Inside ‘A Very Brady Renovation’: HGTV’s Biggest Show Yet

The Brady Bunch house might be the most famous home in all of television. From its faded tan exterior to its kitschy interiors, it’s absolutely iconic. Now, HGTV is making it real. The network’s new series, A Very Brady Renovation, partners all six of the original Brady Bunch children with HGTV all-stars in a quest to turn the so-called “Brady Bunch House” (i.e. the Los Angeles ranch home that provided the show’s exterior shots) into the real deal.
Decider recently got the opportunity to get a sneak peek of A Very Brady Renovation. We saw the very first screening of the show’s 90-minute-long premiere this week along with HGTV President Jane Latman, Senior Vice President Loren Ruch, and handful of other journalists. From the get-go, it was obvious that A Very Brady Renovation is more than your typical “bread and butter” HGTV show. For one thing, Latman and Ruch kept calling it “the biggest show HGTV has ever done.” Unlike other HGTV favorites, A Very Brady Renovation opens almost reality-show style, introducing us to the backstory that brought the Brady Bunch house into the HGTV’s safekeeping. When the house went on the market last year, Ruch spearheaded a plan to put in a bid for the house and to bring the six surviving Brady Bunch cast members — Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight (Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland (Bobby), and Susan Olsen (Cindy) — together for the ultimate renovation project.

The plan was pretty simple in theory, but daunting in practice. As many TV fans already knew, the exterior of The Brady Bunch house was a real house, while the interior was comprised of sets on a Hollywood soundstage. HGTV was going to make the inside of the real house match those legendary sets exactly.

“When we started to dive into doing the show, we studied — I’m not kidding — almost every frame of every episode that had ever existed. So if there was a room that ever appeared in a single episode, we would make sure it was covered here,” Ruch said.
However, there was a very big problem. The real house HGTV had purchased was a ranch, while the Brady family home we saw on TV was a split-level. The very first episode of A Very Brady Renovation covers how the contractors and designers dealt with this: by stealthily adding an addition to the back that would not ruin the appearance of exterior’s famous facade. This addition would offer enough space for the children’s rooms, the kitchen, and Alice’s bedroom. Because of quirks of the existing house’s layout, Greg’s attic and the master bedroom would be located on the first floor. Everyone involved was confident, though, that superfans would appreciate the attention to detail in each room enough to overlook the inconsistencies in the layout.

A legion of HGTV all-stars were drafted to assist the Bradys throughout the renovation process. Property Brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott help Maureen McCormick, Susan Olsen, and Christopher Knight renovate the exterior and “heart” of the home in Episode 1. Other HGTV talent involved in A Very Brady Renovation include Good Bones stars Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen E. Laine, Leanne and Steve Ford from Restored by the Fords, Hidden Potential star Jasmine Roth, and Flea Market Flip host Lara Spencer. Ruch told reporters that talent was chosen based on experience, schedules, and most of all, their level of Brady Bunch fandom.

“We wanted to go for the biggest Brady fans, so Karen from Good Bones, the minute she heard we bought the house — she’s OBSESSED with The Brady Bunch — so she reached out to us and asked if they could be a part of it,” Ruch said, before adding that everyone involved were superfans.
Funnily enough, all six Brady siblings had experience in the world of contracting, house flipping, and home design. “It turned into this incredibly happy accident that [the Bradys] were much more skilled than we thought. And more than skilled, they were just interested in participating,” Ruch said. “It was a chance for them to get dirty, and they wanted to get dirty every single part of the entire process. It’s not fake seeing them work on this house.”
Ruch revealed that each of the Bradys got to pick a specific room to renovate if they were especially attached to it. Barry Williams, for instance, wanted to work on Mike’s Den since he and co-star Robert Reed had a lot of scenes in there together. Susan Olsen wanted to use her own skills as a graphic designer to help recreate the wallpaper in the kids’ rooms. Eve Plumb really wanted to work on the kitchen and Alice’s room as she associated both strongly with Ann B. Davis.

“Eve Plumb was very close to Ann B. Davis and [Alice’s room] was the room she asked to work on. It was a super emotional journey because she felt like it was as much duplicating the room as it was in the show as it was a tribute to someone who couldn’t be part of it now,” Ruch said.

The Brady siblings go through all sorts of emotions during the premiere of A Very Brady Renovation, and process itself regurgitated all manner of memories. Stories shared on set included everything from factoids like how they had to replace Tiger, the Brady family dog, after Season 1 because he ran down the stairs too slowly to how long and laborious shooting dinner scenes would be. There was even some hot gossip.
“There were tons of stories about little romances,” Ruch said. “Like ‘Bobby’ and ‘Cindy’ kissed in the dog house and they wanted to recreate that scene, and ‘Greg’ and ‘Marcia’ kissed in the upstairs closet.”
Also gossip-worthy? The financial battle to win the Brady House. Before it was announced that HGTV bought the home, entertainment outlets reported that former *NSYNC member Lance Bass had won the property with a $1.85 million bid. Little did anyone know that HGTV had offered double that: $3.5 million.

“The funny thing is we honestly didn’t know that Lance Bass had made the offer. That turned out to be much more of a news story than an internal story,” Ruch said, before explaining that privately Bass was happy HGTV bought the house. Both Bass and HGTV wanted to preserved the property, which is located in a neighborhood known for its McMansions. Ruch even revealed that Bass would be “making an appearance at the house in the next couple of weeks.”

HGTV’s house flipping shows almost always reveal the before-and-after value of the homes in question. So if HGTV shelled out $3.5 million on the Brady Bunch house, how much is it worth now? While they don’ have a tally on how much they wound up spending on the renovation, HGTV could reveal that the finished Brady Bunch house is now worth an estimated $3.9 million, not including the vintage furnishings.

So what does the network plan on doing with the house now that A Very Brady Renovation has wrapped? “The biggest thing we’re working on is the contest which will allow a superfan family to stay in the house for a week,” Ruch said. “After that, we haven’t really thought through that far. We’re kind of taking one month at a time because there’s been so much prep.”
A Very Brady Renovation will premiere with an extended 90-minute-long episode on Monday, September 9 at 9 pm ET/PT. Three more hour-long episodes will premiere weekly after that. HGTV has also confirmed that there will be a A Very Brady Renovation Holiday special later this year. After that, who knows?

“We may do more Brady Bunch programming. We may do some clip shows and other opportunities now that we’re seeing the interest there,” Ruch said, but HGTV’s primary focus is getting A Very Brady Renovation off the ground first. After that, who knows who we’ll see pop up in The Brady Bunch house. Maybe it will even be you…

Where to stream The Brady Bunch