Ty Pennington Explains How He’s Getting Back to His Roots in HGTV’s New ‘Ty Breaker’ Series (Exclusive)

Ty Pennington is taking his talents to a brand-new series on HGTV — Ty Breaker, which premieres on Jan. 11 at 9 p.m. ET. The series follows Pennington as he works alongside several other HGTV personalities, such as Windy City Rehab‘s Allison Victoria and One of a Kind‘s Grace Mitchell, to help families either overhaul their current properties or renovate a new one to meet their standards. Pennington recently spoke to PopCulture.com exclusively about the new series, and he explained exactly why he’s excited about getting back to his home renovating roots.

It’s been quite some time since Pennington emerged onto the televised home renovation scene with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which premiered back in 2003. The multi-talented carpenter has been taking a bit of a break from the scene as he has been building his own home, looking after his family, and working on an array of other projects. But, he’s more than excited about getting back to work on crafting the perfect homes for other families on Ty Breaker. More specifically, he’s stoked about being on a show that will bring a little bit of spice to your traditional HGTV fare.

“I’ve been playing around with ideas to take the HGTV for a while, just because I have friends over there,” Pennington told PopCulture.com exclusively. “And then I’d sort of had an idea to try and do a show that has me with a female co-host that isn’t so lovey-dovey… But, I wanted something a little bit more salty, a little bit more sassy, a little bit more real-life conversations, including sarcastic insults to each other the way, well, real relationships are.” He added, “I also wanted to get back to what I really do best, which is make people’s dreams of the home they’ve always wanted to live in come true.”

In Ty Breaker, Pennington tries to convince individuals to stay put by renovating their current places while various HGTV family members try to persuade them to move into a new, customized home. Even though he was competing with his co-hosts to have the homeowners go along with his own visions for their spaces, he could still work closely with HGTV personalities like Victoria and Mitchell to craft the perfect place for each family.

The craftsman explained, “In the end, what happened most of the time is we’d team up. Whether it’s my idea that they go with or my co-host, we end up having to work together to come up with a good plan that has a little bit of everything. What I’ve learned over the years is as right as I always try to think I am, looking at something through another perspective or somebody else’s eyes, it really does help you, I think, in the end, create a better outcome if you just for a minute, look at somebody else’s view of another way the project could look.”

“And so together, we come up with some really great stuff, and we definitely have some sparring matches verbally along the way, but it’s one of those fun things that I just love doing,” Pennington continued. “I think you could probably tell is that what I’ve missed, I think, about doing television shows is the camaraderie I have with my team, and my crew, and everybody that I work with. It literally becomes a family, and hopefully, you can feel that when you watch our show because Ty Breaker was so much fun to make.” Ty Breaker airs on Mondays on HGTV at 9 p.m. ET.