A talented designer launched a TV career from her couch

The Orange County Register (MCT) - Nancy Hadley kicked back on the couch in early 2004 and watched the debut of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

And after an episode or two, Hadley had the thought that comes to many of us as we watch reality TV, that feeling of, 'I could totally do that."

"Hook, line and sinker, I totally did," Hadley says, laughing at the memory. "I knew I could do it. I had that couch confidence you get when you're watching a design show."

But here's the difference between Hadley and you or me and the other people who hang out on their sofas, offering views on everything from the song-and-dance contests to the fashion-and-cuisine competitions that flash across our TV screens at night.

First, Hadley actually had, and has, some pertinent skills that fit those on display each week when "Extreme Makeover" rolls into a new town. After a career designing and installing museum exhibits, she'd started her own business as a design consultant _ especially for kids' rooms _ and mural painter.

Second, Hadley actually got off the couch and did something about her thought.

"I watched the Costa Mesa (Calif.) show" _ the McCrory family episode from March 2004 _ and I went upstairs and started looking for the people on the show," Hadley says. "I googled the show. I googled (host) Ty Pennington and found a site that said, 'Ask Ty A Question.'

"So I wrote, 'Can I help you?'"

A week or so later, late at night, her cell phone rang. The message she heard the next morning would launch her into an unexpected if oh-so-modern kind of fame.

___

Jevon Hadley sometimes teases his wife that she was raised by Uncle Television. And, as a kid in Marin County, Calif., in the '70s and '80s, Hadley admits that she did love her some television.

"I have five brothers and sisters, and so after dinner every night it would be a row of us on the couch, and a couple on the floor," says the mother of three _ Connor, 12, Isabel, 8, and Larkspur, 7 _ whose childhoods involve much less time in front of the tube.

"I always felt 'The Brady Bunch' was part of my family," Hadley says. "But we weren't allowed to watch 'The Three Stooges' because my mom felt that my brothers would try to emulate them."

Even so, she was comfortable on the couch-side of the screen, partly the result of camera-shyness that left her avoiding any lens that might venture her direction.

After graduating from the University of California-Santa Barbara with an art degree, she went to work for a Northern California company that designed natural history museums.

Supporting FREE Catholic Education with Grass-fed Beef

When her father grew ill, the family moved to Orange County, Calif., where he'd grown up, and Hadley opened her consulting business.

And, somewhere between career and family, Hadley also started popping up on television.

First came "Antiques Road Show" on PBS, where she stood silently next to her father as he learned that a Maynard Dixon painting his parents had been given, by the artist, was worth $12,000.

Then, in 2002, the WE network picked her to play the shopping game show "Spend It Fast!," where her challenge was to spend up to $1,500 in five minutes at a Linens-N-Things at the Metro Pointe shopping center in Costa Mesa.

"There was this moment of clarity when I was in the Calphalon aisle and I thought, 'Ohhh, I want this stuff!'" Hadley says.

"And that's when I forgot about the cameras."

Still, it wasn't until a producer at "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" responded to her 2004 e-mail that Hadley would enter a new, more fully televised chapter of her life.

___

After a few conversations Hadley finally heard producers ask the question she'd been hoping for: "We have a house _ can you help?"

At 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, Hadley arrived at the Imbriani home in San Bernardino, Calif. She went to help design a boy's room in a football theme, not for money, but as a volunteer.

And after 40-plus hours of almost non-stop work, that's what Hadley did. She painted a mural of the New England Patriots' stadium, complete with a three-dimensional goalpost. She also created a closet that looked like a locker room. She designed a nightstand that incorporated shoulder pads and a jersey.

Working alongside the rest of the crew, knowing that she was using her skills to help a family in need, Hadley felt a great amount of reward, even as she felt guilt at leaving her husband and young kids behind.

She was quickly invited back, and quickly hooked, working on several other projects as a design volunteer. At the end of an episode filmed in Boyle Heights, Calif., (the Garay home), the show's designer, Paul DiMeo, told her "See you next time!" Hadley's response was mixed: "We'll see. I've got to get paid. I've got childcare and other expenses."

DiMeo hadn't known that Hadley _ whom he'd taken a liking to for her hard work on the job _ wasn't making money. And, Hadley adds, he wasn't happy to hear it.

Secret Archives of the Saints, Subscribe Today

"So the next show I got hired as a scenic artist and lead muralist."

Over the next few years, and more than 80 episodes, the series was her life away from home. She worked in 45 different states and rose to the position of art director. She says she also fulfilled her need to do good, meaningful work.

"It was like 'Mission: Impossible,'" Hadley says of a life that flew her to a different part of the country for 10 days at a time. "I'd land and then wait for a call from (a driver). I didn't know where I was going."

But still she knew that back home in Huntington Beach, Calif., her children and her husband _ who'd backed her decision by leaving his own well-paying job _ were living large chunks of each month without her, though they never failed to cheer when Mommy showed up on screen.

Last year, she called home and heard that a neighborhood boy walking to school had been run over and killed _ and she knew it was time to make a change.

"I questioned everything that I'd been compromising to be on the road," Hadley says. "Here I was, helping other families, and at home my own (family) had been traumatized by this while I was away."

So she quit the series, choosing to come home to her own family for good.

___

Like all good TV series, one eventually spun off a new show, and then another.

After doing design consulting work for a spell, Hadley decided to take another shot at an on-camera design career. A friend invited her to a networking group for reality TV workers, which led to a job as an art director on the Fox food show, Gordon Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares."

That led to an offer to be one of the designers on TLC's "Trading Spaces," including the Christmas-themed show that airs at 10 p.m. Saturday on the cable network.

For the future, she hopes to continue working as a TV design expert, but for now, she's content working with the TLC series for as long as it's renewed.

"If they bring it back," says the no-longer-camera-shy Hadley, "I'm in."

___

© 2008, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).