event. To see more photos of The Wedge Haus, visit our Portfolio page.
Although this was posted nearly a year ago, we finally got around to sharing a wonderful roundup that Cincinnati Magazine published online last July: Seven Local Home Flippers You Should Know. Revival Designs is listed (along with some of our home renovation tips) in some wonderful company of colleagues who are creating some beautifully designed remodels around the tri-state area. We are in great company and excited to be included! Thank you, Cincinnati Magazine, for including us in the feature!
I was excited when a local writer contacted me several months ago and asked if I would like to be interviewed for a regional magazine about current home trends. I remember driving to our Airbnb to drop off some supplies while doing the interview over the phone—talk about multitasking!
Not only did I get to share some decor tips and trends I had been seeing (and using in my designs), but to my surprise, when the article was published (Fall/Winter 2019 issue), my own work even made it on the cover! The living room image on newsstands was a house I designed, staged and photographed for an area investor (see more of Park Place on my Portfolio page). The magazine also featured a couple other photos I shot of my previous design work, the Eileen flip and our Big Brick Bungalow! You can see more images of these incredible spaces in the Portfolio section on this very website.
We were proud to lend a small hand in bringing this beautiful renovation to the market. Designed by Flippin Wendy Design and renovated by Flipping Cincy, the homeowner/renovator Kevin Geraci hired Revival Designs to do a light staging of the key rooms in the house (kitchen and bathrooms) and take all of its listing photos! Check out the final product of this amazing collaboration on CincinnatiMagazine.com!
We love our friends at Cincinnati Refined. They feature all kinds of great arts/cultural happenings in Cincinnati, and always showcase the most amazing homes from local designers. They also recently featured a design project we did for local investor/flipper Kevin Geraci of Flipping Cincy (see more pics of “Park Place” on our Portfolio Place). Here’s the slideshow of our work along with the brief story of how Kevin brought a community together and made his flip into a charitable cause.
Soon after, Local 12 chatted with a Cincinnati Refined editor live about the flip, which you can see below (note that our segment begins at about the 2:00 mark):
I am honored to have been invited to the morning show at Local 12 WKRC to talk about how I transitioned from a 10-year career in the fitness industry into flipping homes and doing design work for homeowners. It was a fun experience and I think turned out nicely. Here is a link to the segment that aired live this morning.
I didn't get a chance to specifically talk about how one would go about getting started in the flipping business, but people contact me frequently asking just that. It's not something I can easily answer in a simple email or an Instagram message, but I often refer people to a getting-started e-book from my own mentor Wendy Doris of Flippin Wendy Design. She's been at it 10+ years and was critical to helping me to started. If a career change into flipping homes is something that interests you, definitely check out her book!
We were thrilled to have our latest renovation on Eileen Drive in Oakley featured on the Cincinnati Refined website in November 2017. Their glowing praise of the design work as "HGTV worthy" was a surprise that we are especially thankful for.
A few days later, their partner Local 12 (WKRC) also plugged the home as worthy of "Architectural Digest" live on the news! Watch the video clip here. The station asked us to appear on the news a couple of weeks later, so watch for that video clip soon.
