'Project Runway,' 'Twinning' veterans Shawn and Claire Buitendorp build new future away from TV
GRAND LEDGE — Claire and Shawn Buitendorp don't regret the unexpected turn their professional lives have taken in the seven years since their controversial exit from Lifetime's "Project Runway."
But there have been a few moments since stepping back from fashion, and then embracing home remodeling, when both twins, now 34, asked themselves, "Why on earth am I doing this?"
For Shawn that moment came last summer as she was being hoisted out of a top-story window with a bucket of paint at a home in northern Michigan while gripping a paintbrush in one hand and a rope that kept her from falling in the other.
Home renovation and remodeling is a lot like fashion, requiring skill, precision and creativity, Claire Buitendorp suggested.
"But there are certain days when it's like 32 degrees outside and the house you're working in doesn't have heat," she said, "you can't be wearing enough layers."
Most people know the Grand Ledge natives as reality television fixtures. In 2015 the duo won VH1's "Twinning," taking home $222,222.22 to invest in their clothing business, "Shock and Awww." Two years later, at 27, they were cast in the 16th season of "Project Runway."
Both were booted from the competition in consecutive episodes. Claire's exit came after she admitted to having a tape measure at the apartment where she had been staying with the show's other contestants in New York: a violation of show rules. She insisted it was accidental.
The vitriol from people online and through social media after the show aired made them doubt their future in fashion. Then a chance encounter with a licensed contractor introduced them to home remodeling.
The twins have been working in the field for four years. They've remodeled rooms in about 50 homes in and around Lansing: designing, knocking down walls, installing insulation, hanging drywall, tiling bathroom floors and painting walls.
Even they were surprised to find themselves embracing power tools, Carhartt overalls, and daily grunt work.
"The opportunity came out of left field but, if you think about it, in the grand scheme of the things we like to do, it totally makes sense," Shawn Buitendorp said.
'They're very creative'
Claire and Shawn don't regret competing in Project Runway, but admit they hesitated to design clothing after it aired.
"We were portrayed in a light that wasn't as favorable," said Shawn, who still sports a closely shaved head, in contrast to Claire's long, brunette locks. "We received a lot of commentary online and it affects you emotionally. I think, for a good period of time, we didn't want to design at all."
In the months that followed, the pair created several outfits for country singer Kelsea Ballerini, but Claire said it wasn't easy moving past the show.
"Even while we were designing some of those things for Kelsea there was an underlying feeling of, 'Am I making the right things? How are we good enough?,'" she said.
In 2019, while stripping thick layers of paint off a room in their sister Erin's house, they met contractor Aaron Neuberger, who owns Lansing-based Lakeland Remodeling. He was redoing Erin's upstairs bathroom and finishing the basement.
"We aren't working right now," they told him. "We have a lot of a lot of free time, and we would love to kind of shadow you and just see what you're doing just because we hope to have a house some day and these are good skill sets to have."
Neuberger hadn't seen the twins on television and knew only second-hand that they had competed on a show. What struck him, he said, was their ability to pick up and master the skills he showed them quickly.
"They were really detailed people," Neuberger said. "They learn very quickly how to put things together right but they also bring more than that. They're very creative. They'll think of things I would have never thought of."
At the end of the project, Neuberger offered them jobs.
Claire and Shawn said many of the skills they used in designing and creating clothing were useful for remodeling jobs. The pair also works with the company's customers to design remodeled spaces before the work begins.
"We're able to work with our hands and instead of making patterns for materials that are soft, now, I'm just making patterns for harder materials," Shawn said.
"Like wood and drywall," Claire Buitendorp said.
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'I want to learn something'
The twins didn't initially set out to spend four years with Lakeland Remodeling.
"It was like, 'I don't want to be idle. I don't want to sit idle, I want to learn something,'" Shawn Buitendorp said.
So they did. The twins remodeled bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms. They did exterior work and traveled all over Michigan with the company working on projects.
Co-worker Becky Chipchase, 34, has worked with them since Fall 2022. She said the two are "incredibly intelligent people, very, very driven, but they're just joys to be around. They're so funny and they just are very wholesome people. My life has definitely been better around them."
Not to mention, watching the twins seemingly read one another's mind and finish each other's sentences is a sight to behold, Chipchase said.
"It's really amazing to watch," she said. "They complement each other super well and they're kind of a force to be reckoned with."
The Buitendorps said making their way in a profession largely dominated by men has been rewarding, too. In the near future, both are hoping to obtain their own builder's licenses.
"We enjoy doing this as a team," Shawn said. "Again, Claire and I have always believed in any pursuit that we take on that together. We are 300%. Our skill sets compound to make a third person practically."
The duo still designs clothing, though largely for themselves now. Shock and Awww's website is still live, and the twins still take orders, but it doesn't take up the majority of their time.
These days they keep one closet at the condo in Grand Ledge that they share for their designer clothing and another for the overalls, jackets and gloves they wear when remodeling.
This is just another chapter of their lives, they said. And if you're wondering if you'll ever see them again on TV, they say anything is possible.
"I do actually love teaching other people about what we do, about what is possible and also what is possible as a woman," Claire Buitendorp said.
"There are many home renovation reality TV shows," Shawn Buitendorp said. "I would be open to it."
Contact Reporter Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on X @GrecoatLSJ .
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: After 'Project Runway' Grand Ledge twins Claire and Shawn Buitendorp design new path
