In an exclusive interview, Candis and Andy opened up about “Home Work” and their family life.
Their Brady Bunch-sized family inspired the show
How did the show come about?
How did you guys come to do this?
Candis:Oh, man, I think it started with us accidentally having seven kids.
So he had three boys, and I had three boys.
So we had this giant Brady Bunch of six boys.
And we knew we needed someplace bigger.
And years ago, when we were first married, we actually did a short series on HGTV.
So we had done a renovation on TV before.
And we did that for several years.
And we have this big family, and we were doing content.
We’re like, “Oh, wouldn’t this be the best show?”
Andy:“You want to come back to TV?”
Candis:So that’s kind of how it all just fell into place like that.
What has been the most difficult part of renovating the schoolhouse?
What was the coolest part of it?
Candis:Well, money’s always the worst part.
I think it was just the scale and the scope.
We renovated a lot of old homes, but we’ve never done anything this big.
It’s like, “Oh, we need to add another house inside of this house.”
And then we had a big flood too that almost wiped us out, literally and figuratively.
And that was a lot to handle.
Andy:Basically, when you have problems on a job that size, you have big problems.
Candis:We work a lot, and we don’t hide that at all.
This job takes time, and it takes a lot of our time.
I think they’re very proud of us.
And even like guestrooms, they were excited to see those get finished.
So it’s been a fun journey for them.
Do they like it?
I mean, we’re pretty open with them.
You’ll notice in some of the scenes, we’re missing a kid or two.
But they’re such hams.
Most of the time, they’re like, “Can we be in the reveal?
Can we come see this room?”
And so, we just let them be involved as much as they want.
And they honestly
Candis: They love it.
Candis: Our boys put together our kitchen, for real.
Our big kitchen in the school, our boys put together every single cabinet.
We’re so proud of them.
So like on a cut, you’ll see one of our sons with his little kid voice.
And then the next scene, he’s got his big kid voice.
And the show did take too long.
COVID, everything made it take too long.
But the positive of that was really seeing our kids grow up.
In a space of an hour, you see them grow up.
It’s pretty special for us.
It’s a good time capsule for us.
Candis:We work together.
So we love each other very much.
Candis:“Can you just give it to me?
Can you just give me what I need?”
So Candis is the director.
We’re executive producers.
She’s involved in every edit in every scene.
She picks the music for the show.
All the sound, the shots, the transitions, that’s all her.
But the hard part is we actually had to make the show.
And so, I think it’s a good trade off.
What are you feeling?
What are you doing?"
It’s literally us talking to our camera guys.
What can viewers expect to see when they see your show?
Candis:Well, we do edit out all the swear words.
So there will be no swear words on our show.
Andy:It’s a very family-friendly show.
Candis:But I think you see a lot of realness with us.
We also don’t want to hide anything, really.
But I would still say that you should expect to see beautiful reveals.
I want to see before and after.
Give me all the before and afters, every satisfying shot.
Those are the shots I crave.
And so, we’ve put a lot of that in there.
You see a lot of our family.
Andy:One of the biggest things I enjoy about our show is the takeaways.
And so, she walks the viewers through that.
If you look at this, we’ve got these giant art pieces.
And how do you do that?
And it’s not an army of employees.
It’s not people we’re tasking with these things.
You get to see us and how we manage to juggle all of this.
And finally, what is next for you after this?
Andy:Thirteen episodes weren’t even enough.
We have an underground tunnel that goes out to a secret bunker underneath one of the other buildings.
Andy:We have bathrooms and hallways and things we never got to show.
And there’s just always more for us to do in our school as well as other projects.
