Rachael Ray is making progress on the rebuilding of her home. During the season 16 premiere episode of Rachael Ray, the talk show host takes viewers inside the reconstruction of her house that burned down last summer.
"This is our house. It is really exciting to have a house rebuilt in a little over a year," she says.
In August 2020, Ray and husband John Cusimano's abode on Lake Luzerne in New York's Adirondacks was set ablaze after a fire started in their chimney and quickly spread.
"Basically, our house burped onto the roof and burned over several days. When it was cleared away, what was left was just the hole in the ground -- the basement foundation. Everything else was cleared away," Ray recalls. "John and I lost most of our adult lives; everything we had for over 50 years. Our life went away."
Giving fans a tour of the rebuilding, she adds, "This is where we're at. I felt that you'd want to see where we're at."
Ray also reveals the small changes her and her husband made. "We are back to a fresh shell that is very much the same. It's as close to the original as we could [get]," she shares with viewers. "A lot of this is just rebuilt things that look like a facsimile of what was here."
As for the exact changes made, she notes, "We took out the skylights in the bottom guest room because no one liked them. It woke them up too early."
Cusimano adds, "Now we have a tin roof instead of a wooden roof."
Needless to say, Ray is counting her blessings. "I just need to be grateful for the fact that we rebuilt this again, quickly. And everybody in life in the last couple of years has had to move on and pivot and rethink and reorganize their lives -- and that's what we're trying to do," she says. "I am super grateful that we had the firefighters that saved our lives. And we ultimately became very grateful to have everyone share our lives with us through this tough time, because we were all going through the same tough time together."
Shortly after the 2020 fire, ET spoke with Ray, who called the incident a "shock."
"I mean, you can't imagine it," she said. "Our house is only 15 years old and we have our chimney cleaned twice a year. And literally it was just the chimney ... and then the whole house literally burned down. I think initially we were just in shock. We listened to our first responders and we left with the clothes on our back and the flip-flops and Ugg shoes on our feet."
Season 16 of The Rachael Ray Show premiered Monday on CBS. Check your local listings.
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