How did you get into the trade? When I was younger, I got into breaking stuff, and then trying to fix it. I was horrible at it—I just ended up breaking things. I progressed to making crafts for church when I was 15 or 16— things for garage sales, church fairs—and the old women who came out to the events would buy my bird houses made out of pallets. That’s sort of how I got into it. Did anything in particular inspire you? I was a huge This Old House fan. I watched all those guys do their thing, and I got sucked in—I wanted to do that. People started paying me to come into their houses and work, and I had knowledge from watching This Old House, and I learned on the job, but was I a carpenter at 16? Probably not.
Jeff Devlin Where are you originally from? I was born and raised in Northeast Philadelphia and grew up the majority of my life in Bucks County—Langhorne. About 17 years ago I moved out to Chester County, and I currently live in West Chester. What brought you here? At the time, it was my ex, but really I loved it. It was quiet, especially 20 years ago, and I loved these old farmhouses and the history here. Every house I’ve purchased has been an old home. How would you classify your profession? I guess I started as a carpenter, and when people ask me that question, I say carpenter, but I am a licensed contractor. What I love doing most is building furniture, building custom cabinets, but I still do everything: bathrooms, basements, kitchens. Carpenter is where I started and what I stick with—it’s a noble trade.
When would you say you became a carpenter? I started making furniture and tables and stuff when I was about 20. Then, when I was about 23, a good friend Bill Bundy, and his wife Tammy, offered me a chance to work on a house they were flipping. The houses they flipped were 200 years and older. The first one I got a taste of was 300 years old, and we gutted it all the way down to the studs. The guy who hired me, I thought he was crazy, because we had all these power tools, but he had us doing the job by hand to make it look original. At that point, he was paying me by the hour, so what did I care? But that experience got me to slow down a bit and appreciate the things I built like I hadn’t before.
And so you went into the business for yourself? Yeah. I started my own business, but I’ve got to be honest: I’m a horrible businessman. I’ll propose something great, and people will say, “It’s not in the budget,” and I say, “I’ll make it work,” because I really want to do the job right. But then I look back on it, and I’m like, “I didn’t make any money on that.” Around this time, I saw my friends coming back from college, getting jobs, and I had to figure out how to make money—figure out whether or not this was going to be a sustainable career or just a hobby. Is that how you got into television? I got into television through Jim Mundel, who was a friend of a friend. It was actually at a funeral that he casually said to me, “I heard you snowboard and ski. Would you wanna help me carry a camera crane up and down a mountain for a snowboarding tour?” I thought he was joking, but I said, “Sure.” He called me a week later and said, “I got your tickets; you’re going to Colorado next week.” That was how I started working in television, as a laborer. From there I started messing with the camera, until I got hired as an operator, and I filmed wakeboarding, drag racing, all kinds of stuff. I’d be away for three days—a day to get there, day shooting, day back—then the rest of the time I could spend in my shop, doing what I loved, making built-ins and cabinets and furniture. How’d you end up in front of the camera? Well, one day, a guy I worked with, Bud McHugh, came by my house to drop off a camera, and I was working in my shop. He said, “You’re still doing the carpentry stuff, huh? I forgot that you did that stuff.” The next day he showed up unannounced at my house, lied and said he had a new camera he needed to test, and he had me look at him, say some things, talk on camera, and two weeks later I got a call to be on TV. Apparently he sent the tape to a production company and they liked it. Were you excited? At first, I thought, “This isn’t really for me.” At the time Trading Spaces was huge, and I watched these shows, and I thought, “I don’t wanna be another wisecracking carpenter. I wanna be another Tommy Silva and take my time and be methodical.” In the end I decided, if I was going to do it, I was going to be different from the rest of the carpenters on television.
MARCH 2016 THEWCPRESS.COM
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