Ever since he appeared on the popular BBC program Trading Spaces where he worked as a carpenter, Ty Pennington, the host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, stole many people’s hearts. Extremely skillful and smoking hot, it didn’t come as a surprise that Ty was soon offered to host one of the best shows designed to help people in need.
Hosting the show put Ty in the spotlight, but being on the set took its toll. He could barely find the time for his private life.
“I didn’t see family or a girlfriend for 10 years. I would come home to do laundry and go out again,” he told The Atlanta Constitution in 2019.
“When I saw people from the old TV show, they said ’My God! You look amazing!’ I got some sleep! I would imagine I look a lot better than when I was on the show.”
In fact, Ty didn’t always want to be in the business of building things. On the contrary, he planned on being a graphic designer and worked in construction to pay the bills while he was in art school, but a near-fatal car accident he was involved in stopped on the way of his modeling career and he turned to carpentry.
“Overnight my career seemed to explode… but alas, fate had other plans. Only one week later I would be in a horrible car accident,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “I hung up my one decent head shot, picked up my trusty tool bag and went back to construction and carpentry. 9 years later I would get a call to audition for Trading Spaces… and the rest is history.”
He was first introduced to Hollywood as a set designer for the 1995 film Leaving Las Vegas, starring Nicholas Cage, but he only rose to fame with his role as a builder on Trading Spaces, the show that disrupted conventional concepts of home renovations.
After Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which brought him two Prime Time Emmy Awards, was canceled back in 2011, Ty turned to other projects. He joined ABC’s talk show The Revolution and later on became a part of two cooking shows, On The Menu and American Diner Revival. He also opened a Los Angeles based design store. In 2018, Ty was part of the third season of the Deluxe Corporation’s series Small Business Revolution: Main Street, and he also did some renovations for Trading Spaces. Most recently, he was seen hosting Battle on the Beach.
When Extreme Makeover: Home Edition aired again recently, he wasn’t offered to get back on the show, but he said there are no hard feelings or any bad blood.