Interview: Stephen Fanuka talks Million Dollar Renovations

Mark and Theresa go over the top when Stephen Fanuka talks Million Dollar Renovation, hand picking counter tops from the mountains, and traveling around the world to complete his renovations.  

Theresa: You are inside “MyFixitUpLife” with my husband, Mark …

Mark: And my wife, Theresa, and I am going over the top.

Theresa: You’re going over the top. It’s time for glamor, time for fun.

Mark: Bringing it big-time.

Theresa: You’re wearing your bowtie shirt.

Mark: When contractors get together, you know this from hanging around with our friend; a lot of stories begin with, “I job  want that.” That’s how …

Theresa: That’s one of the things that you talk about when you’re having a nice glass of beer …

Mark: Yeah, a couple glasses of beer.

Theresa: When you’re having … Is it an indoor beer, or is it outdoor beer?

Mark: That’s a whole other permutation.

Theresa: Whole other animal.

Mark: When you get to the million-dollar contractor level, that conversation takes on a different …

Theresa: You know what? We so happen to have a million-dollar contractor on the line right now, Mark. How convenient is that?

Mark: Stephen Fanuka, bring us over the top, man.

Theresa: How are you?

Stephen: Hello, there.

Theresa: It’s so good to hear from you. We’re excited to talk to you.

Stephen: Great to hear from you guys. You guys want some million-dollar jobs from the crazy stuff that I’ve done. Well, I’ve got quite a few.

Theresa: Okay.

Stephen: Are you ready?

Theresa: Oh, I’m sitting down; I’m buckled in. I’m ready to go.

Stephen: All right. How many times have you been offered to go to a mountain in the Middle East, so you could hand-pick the countertop from the mountain, itself?

Theresa: I would say that’s somewhere between zero and zero.

Mark: Please, tell me you’re going to the Swiss Alps, or whatever, to mine granite off the mountain. Are you kidding me?

Stephen: When I was younger, and I was bidding for a big financial guy for a project, the stipulation was, if I want the job, they wanted me to go to Afghanistan to pick out the stone from the mountain. I googled Afghanistan; Google was in style back then. I said, “Oh, look. There’s a war with Russia. I think I’m going to turn this project down.”

Theresa: Oh, my lord; really? They wanted to …

Stephen: That’s what happened. I was like, no go.

Mark: Can I ask you a serious question? That’s just so ridiculous, I can’t believe it. What’s wrong with the rock … I don’t know; in upstate New York?

Stephen: It’s here. That’s what’s wrong with it; it’s here. They wanted something that they can talk about with their friends, saying, “You see this countertop? I picked it with my contractor from the mountain, and then I told the people on the mountain, ‘Cut it out.'” That’s what they wanted. It’s all about who has what, and where. I’ve been paid five figures to bodyguard a cat on a renovation. The cat was diabetic. They did not have any kids, and if some people who don’t have kids, their pets are their kids. The cat was 17 years old, and they simply put it that, “Stephen, we don’t want to displace the cat, because we’re afraid something’s going to happen to … The cat’s going to get depressed, maybe pass away.” They hired me to hire a bodyguard, two people all day long, would follow the cat, and then the cat would stay there. We would have a person sleep in the renovation full-time for eight months, so the cat could get its shots. The doctor would come every day to give it its insulin, and the cat coexisted with us for an entire 8-month period.

Theresa: Oh, my lord. The cat was 18 years old, so it didn’t have a long life span left, either.

Stephen: I never had panic attacks about the safety and security of a cat, until I started that project.

Theresa: Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Stephen: Some people think about, “When’s a job going to get done?” All I could think about was, “Is the cat okay?”

Theresa: Have you ever been asked to do something crazy for a pet owner, like, like an insane dog, or something, or a cat something?

Mark: Or some shelter, or …

Stephen: You’re going to love this. It’s happening right now. It’s going to actually be on season four of “Million Dollar Contractor.” I am being paid to build a chicken coop that replicates the house that the people live in. It’s got a chimney. It’s got windows. It’s got gutter. It’s got cedar siding on It, and it’s a chicken coop. Now, not only do I work for the millionaires; I work for chickens, too.

Theresa: You’re building for chickens. I absolutely love that. I think that’s a cute idea, having a structure, like a ministructure. I’ve thought about that for play houses, and I think it’s sweet. I’ve never heard of a chicken coop that’s so luxurious.

Mark: Where are you getting quarter-scale gutters? Are you having it all made by an artist somewhere in a studio?

Stephen: We rip the cedar, ourselves. We frame the house, ourselves. The only thing that’s aluminum is the gutters. I had a local guy around my neighborhood make me some gutters. We do not have cable, yet, and we do not have the hot tub, but the chickens have not approved the change order, yet; but they are coming with it. The one thing I did learn about chicken coops, it’s something that everyone should know. If you’re going to have chickens, in a lot of towns, they don’t allow you to have a stationary coop. If you put it on wheels, you can move it, you can have it.

Mark: If you move it six inches, …

Stephen: I just wanted to point that out.

Mark: Yeah. That’s a great end around for the building code of chicken coops.

Theresa: Also for the chickens, as they get bored of one part of the lawn, they can move, depending on the season, kind of trees … Right, honey?

Mark: Well, of course.

Theresa: The chickens care about that stuff.

