Brad Lodge had a copy of Colin & Justin’s Sub-Zero Reno before the Paramount+ show began airing Jan. 31. But he didn’t watch it. Until a recent binge viewing.
Brad Lodge Construction is the contractor featured in the show along with the Scottish designers.
“I didn’t want to see myself on camera. I was over it,” Lodge said this week. “Then I watched it, and Colin and Justin said nothing but good things about me. I ended up watching the whole thing the other night and thought ‘this is actually pretty cool’.”
While not one to talk himself up, and admitting the whole process was very different for him, he concedes, it left him with a good feeling and he was getting a lot of nice comments while out and about in the County.
He’s known Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan for a couple of years now, and done little jobs here and there for them. “We always kind of talked about what we were going to do… and it finally actually happened… so we made it work,” he said.
Lodge and his 14-member crew worked with McAllister and Ryan on a winter renovation on Drag Lake. The series is currently streaming on Paramount+.
Lodge, who grew up in West Guilford, and lives in Carnarvon, said the exposure is priceless.
“It’s great for people to know who we are. I grew up here. I know a lot of people. We are busy but can always plan for the future. And it’s just good for people to recognize my whole team’s hard work, not just mine.”
A film crew from Manitoba was on-site at times through the renovation, while Lodge and his team had GoPro cameras.
No strangers to winter remodels, he said the biggest challenge may have been the road leading to the cottage. “We did crash many times and get a lot of vehicles stuck and just couldn’t do things the way we did,” he said.
Some crazy moments were not captured on camera, he added. For example, they pumped water from the lake and hand mixed about 1,000 bags of concrete. An excavator slid down a massive hill, spinning circles “which could have been catastrophic.”
Another challenge for Lodge is he is used to controlling a build. He didn’t have that same control with this one.
“For a build in the winter that went that fast… there were so many people we had to deal with every single day; that was definitely one of the most stressful times I’ve had in a long time.”
As for being followed by a camera crew, he said it was nerve-wracking at first, and it didn’t help that his crew was trying to get him to laugh when he was being interviewed. However, he came around.
“It’s like at a wedding, you talk on the mic and you’re nervous and the next thing you know, you don’t want to let go of the mic.”
He adds words such as interesting, and weird to describe the experience. “We had a lot of fun, that’s for sure.” He also admits to showing frustration on camera.
But in the end, he said he and his crew come across just like they are in real life. “Being ourselves… nervous, but genuine in ourselves.”
