While the Fausts didn’t win the ultimate crown of “Ugliest Home in America” and the $150,000 prize that accompanied it, they’re just happy to have earned the experience.

The Fausts are both teachers at Canton Middle School, where she teaches art and ceramics and he teaches social studies. They’ve been there for eight years.

No dream home

In 2014, they began looking for their dream home. But when they initially saw their future home, “dream” wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

It resembled a metal silo, but was surprisingly set on top of a cinder block foundation. Carpet lined every room in the home and it reeked of cats. To make matters worse, the driveway getting to the home was almost impassable.

“We came up to this house but we’re concerned about getting in,” said Mike Faust.

The one-lane, gravel road that leads to their home is not a state-maintained road and requires maintenance to be usable.

“I was pretty nervous about the road,” said Kara Faust.

Still, the Fausts gave the house another chance.

“Once we sat out on the upper balcony with our realtor, I said, ‘OK, we’re buying this house’,” Kara Faust said.

“We really kind of fell in love with it,” her husband added. “There’s not a lot of affordable housing anymore. In 2015, we paid $147,000 for this place. That’s unheard of now.”

The inside was due some major upgrades, however, so the Fausts went to work remodeling.

“There was wall to wall carpeting everywhere. The first two years, we replaced all the flooring and painted the walls. [The previous owner] had cats, so it was not a nice smelling home,” said Kara Faust.

“The lady before us was a great lady. She’s since passed away. But she was only occupying two rooms of the house because she’d reached that age where doing the stairs was difficult. There was a time freeze in the basement where things looked like they did in 1985,” said Mike Faust.

Since they bought the home, the couple has renovated much of it.

“We’ve touched almost every room in this house. We’ve spent most of the past six years painting, redoing floor, sealing leaks in the foundation because it kind of set into the ground. We’ve worked really hard to get some of that taken care of,” said Mike Faust. “If we would’ve left the house how we found it, we would’ve won.”

1970s summer projectThe home itself has a unique story, one the Fausts were told by a man who visited them unannounced some years ago.

The older man said he and his friends built the home back in the mid-1970s. According to the story, the man and his friends enjoyed building weird things during the summertime. One of the boys’ dad had this property and the materials to build the home with, so they went to work.

“A bunch of 20 year olds in 1975 building a home,” said Mike Faust, “I’m guessing it was a fun time.”

These young men would work for the summer, leave for home in the fall, and come back the next summer and tack on some more things. Mike Faust says the man who visited them was useful in other ways, too.

“He knew all of the weaknesses of the home,” said Mike Faust, who took the man’s advice and shored up the failing foundation.

Hollywood comes calling

Kara Faust said HGTV contacted their realtor out of the blue in April 2021. They have no idea how the producers found out about the home.

“One day the realtor sent Kara a text and then HGTV sent her a text,” said Mike Faust. “We made a phone call and a week or two later we sat in a Zoom meeting with the casting director. We sent in pictures and videos of the house and that was our entry.”

“We didn’t hear anything for quite a while. Then, three weeks before filming, we got a call saying they were coming out,” said Kara Faust.

The show is called “Ugliest House in America” and is hosted by Retta, a well-known actress from TV shows like “Good Girls” and “Parks and Recreation.” Contestants compete to see who has the ugliest home in hopes of winning $150,000 to renovate it.

The Fausts weren’t entirely enamored with the idea of having the distinction of owning one of the ugliest homes in America.

“We think our house is very unique and different,” said Kara Faust.

“I was worried about the stigma of living in the ugliest house in America. When it wasn’t a reality, it was fine. I didn’t want to be labeled,” added her husband.

The Fausts decided to go through with the show. HGTV arrived three weeks later with a film crew and Retta. As fate would have it, the infamous driveway introduced itself early on.

“When HGTV came up, we saw them out the window. There was a van stuck in the driveway. They didn’t put traction control on and had a couple tires off the ledge of the driveway. I pulled my Jeep down and pulled their van out. I know there’s footage of me coming down with a tow rope,” said Mike Faust.

The HGTV film crew was there for 10 hours, and asked that they clean the home as thoroughly as possible and remove any animals before shooting. That wasn’t an easy task for the Fausts, who have four cats, two dogs and a parrot.

“For that particular day, I loaded all of them up and sent them to a friend’s house to spend the day. It was important there were no distractions,” said Mike Faust.

The crew shot the episode in July 2021, at the height of summertime heat. In the episode, they point out that it was 86 degrees in one of the loft bedrooms. The Fausts say it was no accident.

“They had us turn off all the air conditioners and fans because it creates static with the microphones. I’m surprised we didn’t look sweatier in the final product,” said Mike Faust.

After the 10-hour day of shooting and a quick thank you phone call later, the Fausts didn’t hear back from HGTV until September, when they received an email saying they didn’t win.

“I kind of figured when they couldn’t get up the driveway that we were out of the running,” said Mike Faust, who clarified that renovating their home may be too difficult for the show because of their impassable driveway.

Dream home after allEven though the Fausts didn’t win the title of “Ugliest House in America” and the money, the best part is that they get to live in the home they’ve loved for years, especially in a difficult real estate market.

“With the housing market the way that it is, we feel really fortunate to have bought when we did,” said Mike Faust.

Their community has also shown support for them.

“We’d mentioned [the show] to faculty and principals. We didn’t even have a chance to tell anyone before it was filmed. The [students] let us know that we were on TV and that they watched us,” said Kara Faust.

“My students this year knew it was coming but not when it would air. We’ve gotten lots of feedback from the kids. We watched it in class because it was only 6 minutes long. When we see kids, parents, grandparents, they’ve been really kind and supportive,” said Mike Faust.

In today’s world, there’s hardly any such thing as a “forever home,” but the Fausts have found one that suits them and even earned them a spot on a national TV show competition.

They won’t bank on being in the home forever, but intend on staying put at least until they’re too old to get up the driveway.