A renovated bathroom in Justine Mays' Upper Darby home features the Mona Lisa blowing pink bubbles.

With glee in their voices and a very unnecessary bullhorn in hand, HGTV host Retta and interior designer Alison Victoria stood on the porch of Justine Mays’ Upper Darby home last summer and proclaimed her to be the owner of “the ugliest house in America!”

Justine Mays in the remodeled kitchen of her Upper Darby home, which was renovated in the season six finale of HGTV's "Ugliest House in America."

Was it the doors used as decorations instead of entrances that led to this crowning achievement? The room wallpapered in cigar boxes? Or the grill bolted to the second-story exterior of the house that was accessible only through a window?

Justine Mays received a $150,000 makeover.

It was all of that and so much more.

In shock upon receiving this unparalleled distinction, Mays’ jaw dropped as confetti rained down upon her. Then, a huge smile spread across her face and she put her head in her hands and cried.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I feel awesome. I’m really happy.”

Mays had to keep her house’s new title a secret for nearly a year, until it was revealed that she was the season six winner of HGTV’s Ugliest House in America during the show’s season finale June 30.

Today, her home looks very little like it did before. As her prize for beating out houses across the country, Mays received a $150,000 home makeover — a very pink home makeover — and she’s absolutely tickled about it.

“It’s a lot and I love all of it,” she said. “I know it’s probably a little gaudy but that’s what I was going for. I did get the ugliest house and I am from Philly, so I’m a bit gaudy.”

‘So funky’

Mays, who grew up in West Philly, University City, and Society Hill, never thought she’d be able to buy a house of her own, but by 2022, she’d accumulated a small savings working in the biopharmaceutical industry and was preapproved for a loan.

After several houses didn’t pan out, she found the four bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom, 2,178-square-foot house that would eventually become her home. On the front wall of the large, cement front porch was a mural of an underwater scene featuring children in a submarine.

Inside, the entryway ceiling was a collage of maps of Mexico, Canada, and Upper Darby; there was a wall of mirrors in the living room and mosaics all around; and glass bottles — from perfume to Tanqueray — were fused into some of the cement walls.

Embedded in the mortar of the brick walls in the living room were all sorts of tchotchkes — like a piece of glass candy corn and a tiny double decker toy bus — and the 42-square-foot kitchen island, which was covered with coins, bills, and cards from around the world sealed in epoxy resin, took up 70% of the kitchen.

But the house’s original hardwood floors, big closets, and massive square footage called to Mays, and for the price of $184,000 she thought, “Who was I to turn my nose up at a house?”

“I was like, ‘This house is so funky,’ but I don’t care about funky,” she said. “I was just so grateful that I was able to buy a house.”

Mays learned from her real estate agent and neighbors that the previous owner ran a nonprofit arts program for kids out of the house and over time, the building itself became a three-dimensional canvas of expression for budding artists.

“That’s why the house was so eclectic,” she said. “Ironically, upstairs where the bedrooms are is completely normal. You’d never know that downstairs there was a party.”

After moving in during the fall of 2022, Mays painted over the submarine mural out front and repainted the bedrooms upstairs. Then, she began saving up for future renovations, until she got an unexpected text from a casting agency one day.

‘A scam, obviously’

Mays had never seen an episode of Ugliest House in America, and sure as heck had never applied to be a contestant, so when she received the unsolicited text last year asking her if she’d like to be on the show, she was rightfully suspicious.

“I thought it was a scam, obviously,” she said.

But when Mays researched the casting agency and show, everything seemed legit. She was told that producers found her house through an old listing on an online real estate marketplace.

“They told me what they do is look on Zillow and all those types of websites [to find] homes,” Mays said.

She had a lawyer read through the fine print before signing a contract to appear on the show and Mays also had to agree that if she won, she’d move out of her house for two months while renovations were underway.

‘Nonsense in here’

In early summer last year, the show’s host Retta, an actor and comedian best known for her work on the series Parks and Recreation, came to Mays’ house and toured it for the first time on camera.

Retta’s reactions to and descriptions of Mays’ home included:

“Wow, that’s extra.”
“What on earth?”
“The kitchen is a hot mess.”
“This is mirror city”
“Why so many doors? Doors on the ceiling, doors on the walls. No rooms, just doors.”
“It is nonsense in here. Nonsense!”
“Keep aspirin for your visitors cause this place gives me a headache.”

Retta was particularly perplexed by a bathroom in the entryway with a door for a drop ceiling; the kitchen island; a piece of exposed foundation in the basement framed like it was art; an old beehive used as decor; and the aforementioned grill bolted to the second-story exterior that was accessible only through a window in the front sunroom.

At the end of the episode, titled “Monstrous Mid-Atlantic,” Retta, who gives all the houses a nickname, dubbed Mays’ home the “Collage Barrage.”

She beat out the other two houses in the episode in which she was featured — a Victorian decorated with cherubs and chandeliers and a dragon-themed house with a well in the kitchen out of which up to 40 spiders have crawled in a single day.

The season finale featured five finalists, including a house with shag carpeting on the walls and drapes, and Mays’ Upper Darby home bested them all. She was genuinely shocked when Retta and Victoria showed up on her porch and told her she won.

“You have to understand, we don’t know what these other houses look like. I don’t know how ugly their houses are … plus it’s such a subjective thing, right?” Mays said. “Some people probably thought I didn’t have the ugliest house, I’m sure.”

‘A new story’

In quick order, Mays and her two cats, Barry Allen and Grayson, had to move out for eight weeks, while Victoria, the production crew, and folks from companies across the region renovated the exterior and first floor of the house with a budget of $150,000.

Mays gave them free rein, but did mention to Victoria that she loves pink.

“How pink?” Victoria asked.

“As pink as we can go,” Mays said.

The renovations, which are highlighted in the season finale, included a new black-and-white paint job on the exterior and a pergola over the front porch. Inside, Victoria flip-flopped the living room and kitchen and had many of the new kitchen fixtures, like the oven hood and refrigerator, painted pink.

The half-bath downstairs was covered in a wallpaper featuring repeating portraits of the Mona Lisa blowing a pink bubble and the sunroom was turned into a secret speakeasy with a hidden door that’s awash in pink and plastered with flamingo wallpaper.

Contracting work was done by VCG Construction of Drexel Hill and Victoria worked with other local vendors, like Brothers Upholstery of Bristol, and visited local shops, like Architectural Antiques Exchange in Northern Liberties, to decorate and furnish Mays’ house.

The remodel was not without its hiccups — an electrician found a live service cable inside of the house that’s only supposed to run outside, which cost $10,000 off the bat to fix — but Victoria was able to repurpose some items, like the home’s many doors, to save costs.

Small touches of the original house were left too. While the brick walls were painted white, the knick-knacks within the mortar are still visible upon close inspection.

Mays loved everything about the renovation, as evidenced by her ecstatic reactions during the finale, and she found the call backs to the original funky house especially touching.

“I wanted to keep some character, like somebody lived here, so I do like that nod in the new house to the old house,” she said. “It’s not about erasing what was there. This is just a new story.”

‘Ugliest House in America’