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Series lets you follow Monica Potter’s renovation of her Cleveland home — Mary Beth Breckenridge

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I’ve been dying to see inside the house actress Monica Potter renovated in Cleveland. And boy, was it worth the wait.

This week, HGTV started airing a series about the renovation, Welcome Back Potter. It follows Potter, her three sisters and their mother through their renovation of the house in North Collinwood where Potter grew up.

(Did you miss it? The first two episodes will be repeated this weekend, starting at 1 and 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The next two air at 11 and 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.)

Potter told me about the project when I interviewed her about a year and a half ago, as she prepared to open her first Monica Potter Home store near Garrettsville. She was fresh off the NBC series Parenthood at the time and trying to manage details of the opening from her home in Los Angeles while juggling a TV project, and she was admittedly exhausted.

Maybe that’s why I could hear the emotion in her voice as she talked about the house, her old neighborhood and her love for Cleveland. But I suspect that emotion is often close to the surface when it comes to those subjects.

Tears flow a few times in Welcome Back Potter as the family members reminisce, and particularly when they talk about Potter’s late father, Paul Brokaw. But it’s hardly a somber show. The sisters and their mom are funny and irreverent, and they all appear to share that Northeast Ohio lack of pretension.

Potter may be a star, but she’s not above swinging a sledgehammer. “We’re Irish women from Cleveland,” she says as she knocks down a plaster-and-lath wall. “We can do it.”

Nor do her sisters hesitate to give her a little ribbing. When she asks a woodworker whether the mineral oil coating on a butcher block will cause diarrhea, sister Brigette chimes in, “Your cooking might.”

The first two episodes show the process of remodeling the kitchen and opening it to the dining room, as well as the makeover of the living room and foyer. The results are bright, cheerful and far more livable than the house’s decrepit state when Potter bought it, still with some of the family’s old furniture and belongings inside.

Cleveland comes off looking pretty good, too. There are lots of glamour shots of the Cuyahoga River and its bridges, footage of kids scampering down sidewalks and images of flags and flower baskets. The city seems like a poster child for idyllic America — never mind that Collinwood, where the house is located, is a worn, working-class neighborhood struggling to rebound from the recession.

Although Potter doesn’t live in Cleveland anymore, she told me she wanted to make the house a place where the family can gather and where she can stay when she’s in town.

It’s a big undertaking, and how much she’s sinking into the project isn’t specified. Clearly, her pockets are deep.

In just the first two episodes, floors are repaired and sanded, cabinets and appliances are replaced, and windows and a French door are installed. Even though the family members do part of work, the expense has to be significant.

But what price can you put on restoring a bit of your childhood?

For Potter, the two-story red house with the big front porch and a view of Lake Erie has long held a special place in her heart. She never got over her sense of loss after her family sold it in 1987.

“I couldn’t let it go,” she said. “You know, this is our home. This is our heart.”

And it’s coming back strong.

Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can also become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ, follow her on Twitter @MBBreckABJ  and read her blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.


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