Alison Victoria Says New Season ofWindy City RehabStarts 'Optimistic' but 'Gets Dark': Watch Trailer (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

In the sneak peek ofWindy City Rehab, Victoria is preparing for another season of hard work renovating and building additions for Chicago homes.

“Nothing I do is easy, but every single one of them feels like it’s a piece of me,” she says in one clip, referring to the interior design work she does.

The trailer, shared exclusively with PEOPLE ahead of next week’s premiere, shows her struggling through construction setbacks and difficulties with clients as she works to rehabilitate tons of historic homes, including everything from brownstones to bungalows.

“It starts off optimistic — and then it just gets dark,” Victoria continues in the trailer, teasing the construction and design difficulties to come this season — which seem to include a flooded home, an anxious client and disagreements over who gets design control.

Despite the drama, she looks forward to tons of successfully redesigned homes in her hometown, and the the trailer shows some of the lighthearted moments too — including singing, taking Christmas photos and more.

“Growing up in Chicago, driving around with my dad, looking at all the beautiful greystones and brownstones and carriage houses and bungalows — there’s no other city like it,” she finishes.

The new episodes ofWindy City Rehabcome just one year after Victoria told PEOPLE that she was trying to have a “fresh start,” following her former business partner and co-star Donovan Eckhardt’s exit from the show in 2020 after his alleged mishandling of company finances as well as theloss of her father in January 2021.

“For me, it’s such a fresh start after going through so much and feeling … this breath of fresh air,” she said in May 2023, adding that she and her former business partner no longer speak.

He and Victoria also faced downstop-work ordersandserious legal troubles— including a lawsuit from the owners of a house featured onWindy City Rehabwhoattempted to freeze her financial assetsamid a complaint claiming faulty work on a house they renovated together. Eckhardt alsofiled a lawsuitclaiming defamation and emotional distress as a result of his portrayal as a fraudulent “villain” on the second season of the show.

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Despite the controversies, Victoria told PEOPLE in 2023 that she was ready to get back to work and do the renovation work that she loves.

“When I walk in the homes, most of the history has been stripped out. For me, it feels like it’s my job to put it back in,” she said at the time. “And so it’s like taking these really historic pieces from wherever I find them, breathing new life into them and then in turn breathing new life into the spaces and creating a new history for the pieces.”

“I love being able to show people how to push through and persevere and to just be patient, which is something I’ve learned,” she added. “I wasn’t the most patient person in the world. I realized through everything I went through that I can only focus on the things I can control.”

source: people.com