East Atlanta Family To Be Featured On "Mega Dens" Home Renovation Show

Known for years as the up-and-coming neighborhood, East Atlanta Village has had its fair share of do-it-yourselfers who’ve taken homes in need of some TLC and brought them up to showroom shape.

A lucky few have had some help.

And so it is with the Tankersley family who, this week, has been putting time, talent and lots of elbow grease into renovating the entire downstairs living area of their Newton Avenue home with interior designer Anitra Mecadon.

Mecadon is host of “Mega Dens” on the DIY Network, the cable outlet focused on issues and topics centered on folks making renovations themselves.

Her show and crew spent this week at the Tankersley’s home helping them redo their dining, sitting/television room and some renovations in the kitchen.

The transformation is slated to air in a June 10 episode.

For the Tankersleys, getting on the show was a bit of luck.

“We were at a party at a friend's house about six months or so ago and my wife was talking to one of their friends who works as an extra for commercials and such,” Reid Tankersley, told East Atlanta Patch.

The friend happened to mention the “Mega Dens” show had an opening for a family in East Atlanta.

“They were looking for a family with young kids — us — and that was preferably also pregnant — double us!” Tankersley said.

“The Tankersleys are young and fun and they’ve got a couple of kids,” said Suzan Satterfield, “Mega Dens’ ” executive producer.

With young and growing families like the Tankersleys, the key is creating extra space, Sutterfield said.

“A lot of times, families have storage space issues,” she said.

The family paid an up-front fee for the materials used and the end result is a partial-renovation into a mega den — hence the show’s name.

As part of the renovations work, the Tankersleys, who bought the home in 2005, had to stay with friends and lined up a series of dinners with them, too, as some of the renovations were being made.

“We definitely can't just hang around the house all day,” Tankersley said. “They want the end result to be a true surprise.”