A  small Canadian business is getting the Hollywood treatment from Netflix with the premiere of unscripted series Motel Makeover.

Produced by Toronto’s Proper Television, the 6 x 30-minute series – which is the prodco’s first collaboration with Netflix – follows June Motel owners April Brown and Sarah Sklash as they renovate and open their second location in Sauble Beach, ON. It launches today (Aug. 25) in more than 190 countries.

“What really excited me about this concept with April and Sarah is being able to relate to women in their thirties who risked the stability of their day jobs, who are really putting their ambitions, their dreams, their careers ahead of other things in their lives,” Jessica Nahmias, Motel Makeover creator and co-executive producer, tells Playback Daily, adding that it’s something she’s rarely seen on TV, in either the scripted or unscripted space.

Stylistically, the show took many cues from the June Motel Instagram account, which currently has more than 83,000 followers, to showcase the unique Millennial home decor aesthetic and make it feel like you’re scrolling through their feed. The show also includes “Juneify” tips for viewers to spruce up their own homes.

The series is produced by Proper co-presidents Cathie James and Lesia Capone and jointly financed by Proper owner Boat Rocker and Netflix.

The concept for Motel Makeover dates back to late 2018. Nahmias was staying at a motel near the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia while working on another series. After realizing it had been completely renovated from what locals described as a “sh*thole” to a quaint roadside motel, Nahmias realized a series documenting the renovation of a run-down motel could make for great television.

Collaborating Brown and Sklash’s June Motel was a case of perfect timing. Nahmias stayed at their Prince Edward County location in summer 2017 after it first opened and followed their Instagram account. She set up a meeting with them in Toronto to find out if they had any interest in expanding their business to a second location, in the hopes of building a series around it.

“I met them at a bar on King Street West and they both looked so beautiful and so cool. The second I saw them I [thought] they’re just so perfect,” she says.

As fate would have it, they were already in talks with a realtor on securing the Sauble Beach motel as their second location.

Once the wheels were in motion, Nahmias got in touch with Proper’s James, who she had already long been in contact with and was eager to collaborate on a series.

“She came in with a really strong vision,” says James, adding that Nahmias also had a clear sense of the target audience. Proper worked with her to produce a sizzle and brought it to Netflix, who was their first choice as a distribution partner. “Netflix immediately loved [April and Sarah]; I think they really saw their authenticity.”

The streamer even held a local premiere event for the series, hosting a drive-in screening in Prince Edward County on Aug. 23.

One critical challenge during production was maintaining momentum when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, according to Nahmias. “It’s not like it just hit the production, it hit the business and the renovation in a very real way,” she says. “There were a lot of levels and layers to how it affected the show.”

While production was shut down Nahmias says she was in constant communication with Brown and Sklash, who needed time to figure out how to get their finances in order. “I was having them self-shoot throughout that whole time, these little diaries to talk about how they were feeling and what their fears were,” she says.

James credits the financial support from Proper owner Boat Rocker and Netflix for getting them through the shutdown and finishing production. “I don’t know how we could have done it without the fortitude of those partners,” she says.

Image courtesy of Netflix