Nicole Curtis took a step back from HGTV in 2022, but fans of the Rehab Addict star will be thrilled to know that she's returning with an all-new season of her show, and it's not to be missed.

This time, Nicole is taking on two huge projects, and they're 1,500 miles apart. In the span of four episodes, she tackles the restoration of an 1890s house in Wyoming that had been the victim of a bad flip and a 1928 Detroit property (she lovingly calls it the "crack house") that was inhabited by squatters. Nicole produced the episodes herself, so viewers can expect gritty authenticity that isn't often seen on home renovation shows. Country Living sat down with Nicole to talk about her projects and get caught up on what she's been up to.

nicole curtis

Since she was last seen on HGTV, Nicole has been hard at work doing what she loves: restoring rundown homes to their original glory. She explains, "Our houses never go fast. I know that people think when they see it on TV, 'Hey, she just finished it,' or 'she just bought it.' But our last episode aired in 2022, and that was our lake house, and that took 8 years of filming. I produce the show. It's actually my production company, and I'm in edits, and we edited footage over a span of 8 years. So when I say we've been shooting this season for 3 years, it's really been 3 years. And then we have to edit that down to 42 minutes. And it's kind of a mess. To be honest, it's a messy process."

two individuals in an abandoned room with a door

She continues, "There are some scenes in the Wyoming house where it's September of 2022. It's September of 2023, and it's also September of 2024, and also 2025. But I'm in the same outfit, and we mesh them into the same episode. I have more wrinkles from the 2022 to the 2025. But the outfit's the same. So we're just gonna go with it."

Nicole admits that filming a TV show takes a backseat to renovating houses. She says, "I get bored very easily. I never per se wanted to be on TV. I wanted to bring awareness to old houses. I wanted to work in houses. And then we have this TV show that comes together, but for me to sit still and be polished, and be in hair and makeup, and not say the f-word every other word—that's impossible. The idea to do a show where we stage the shots like, I don't have time for that. I'm really building a house. I'm in edits right now, and I'm looking at this footage, and I'm like, 'Oh, my! Gosh! I look like hell.' Some shows have lighting crews that spend a whole day lighting a shot and I'm not losing that. It's my production company, so every dollar counts. And we want to put our money into the projects. We're not going to put it into lighting Nicole's space. So we build at a slower pace. But we shoot at a fast pace compared to a normal TV show."

Viewers may be surprised to know that she's not in the business of reselling her houses. "I don't flip homes. This crack house that I'm in right now [in Detroit]—what am I gonna do with it? We don't know," she says. "But I can't imagine selling this house after we've gone through all this work. And then if someone doesn't take meticulous care of it, it's gonna drive me crazy. In Detroit all of our houses are on Airbnb."

interior of a vintagestyle room with a sitting area and various decor elements

At this point in her career, Nicole has just about seen it all. But the properties in the new season came with their own special circumstances. She says of the Detroit house, "It was more challenging because of the situation, so I'd say it's the grossest. I think every single old house of mine comes with its own challenges, and if you work next to me, I'll say, 'Damn! This is our worst house yet.' I say that in every single house. So it's just a matter of degree, like this one's gross."

The Wyoming house was a "whole different beast." She explains, "It was still gross, because it's a desert, and it was 110 degrees there. But you have the same challenges where you're hot. You're sweaty. You're hungry. You just want a cold shower and a meal, and you don't get that because we work through the night, and then we go home at like 4 o'clock in the morning we get back up at 8. There's not much sleep ever."

For Nicole, all of that hard work is worth it, and viewers will love going along for the ride.