Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Franchione.
Hi Rebecca, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
The road to my TV show “The Mother Flip” on A&E and designing/flipping houses started during Covid when I went to my hometown of Fort Smith, AR to remodel my Dad’s home that I grew up in. My Dad had fallen and we had to make the tough decision of either remodeling his home so he could stay in it or sell it so he could move to a one story home where he would not have to walk up stairs. The discussion included many tears and in the end he couldn’t bear the thought of giving up the home he raised my brother and I in so I knew I had to do whatever it took to make sure it would be safe for him to stay. I had zero experience in remodeling but thankfully my Dad’s neighbor across the street had a recently retired dad who knew just about everything there was to know and took me under his wing. While my Dad did a 8 week stint in a skilled rehabilitation center, we turned a sunroom on the first floor into a full bathroom and a den into his new bedroom. My Uncle Dale built a wheelchair ramp off the back door so my Dad could maneuver his walker to his car in the driveway while avoiding the steep stairs on the front porch. I will always remember the look of pure joy and tears streaming down his face when I brought him home that day and he saw what we had done. That moment is what sparked my interest into turning something old into something that could bring happiness to others. I returned back to Wimberley and started flipping houses a few months later. The first one was a cabin in the woods that reminded me of my family cabin in Star CIty, AR…it even had a wood burning fireplace that mimicked one we have there. It was during this time that I decided to email an old friend in Hollywood, Joe Weinstock, who has had great success in reality shows and mentioned as a PS at the end that I was flipping houses in the Texas Hill Country and he replied back with “That could be a television show.” The path to the show took months and months so in the meantime I built two houses on the Blanco River with my now former cohosts. We had quite the task during the show of flipping ten houses over five months. Our last day of filming was early last year with “The Mother Flip” premiering on the A&E Network on August 16th, 2025. I have since flipped 9 houses and am finishing up two in the next couple of weeks. 21 houses in less than two years. Never did I ever dream I would be flipping houses and especially not for a television show but somehow the day my Dad fell started me on a path that I feel like now was always part of my destiny. I have fallen in love with design and with making each and every home different than the others. I currently have two television shows in development stages, one being a spinoff flipping homes here in Texas and the other combining three of my passions…giving back, baseball and renovation/design that will feature different areas across the country. I became a single mom during this journey and had to start over so my dream show would be to go back to my home state, buy homes and renovate them to gift to single moms.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My favorite poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost reminds me of the path I have been on since I entered the design/flipping/television road. It has certainly been full of challenges but through those is where I gained my knowledge and my drive to go on my own and take the path that I am currently on. There are always struggles with every single house whether it is discovering asbestos, having to deal with the critters that live all over the Hill Country or the bizarre things that people leave behind. Most of the houses have been estates so not only do we buy the house but we also inherit the contents left behind. I found thousands of dollars in a home which I returned to the heir and shudder to think about how much was thrown away because of our filming deadline which left no time to sift through what we had thrown in the dumpster. We started filming in July of 2024 and on the hottest day of the year we filmed in our smallest house….3o of us crammed into a tiny room in a tiny house with no AC which normally has to be turned off when the cameras start rolling but in this case we couldn’t even turn it on during breaks because it had been stolen. I learned real quick the show must go on. One house had to have four 40 yard dumpsters worth of trash hauled away before it was safe for us to be inside for filming. No house is easy and every house is full of surprises. I always laugh when I read the words “Cosmetic updates only.” I don’t know if those even really exist. I try to avoid what I call the three whammies…HVAC, roof and foundation issues. They can eat your budget up really fast.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I flip houses all over the Texas Hill Country and have a show on A&E called “The Mother Flip.” I design, project manage and run the budgets. I love to turn old dilapidated homes into absolute gems. I hustle every single day and always trying to find the best deal on things. I love to utilize the beauty of the Hill Country in my design and try to turn each home into something that the buyer will not only fall in love with but also want to be their forever home. I love to incorporate natural resources into one of a kind creations for the homes I flip and if those aren’t abundant then take something original to the house and give it a modern twist. I have built an outdoor shower using limestone found around the property and piped the water through a log found along the river. I turned an old swimming pool into a pavilion by filling it up with natural materials and reclaiming the old homestead wood and metal to build the pavilion. It only cost me the price of a few gallons of paint. I absolutely love Habitat for Humanity Restore for unusual lights and tile. I frequent the Austin locations at least once a week. Recently I found a $3700 showstopper chandelier for only $90. Not only did it help my lighting budget but the money also went to a good cause. I like to call the Hill Country “The Heartbeat of Texas” because of the natural beauty that surrounds us, the lively music, the delicious food and the people that feel like home. My Nana always used to say “The world is your oyster.” I hope that my story of starting over can inspire others to know that at any time in life the world is always ours to explore, to offer new opportunities and to learn new things. A good friend, John Williams, recently said “Rebecca, why stay in a small pond full of ripples when you have the entire ocean in front of you.” This is me…in the vast ocean…not knowing where I am going but excited to not only get there but also enjoying the swim.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I always welcome new opportunities and collaborations. Giving back is the core of who I am. I created a charity event in AR this past December that gave over 100 kids a meaningful Christmas and have an extensive background in creating charitable events and programs so am always happy to do anything that involves helping others. The greatest gift in life is giving back.
