HGTV show keeps cousins working

What might have been the ruination of Anthony Carrino and John Colaneris construction careers turned out to lead to their biggest break.

Not so long ago, Carrino and Colaneri were worrying about how they would pay back the loan on a big renovation project. Today theyre TV stars, familiar to HGTV junkies as the Kitchen Cousins.

Life has become a blur for the two in the last few years. I caught up with the cousins by phone one day last week, while Anthony was in their office in Jersey City, N.J., and John was driving to work.

They told me it all started in 2009, when the cousins construction company was sitting on a 22-unit condominium complex it had created from an old chemical company warehouse. The project had won restoration awards and earned notice from media including the New York Times, but this was the depths of the housing slump. The company was having trouble selling the units.

It was a scary time, Colaneri concedes.

A friend of his who works in public relations came up with the idea of holding a benefit in the building for earthquake victims in LAquila, Italy. Not only would it raise money for a cause close to the cousins hearts and heritage, but it would also get people through the door and create a buzz about the building, she reasoned.

It worked, both for the charity and the projects fortunes.

And it also sparked the idea of television.

Carrino and Colaneri were so charismatic onstage that the friend suggested they try to get a TV show. Theyd never considered anything like that, Colaneri says. They were just a couple of guys trying to make a go of urban redevelopment through Brunelleschi Construction, the company Carrino started with his father, Alfonso, in 2004.

She hounded me for a couple of weeks, Colaneri says, until he and Carrino agreed to let her follow them around to a couple of jobs and shoot some video with a pocket-size camera. She pitched her idea to a production company, which sent out a crew to make a more professional video it could shop to home-improvement networks.

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HGTV show keeps cousins working