HGTV ‘Flip’ stars share tips at Raleigh’s Southern Ideal Home Show

The path from musician to house flipper isn’t such a strange one when you look at it from an artistic point of view.

That’s the case with Dave and Kortney Wilson, at least. The married couple who star in the HGTV show “Masters of Flip,” started out as country musicians in Nashville, but eventually found rehabbing and reselling homes to be both lucrative and creatively satisfying.

“We both like the creative process,” says Kortney, during a phone interview last week. “Flipping a house is like writing a song – there’s a beginning and an end and then you shelve it.”

“It’s more like recording a song and then touring 18 months off it,” counters Dave, the snarkier of the two.

Kortney gets excited talking about the creative side of house-flipping – the design choices, the opportunities to make artistic statements. And both agree she is the lead on design decisions (says Dave: “My style is to listen to Kortney and then go rogue once in awhile”). Kortney describes her personal style as a balance of rustic and chic.

For the houses they flip, Kortney likes to “keep timeless elements in each design. There’s a piece of that in every house we do.”

The couple will appear at the Southern Ideal Home Show in Raleigh on April 8.

With so many flipping shows on TV right now – there are at least six shows with the word “flip” or “flipping” either currently airing on HGTV or scheduled to premiere this spring – how are the Wilsons different?

“We’re better,” quips Dave.

Kortney acknowledges there are lots of similar flipping duos out there — young, attractive married couples with kids — but believes where they stand out is in how they design the homes they flip.

“I try to make every house look different from the last one,” Kortney says. “It would be easy to just go in and use gray paint and white subway tiles everywhere and sell it really fast, but I like to use color. People are always surprised at how color is used in our houses.

“Making every house look the same – that’s not really fun,” says Kortney. “I’m passionate about using color.”

The couple previously starred in a reality series called “Meet the Wilsons,” which aired on CMT in Canada and later in the U.S. During that show, Dave says the couple flipped a house across the street from their own home, and the process was followed on the program. When they started flipping more homes after “Meet the Wilsons” ended, they pursued another show. “Masters of Flip” started in Canada and was later picked up on HGTV in the U.S. You can catch it right now in reruns on HGTV.

“We didn’t plan it,” says Dave of their flipping careers. “It evolved into this.”

There’s no denying that flipping is huge again, after a spike in popularity in the early 2000s, which crashed along with the housing market. During this rebound, what kind of advice do Dave and Kortney have for those who think they might want to try a flip?

“Don’t!” says Kortney. “Go back to school!” advises Dave.

But turning serious, the two agree that the best way to start is small. They call it a “lipstick and rouge” flip – find a house in pretty good shape and then do cosmetic updates.

“New paint, staging, maybe new floors and appliances,” says Kortney.

“You won’t make a huge profit, but you’ll learn a lot about what kind of team you need to get it done,” adds Dave.

“It’s a much easier way to break through,” says Kortney.

This story was originally published March 31, 2017 at 11:45 AM with the headline "HGTV ‘Flip’ stars share tips at Raleigh’s Southern Ideal Home Show."