Tag Archives: HGTV Canada

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Rock Solid Builds returns for more jobs in Season 2

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Last year at around this time, I previewed Season 1 of Rock Solid Builds. I praised the storytelling, setting and projects featured. I wasn’t alone in liking it. Rock Solid Builds was second only to Murdoch Mysteries for the positive comments it received here at TV, Eh?

Season 2—kicking off Thursday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada—sticks with its winning formula of spotlighting Randy Spracklin of Newfound Builders and his team of equally entertaining folks renovating and building homes on The Rock. Supported by a sprightly soundtrack, Randy, Scott, Nikki, Paul and Josh jump between jobs in the spring, juggling projects in St. John’s and their homeport of Brigus, working on old and new homes, with a few quirky projects thrown in. Aside from new additions to the Newfound Builders family in the form of canines, there are new responsibilities too as Nikki wants to add more to her plate.

The first project to visit is in St. John’s, where homeowners Ros and Katie want to make changes to their 100-year-old abode. The plan? To demo the existing kitchen and turn it into a music room while moving the existing music room in favour of a massive kitchen. Also on tap are updating two bathrooms. It’s a big job, but Randy is confident it will all look great in the end.

Meanwhile, across Conception Bay in Carbonear is a 19th-century root cellar that needs attention. The owners want theirs repaired and Randy is happy to oblige, first doing some demolition and then, alongside his father Scott, showing the traditional way of building a rock wall.

And, aside from the work, there is plenty of play … and laughs. Rock Solid Builds showcases the beauty of Newfoundland and its people with episode-ending opportunities to step ‘er down and reinforce that feeling of family Randy has instilled in the company.

Rock Solid Builds airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada.

Image courtesy of Corus Entertainment.

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Industry News, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Thunderbird Entertainment’s Great Pacific Media announces production is underway on new lifestyle series Gut Job starring Sebastian Clovis

From a media release:

Great Pacific Media (GPM), the unscripted division of Thunderbird Entertainment Group Inc. (TSXV: TBRD, OTCQX: THBRF), in partnership with Corus Studios, is pleased to announce principal photography has started on HGTV Canada’s Gut Job in Toronto.

Gut Job (8×60) will see the return of fan-favourite Canadian contractor Sebastian Clovis from the popular lifestyle series $ave My Reno. In the new series, Clovis will guide property owners through the biggest home renovations of their lives. Gut Job will air on HGTV Canada in 2022, and casting is underway in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Gut Job was born from Clovis’ years of coaching homeowners through all types of housing and renovation issues. Through this new series, Clovis will use his experience and skills to guide overwhelmed homeowners through the gut-wrenching gauntlet of surprises and decisions that come with renovations. Viewers will have a front row seat watching Clovis help homeowners gut, design, build and beautify problematic properties into jaw-droppers.

For information on Thunderbird and to subscribe to the Company’s investor list for news updates, go to www.thunderbird.tv. Corus Studios will lead distribution for the series internationally.

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Industry News, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Jesse Fawcett launches independent production company, Fireworks Media Group

From a media release:

Prolific award-winning television producer Jesse Fawcett has launched Fireworks Media Group, a North American-based production company to develop and produce premium unscripted and scripted content.

Fawcett is well known in the entertainment business as a co-founding partner of global content company Essential Media Group where he helmed North American operations until the company was successfully sold to Kew Media in 2018. In 2020, Fawcett and Greg Quail re-acquired the assets of Essential from Kew and relaunched as EQ Media Group. Now, Fawcett is poised to inaugurate his own venture, Fireworks Media Group, together with a cross-border team of veteran production professionals.

Under the new banner, the company is producing the new original series Pamela Anderson’s Home Reno Project (working title) for HGTV Canada with iconic Baywatch star Pamela Anderson returning to her Canadian roots to rebuild the family home of her dreams. The series is executive produced by Brandon Lee, Fawcett and Firework’s new President of Canada, Robert Hardy. Corus Studios will distribute the series internationally. Pamela Anderson is represented by Chris Smith at ICM Partners. Fireworks Media Group has also secured an exclusive first-look scripted development deal with social media sensation Kris Collins, who has amassed over 32 million followers and 1.4 billion likes.