Stephen: Chicken RV; chicken RV.

Theresa: Too funny.

Stephen: Here’s another one. I was hired to go to England and King Henry the Eighth’s barn was being auctioned off. The client wanted me to go out there and inspect it. It was a 10-thousand square-foot barn. If we had won the bidding, I was going to bring it back, and it was going to be his house in the Hamptons.

Theresa: No way.

Stephen: I lost. It wasn’t worth as much as it went for.

Theresa: How much?

Stephen: Almost 1.6 million.

Theresa: Oh, my goodness, gracious.

Mark: Which doesn’t include putting it on a boat, bringing it here, …

Stephen: No; no.

Mark: And putting it up. Wow.

Stephen: No, that was just to buy it. Then we still had to bring it. We still had to erect it. We still had to do everything. It was just the exterior frame, but it was Henry the Eighth’s barn, one of his barns, and the client wanted it. I also had to go to Italy. I had a client in Hampton who saw something in Napile, and they wanted me to go and match the finish on the exterior on the new house that I was building. I get out there, I find the house, I find the builder. I find that the builder had passed away, and I wasn’t going home empty-handed, so around 12:30 in the night, I crawled down on my chest or on my arms as if I was in a war. I literally sneaked all the way to the house, took a piece of the stucco off, and ran. Got it back into the car. I actually stole a piece of the siding on the house in Napole, Italy, brought it back, had it tested.

Theresa: Oh, my goodness. That is hilarious.

Mark: If you see someone in your back yard with a black mask on, ripping a piece of your vinyl siding off, it’s probably Million Dollar Contractor, Stephen Fanuka.

Theresa: Oh, my goodness gracious.

Stephen: It’s funny, because I said if I was going to die, I was going to have a good meal. I took a cab to Torrento, had some veal, and then went to the house and chipped away at it.

Mark: Oh, my goodness. Now do you find, as a taste maker of your own, that taste and money go together?

Stephen: Not necessarily. Sometimes I’ve seen people who have a lot of money, had absolutely no idea what to do with it, and no taste, whatsoever. Then again, I’ll even go further. I’ve think the people with less money, the better the taste, because they’re open to ideas, and they’re always looking at something good, as opposed to the people who do have money, expect to have the answers and the new things just handed to them.

Theresa: Oh.

Mark: You got a big enough checkbook, you can get anything you want, when you want it, I suppose, right?

Stephen: Yeah. I mean, Mark, Theresa, we work hard at what we do, and we work hard at it because we’re fighters, we’re survivors, and we’re hungry. If we’re hungry. If we weren’t hungry, we would just sit down watch TV, and hope somebody else inspires us. Instead, you and Theresa inspire many others; that’s huge. That makes you wealthy in my book.

Theresa: Oh, my goodness.

Mark: That’s high praise.

Theresa: That is really so sweet. Thank you so much.

Stephen: Hands together, hands together, and my head is bowing down to you right now. Fanuka bows down to Mark and Theresa.

Theresa: I think Mark’s going to make that his ring tone.

Mark: Yeah, that’s my new ring tone, by the way.

Theresa: I think so.

Mark: I will have …

Theresa: Shameless; shameless, my husband is.

Mark: All four people who know me, I will get to call me.

Stephen: Hey, I’ll give you one better. This is Steve Fanuka, the Million Dollar Contractor. You ought to listen to “MyFixitUpLife” with Mark and Theresa, my heroes.

Theresa: Wow.

Mark: Yeah, I love it. Now speaking of heroes, there’s a picture on your facebook page of you sitting with Penny Marshall.

Stephen: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)

Mark: Now I love her. She has talent, the whole thing. She seems like she’s fantastic, and you look like you’re in love with her.

Stephen: She is amazing. That one picture, when I’m looking up at the sky, the reason I’m looking up at the sky, the very end of the beginning of “Laverne and Shirley”, they’re standing at the conveyor belt, looking up at the sky, as everything is passing them. I figured, you know what? Let’s take a bit of Laverne and Shirley. I’ll give you a great story about Penny Marshall. First of all, she’s a girl from the Bronx. Down-to-earth, calls it like it is. She is one of the few people that I know, that are that brilliant and famous, that really has it still together. I’m with her at a party. We go outside. We’re hanging outside. She’s with a young lady with glasses. I figure, this is my chance to get a photo with me and Penny. I take my iPhone out. I ask the young lady, … I tapped her. I tapped her very lightly in the arm, and I said, “Can you take a picture with my phone?” She looked like I had six heads. She takes the picture, gives me the phone back, tells Penny, “I’ll see you inside,” looks at me, as if she wants to smack me. I look at Penny. I go, “That was awkward.” She goes, “It’s not every day someone slaps Annie Leegle with an iPhone and says, “Take a picture.”

Theresa: Oh, my goodness.

Mark: My jaw just hit the ground and kept going.

Theresa: That’s fantastic.

Mark: Oh, man; only you.

Stephen: They call me Fanuka Gump; Fanuka Gump. Life is a box of nails, and this one’s bent.

Theresa: Oh, my goodness. I love that. Unfortunately, we have to go to break.

Mark: Check out Stephen Fanuka @Stephen Fanuka on Twitter. Check out his Facebook page, and check out Million Dollar Contractor. We’ll be back with more of MyFixitUpLife.

Stephen: Love you guys.