David and Stephen St. Russell – aka the “Renovation Husbands” — debuted this week in a six-part HGTV series called “Battle on the Mountain,” in which the Russells compete with two other teams, coached by HGTV stars, to upgrade a Colorado mountainside home on a $100,000 budget.
“We’ve never done anything like this before and really had very little idea of what to expect walking into it. There wasn’t actually much we could do for preparation going into it,” David told the Dorchester Reporter. “Most of it was just acclimating to the idea of being on TV. We went in with excitement and ready to go, but really had no idea how challenging it might be. It ended up being the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
The show got its HGTV premiere on Jan. 22 and all six episodes (dropping weekly) are available streaming via Max.
Reports dotnews.com:
HGTV judges tour the spaces and pick a team to be awarded a $3,000 cash prize. The winner of the entire competition is awarded a $50,000 grand prize.
David, 35, and Stephen, 33, have earned acclaim already for their design work in Dorchester and other Greater Boston homes.
Both men hail from Western Massachusetts and attended Longmeadow High School. After graduation, David stayed close to home and attended Springfield College where he studied to become a physician’s assistant. Meanwhile, Stephen moved to Boston to study architecture at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. …
The first episode [introduces] the three teams: David and Stephen; Amber and Trey Masciarellis of Bellaire, Ohio; and Lymari and Tony Navarro of Bloomington, Indiana. During the two-hour premiere, the teams will pick out which house they will renovate and immediately get to work on improving the kitchen and dining rooms which will be judged by guest stars Chelsea and Cole DeBoer from “Down Home Fab.”
Future episodes will showcase improvements to the main bedroom and bath, living room, guest suite, bonus guest room, and the exterior.
“When you watch these shows you kind of expect that there’s some movie magic that goes into it. We heard that we were going to renovate the house over six weeks, and we really did just that. We had to work our butts off for six weeks straight, designing, renovating the spaces ourselves, and doing it in crazy timelines,” Stephen told the Reporter.
Read the complete Dorchester Reporter story here.
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