In addition, Fireworks Media Group is currently in production on sophomore seasons of the real estate unscripted series Selling the Big Easy for HGTV in the US as well as Corus Studios’ Big Timber which airs on HISTORY in Canada and Netflix in the US and internationally. A top performer on HISTORY and Netflix, Big Timber. follows the high-stakes work of logger and sawmill owner Kevin Wenstob as he and his crew go to extremes to keep the family sawmill, and their way of life, alive.

Some of the other successful shows completed during Fawcett’s tenure at EQ Media Group include No Demo Reno which recently launched on HGTV as the #1 cable premiere in the Thursday 8-9pm timeslot, multi-season hit series Restored airing on Discovery+, the paranormal reality series Ghost Loop for Travel Channel and 165 episodes of Texas Flip N’ Move, perennial #1 series on DIY Network.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: HGTV’s Farmhouse Facelift updates history-filled homes

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Kudos to the folks at HGTV Canada for debuting two new—and noteworthy—renovation series in the past several weeks. The first, Rock Solid Builds, follows a family-run business in small-town Newfoundland. The second debuts Wednesday.

Farmhouse Facelift, bowing Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on the specialty network, catches up with siblings Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson as they update farmhouses in Southern Ontario. Not only is it nice to see homes being worked on outside of the Toronto area—Paris, Canning, St. Thomas, and Zorra are among the locations in Season 1—but Wilbrink and Pearson are charming and know their stuff.

Wilbrink, who owns CW Design and Co. with her husband, focuses mainly on the interior designs while Pearson wields the hammer on the projects, though both tackle many jobs.

“Billy and I collaborate on a lot of our work,” Wilbrink says during a phone interview. “And when we go in I always look at a space as a whole. Whatever I do is such a blend of keeping the old with the new. If we tear down a wall, Billy is peeling off all of the trim, hardware, and everything else to put it back up on the new walls.”

That’s evident in Episode 1 when Pearson re-uses old trim in a farmhouse kitchen to highlight a new pantry and repurposes materials for a drop-dead kitchen island.

“If something has lasted 150 years—and a lot of these houses are 150 years old older—why would you throw it out when you can re-use it and keep it beautiful and update with paint?” Pearson says. “People buy a farmhouse based on that charm and character and they don’t want to lose all of that history in a renovation.”

Farmhouse Facelift airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada.

Image courtesy of Corus Entertainment.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: HGTV’s Rock Solid Builds is a party on The Rock

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I’ve written a lot about home renovation shows over the years.

As such, I can get bored with the usual “take an old house, be surprised by shocking electrical or plumbing behind the walls, wonder if the job will come in on time and budget, and marvel at the final results” formula. It can get as tired as peeling wallpaper.

But Rock Solid Builds is like nothing I’ve seen before.

Debuting Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern on HGTV Canada, Rock Solid Builds is as quirky as the location it’s set in: Brigus, Newfoundland. It’s there we meet up with Randy Spracklin of Newfound Builders and his team of equally entertaining folks renovating and building homes on The Rock. This third-generation builder—dad Scott is also part of the crew—takes on projects in one of the most beautiful places in the world. But also one of the most rugged and hard to get to; delayed shipments of supplies from the mainland are regularly faced by Newfound Builders.

Yes, the jaunty fiddle-heavy music and accents are the first thing to set Rock Solid Builds apart from, say, Backyard Builds or Save My Reno, but it adds to the charm exuded by Randy Spracklin, who tackles weather, design and construction issues with a crooked smile and quip.

In Thursday’s debut, Randy, Scott, Nikki and Paul document putting the finishing touches on one home, adding two additions to another, and beginning work on a 200-year-old home. It’s that last home, dubbed Earle House, that intrigued me. After all, adding another foot to ceilings isn’t something you see every day. The first three layers of flooring are peeled back to reveal the original, 200-year-old beams, which Randy explains were probably cut close by and squared off. Floorboards were attached with square nails forged locally.

It’s a heck of a history lesson not only in home building but building in a fabulous, unique part of the country. I can’t wait to see more.

Rock Solid Builds airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on HGTV.

Image courtesy of Cineflix.

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