HGTV couple Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt played Ditch or Design exclusively with Us Weekly and shared which home trends they’re loving — and leaving behind.
The 100 Day Dream Home stars have decided to ditch all-white, completely neutral decor, despite using the look in their own home. “Our house does look a lot like that. So I guess we’re going to be remodeling our house now,” Brian quipped.
One trend the pair plans on keeping is using greenery, such as succulents, as decor.
“I like it. I say design, but for me personally, I don’t keep things alive. So as long as that includes faux succulents,” Mika said, joking that she has a “brown thumb.” Brian chimed in to mention they incorporated a lot of “natural green colors” into their Savannah, Georgia, townhome, adding, “So we’re going to keep that. That’s a keep, that’s a design all right.”
Another trend they used in their Savannah home is painting cabinets, adding a pop of green color to their kitchen.
“If they are in pretty good condition and you can sand them down and put an extra coat of paint,” Mika advised. “I mean, cabinets are not cheap. So, if you can repurpose them, do it.”
One definite ditch? Word signs inside the home that say things like “Live, Laugh, Love.”
“If we’re talking about the interior of the house, I don’t need words everywhere. I like to read books, not directions of where my rooms are,” Mika said, while Brian chimed in, “You don’t need to know the kitchen is the kitchen.”
Although the couple admitted one exception is word signs outside in the yard, which can look “kind of cool.”
The husband and wife are fans of open design homes and using the internet, such as Instagram or Pinterest, to find decor ideas. Brian and Mika also saw eye-to-eye when it came to minimalism versus maximalism decor.
“I’m going to go with a less is more kind of approach. I think minimalist because then everything is intentional. It looks clean, it’s not cluttered, it doesn’t feel overwhelming,” Mika said, which Brian agreed: “I’m a minimalist, as well, so I think you take your minimalism to the max. There you go and that’s a design. So, we’re going to fold that in half. That’s how you do it.”
As the closing choice, Mika joked that she would “design” her husband “as a person” — but ditch his wardrobe.
Brian and Mika will be channeling their creative energy in 100 Day Hotel Challenge, a head-to-head beach renovation competition series that focuses on transforming two dated hotels in the city of Salter Path, North Carolina, in just 100 days and a budget of $225,000.
Thanks to HGTV, real estate agents, general contractors and interior designers have become household names. “Home building [and] home design 20 years ago was this deep, dark mystery,” the network’s cofounder Kenneth Lowe told Architectural Digest in July 2019. “People just didn’t understand it, and a lot of what HGTV has done is educate the […]
As the spouses battle it out, they’ll be joined by some fan-favorite HGTV stars, while also being judged each episode by the Property Brothers, Drew and Jonathan Scott. Most notably, the weekly winning team will earn $5,000 for their chosen charity, and whoever claims the top hotel at the end of the competition will walk away with bragging rights and $50,000 to the charity of their choice.
100 Day Hotel Challenge premiers on HGTV Tuesday, August 13, at 8 p.m. ET.
Reporting by Christina Garibaldi