Audacy’s  Danie B. at V-103 in Atlanta sat down for a chat with Honest Renovations hosts Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis to get into some details about the project as season two of their show is now streaming on Roku.

Best friends Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis are back for another round of surprise renovations, helping families take their homes from “cluttered and chaotic to functional and fabulous.”

“We do a big casting process. It's interesting, it's kind of an art because we want to find families that are relatable… diversity is really important to us,” Jessica says. “We wanted to not only have the obvious ethnic diversity but also just diversity in the types of families that we are showing,”

“So, we have a single mom with a baby, we have a family with seven kids, three are out of the house, we have another family that has four kids,” she explains. “Just showing different ages and stages of families going through different things with family, dealing with illness, another family dealing with loss, another one that has a child that has different needs. For us, it's diversity in every aspect of what that looks like.”

“But we really strive to not be typical,” says Lizzy. Thinking of typical home renovation shows as “cookie-cutter,” she says you “see the before, you see the after, you see a couple things in between. For us, at the heart of our show is the families. We thought about: How do we make a show that still gives the love of interior design and the love of a home renovation show, but flip it on its head and make it more relatable where people can really have takeaways that feel a little bit more special than just the house.”

Getting a budget together to help these incredible families is all thanks to their amazing partners and sponsors, “but we do only have one budget,” Lizzy says. “We have one master budget to work with and we have to split it up between all the houses. It all kind of depends on what house needs what, what we're able to do in every house -- but we can't do everything in every house.”

The idea for this project, Lizzy tells us, stems from her and Jessica’s longtime friendship and wish to one day work on something special together. “We didn't know what it was gonna be, but we wanted to do something together because we always have fun,” she says, “and we were like, ‘We have to do something where we could have a job and have fun because that's the ultimate goal, right?’ Then during the pandemic, we leaned in. We leaned into home design and content, and we created a little studio, which was one of her first houses. We re-did that, we redid her parents' home.”

“Actually, we're dropping my parents' renovation now, next week,” says Alba. “We're going to drop it on our socials, on YouTube… That one was intense because it was like, taking the house down to the studs, which is different than what we do with these families. With these families, we're choosing different spaces and we're doing different levels of remodeling, renovation, updating the space.”

“When we started doing that,” Lizzy adds, “we thought, how do we make this into a show? How do we include families?”

Don’t miss Danie B.’s full chat with Lizzie Mathis and Jessica Alba above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite stars and artists right here on Audacy.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Danie B.

Audacy’s  Danie B. at V-103 in Atlanta sat down for a chat with Honest Renovations hosts Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis to get into some details about the project as season two of their show is now streaming on Roku.
Best friends Jessica Alba and Lizzy Mathis are back for another round of surprise renovations, helping families take their homes from “cluttered and chaotic to functional and fabulous.”
“We do a big casting process. It's interesting, it's kind of an art because we want to find families that are relatable… diversity is really important to us,” Jessica says. “We wanted to not only have the obvious ethnic diversity but also just diversity in the types of families that we are showing,”
“So, we have a single mom with a baby, we have a family with seven kids, three are out of the house, we have another family that has four kids,” she explains. “Just showing different ages and stages of families going through different things with family, dealing with illness, another family dealing with loss, another one that has a child that has different needs. For us, it's diversity in every aspect of what that looks like.”
“But we really strive to not be typical,” says Lizzy. Thinking of typical home renovation shows as “cookie-cutter,” she says you “see the before, you see the after, you see a couple things in between. For us, at the heart of our show is the families. We thought about: How do we make a show that still gives the love of interior design and the love of a home renovation show, but flip it on its head and make it more relatable where people can really have takeaways that feel a little bit more special than just the house.”
Getting a budget together to help these incredible families is all thanks to their amazing partners and sponsors, “but we do only have one budget,” Lizzy says. “We have one master budget to work with and we have to split it up between all the houses. It all kind of depends on what house needs what, what we're able to do in every house -- but we can't do everything in every house.”
The idea for this project, Lizzy tells us, stems from her and Jessica’s longtime friendship and wish to one day work on something special together. “We didn't know what it was gonna be, but we wanted to do something together because we always have fun,” she says, “and we were like, ‘We have to do something where we could have a job and have fun because that's the ultimate goal, right?’ Then during the pandemic, we leaned in. We leaned into home design and content, and we created a little studio, which was one of her first houses. We re-did that, we redid her parents' home.”
“Actually, we're dropping my parents' renovation now, next week,” says Alba. “We're going to drop it on our socials, on YouTube… That one was intense because it was like, taking the house down to the studs, which is different than what we do with these families. With these families, we're choosing different spaces and we're doing different levels of remodeling, renovation, updating the space.”
“When we started doing that,” Lizzy adds, “we thought, how do we make this into a show? How do we include families?”
Don’t miss Danie B.’s full chat with Lizzie Mathis and Jessica Alba above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite stars and artists right here on Audacy.
Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Danie B.

Audio & Interviews from V-103 in Atlanta.

Audio &amp; Interviews from V-103 in Atlanta.

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