Hosts get hands-on
Pair turns tired yards into urban living spaces on new HGTV series premiering Thursday
This is the time of year when backyards are at their worst. Lawns are yellow and muddy — if not still dusted with snow. Trees and bushes are twiggy and bare, and the crumpled leaves not raked last fall cling stubbornly to shrubs, pathways and otherwise barren flowerbeds.
Soon, however, green buds and blades will start poking their way through the warming soil. For homeowners looking to take their yards and gardens to another level, there’s the new HGTV Canada series for inspiration.
Premiering Thursday, the series has interior designer Sarah Keenleyside and renovator Brian McCourt as hands-on hosts, who turn tired backyards into modern urban living spaces.
The boom in Canadian real estate prices, especially in urban centres such as Toronto and Vancouver, has elevated landscaping to a new level.
“People are getting wooed by backyards now,” says Keenleyside. They’re a vital factor, adds McCourt, when “you can’t change the footprint of your property.”
Urban yards are also becoming summer sanctuaries.
“Everyone is so stretched on their mortgages, the idea of a summer home or cottage is not realistic for a lot of people anymore,” says Keenleyside. “We’re seeing more people invest in their space, essentially building an escape in their backyard.”
Both Keenleyside and McCourt back-yarded into this TV project.
“I never had any desire to be on a TV show, to be honest,” says Keenleyside. “I never wanted to reinvent a kitchen for the 700th time.”
A design expert and a principal at Qanuk Interiors, she had been featured on CBC’s and worked behind the scenes on
and
McCourt had never done TV before.
“I was walking my dog across the street from my condo when somebody called asking if I wanted to audition for a TV show. My first thought was, ‘How’d you get my number?’ ”
The Toronto resident has experience as a renovator, contractor and house flipper and runs Brian McCourt Designs. He admitted he was no actor at his hosting audition, but told the producers, “if you want me to be myself, I’m awesome at that.”
The two Ottawa natives knew each other through industry connections. Hitting it off at their auditions, they vowed never to be “bickering” co-hosts just to drive storylines or create conflict.
“We don’t work like that,” says McCourt. “We look for solutions.”
Getting thrown into the mix along with 20 other HGTV Canada stars on the competition reality series helped bring them both up to speed.
“I’m ripping down a pool beside Bryan Baeumler and Scott McGillivray, it’s so surreal to me,” says McCourt. That series returns April 30 on HGTV.
On homeowners with outdoor spaces to reno applied through an open casting call to be on the show. The only limiting factor was that each project had to have a minimum $20,000 budget, ensuring the episode would be a TV-worthy challenge.
The duo had $55,000 to spend renovating one downtown Toronto backyard. The husband needed office space after making do for years in a corner of the couple’s bedroom. The solution? A metal shipping container was converted into a year-round, fully wired backyard office. A project in a wooded area near Barrie, Ont., called for the construction of various treehouses. Another assignment saw a backyard converted into an outdoor, drive-in-like theatre, complete with a snack bar and amphitheatre seating.
“Everyone has something that their house isn’t,” says McCourt, “and I think the backyard is a great place to solve that.”