COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — If the past several months have taught us anything, it's that we should never say never and more specifically always expect the unexpected.
A scant five years ago, longtime spouses Grace and Corbett Lunsford were merely beginning the discussion of when and how to leave Chicago for the next phase of their lives.
Both sharing a background in the professional arts, Grace was an actor-turned-independent film director and her husband, Corbett, a house musician for a Chicago-based dance company. They were feeling a little stuck in their professional lives.
So, they did the most reasonable thing they could think of - they decided to build a custom mobile tiny house affectionately dubbed, the #TinyLab, and embark on a 10-month, 20-city tour around the country promoting home performance.
The Lunsfords had also recently discovered that they were pregnant with their first child as well, so the timing could not have been better.
Although somewhat on the unorthodox side when it comes to origin stories, Corbett Lunsford shares with My East Point News that it couldn’t have happened any other way.
“Living in Chicago, which is a very segregated place, we really wanted to chase the kind of integrated areas of Atlanta. Frankly, Tri-Cities is our favorite place in the entire city of Atlanta and we've been around. So, we didn't even bother looking on the northside. No offense,” Corbett says.
They had just begun to dabble in the decades-old but fairly unknown practice of home performance improvement, although neither of them possessed any prior degree or extensive knowledge in science or engineering.
Nonetheless, during the month of April 2016, the Lunsfords hit the road from Chicago in their recently completed, #TinyLab, coincidentally as the crest of the "tiny house" wave was sweeping across the nation.
Their "Proof Is Possible Tour," funded through a local sponsor and crowdsourcing, also yielded another strange fruit - the final decision for the location of their new home: southeast Atlanta but more specifically, College Park.
Flash-forward a few years, and the two of them have become something of a power couple as they’ve blazed their trail all the way from the Windy City to the ATL.
When asked how she was handling the move in spite of the pandemic and civil unrest, Grace Lunsford had this to say to My East Point News:
“I really asked myself in 2020: Is this the world that I would want to bring more children into?” says Lunsford. “And, it's inspired me, frankly, to want to work harder to make sure that my 2-year and 4-year-old have the world and life that I want them to have.”
They've expanded their reach from a podcast and their new subscribers from the "Proof is Possible Tour," into their own self-produced home performance show on PBS called "Home Diagnosis TV," where they both serve as co-hosts.
They describe their program as "This Old House" meets "C.S.I."
"Home Diagnosis TV" is already in the midst of filming its second season where Grace and Corbett use their own house, which is still under construction, as the template for implementing their home performances practices into the design.
Their objective? To educate and revolutionize the housing market for middle-class homeowners by demystifying the science behind the dynamics that affect every home, whether we realize it or not, and which are just as crucial as the wood, brick, and nails that our homes are built from.
For more info about their home performance company, the Building Performance Workshop, visit their website, or for more information about their show, Home Diagnosis TV, click here.
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