HGTV’s ‘A Very Brady Renovation’ Will See the ‘Brady Bunch’ Cast Show Off Their Reno Skills
Preview
HGTV’s A Very Brady Renovation will supply viewers with a heavy dose of nostalgia this September. After attending the first screening for the premiere episode, that’s an undeniable fact.
Slated to run over the course of five separate installments — one super-sized, three hour-long and one holiday special — the show will see The Brady Bunch cast reunite to help transform the interior of the show’s exterior home.
Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen join HGTV’s designers from the Property Brothers, Good Bones, Restored by the Fords, Hidden Potential and Flea Market Flip for one of the network’s biggest projects to date.
Loren Ruch, senior vice president, HGTV programming and partnerships, and Jane Latman, president, HGTV, were on hand to answer questions about the exciting project ahead of the September 9 premiere.
While we won’t spoil anything, one aspect viewers will catch onto quickly is how involved the Brady Bunch kids are in the process and just how skilled they are.
“I’d like to say yes, but it was a completely happy accident,” Ruch says of the cast’s expertise in renovating. “We did not know.”
“It turned out to be this incredibly happy accident that they were much more skilled than we thought. And more than skilled, they were just interested in participating,” he continues. “We didn’t expect them to be experts.”
(Credit: HGTV)
The house is certainly a labor of love for all involved, but the Brady Bunch crew’s passion was certainly shown. “If we gave them 30 days they would have asked if they could be there for 40 — they just were really involved in the process,” Ruch adds about their willingness to help with the job.
As of now, the house has been appraised for a whopping $3.9 million, and that’s excluding the furnishings, many of which are custom or authentic. When tuning in you may recognize some pieces from the original series as Paramount offered the Brady Renovation team access to their warehouses.
“They were amazing partners,” Ruch gushes, “I mean they’d send stuff to the secondary warehouse and a lot of the items featured in the [renovation] were either featured in the show and or one of the Brady Bunch movies. And they gave us the opportunity to embellish or fix or change them and so I honestly couldn’t have done the show without them.”
While there are victories to be seen in the series, there will be some setbacks as well. “We had the rainiest winter in history in Los Angeles. So that created a whole other layer of drama,” Ruch says.
(Credit: HGTV)
“I think that there were a couple of things that were difficult in terms of making it because with the viewers, we couldn’t fake anything in the show because people are so familiar with the house.” In other words, fans can anticipate replicas of the set on the interior of the home, but don’t expect every room to be in the same place.
It’s a thrilling time for the network, just as thrilling as it is to watch A Very Brady Renovation which is a sign of bigger things to come.
“We do have some good stuff coming up with Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Rock the Block and other things yet to be announced,’ Latman says. “I do think this is kind of the beginning of some more big projects on HGTV to go along with what we call the bread and butter that everybody loves.”
After tuning in you’ll probably be wondering which show could be next on the list of famous TV home renovations.
“We’re open to those conversations and pitches,” Ruch says. “We don’t have anything specifically on the docket right now.”
Here’s hoping there’s something soon.
A Very Brady Renovation, Series Premiere, Monday, September 9, 9/8c, HGTV
