Coming together
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Berkus and Brent had a years-long friendship before they were ever actually romantically involved, but they were in completely different places in their lives. For Berkus, his design empire began at an auction house in Chicago. He told Colorado Homes and Lifestyles that nearly being fired as an assistant led to him being put in charge of monthly auctions. He wound up later appearing on Oprah, which was the real beginning of his television career.
Brent, meanwhile, was busy actually getting fired from his position as a styling assistant for Rachel Zoe. The incident led to two things. According to Bustle, Brent was inspired to start his own design firm because of his experience with Zoe. She’s also the person responsible for bringing him and Berkus together. He told A Drink With, “There was a moment when I thought, ‘What’s the point of this? Why did I start working here? Why am I in fashion?’ but then the truth is I met my husband because of that.” A few years later, the now-married couple decided to take the leap into TV together.
Married to Design
YouTube
When the show was first announced in 2016, it went by the name Married to Design: Nate & Jeremiah. At the time, both Berkus and Brent were excited to be able to bring audiences into their everyday lives. According to the series press release published by Houzz, Brent recalled the joy he and Berkus felt at their daughter’s first birthday. He said, “To invite people to see that side of us, it just feels right.”
Berkus also emphasized how excited they were to be in the perfect position to give back to struggling homeowners. “They’re lost,” he said. “We’re not. We know where to save, where to spend, where to shop… it’s what we love most.” Since the beginning, “saving” has been a huge focus of the show. Its press release noted how the couple would work with homeowners to redesign their space “with a tight budget in mind, of course.” But just how tight is that budget expected to be? A 2018 casting call for the show posted to Backstage notes a $65,000-plus renovation budget as a must in order to be considered.
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By Jennifer Arbues/May 9, 2019 10:08 am EST
But the show is just as much about the dynamic between Berkus and Brent and how their personal lives have helped shape their professional perspectives. Throughout the course of the show, the couple has listed the sprawling California home they described to Architectural Digest in 2017 as “a place we could put down roots,” they’ve welcomed a second child into the family, and they’ve set out to become a real voice for the LGBTQ community.
Coming together
Emma Mcintyre / Getty Images
Berkus and Brent had a years-long friendship before they were ever actually romantically involved, but they were in completely different places in their lives. For Berkus, his design empire began at an auction house in Chicago. He told Colorado Homes and Lifestyles that nearly being fired as an assistant led to him being put in charge of monthly auctions. He wound up later appearing on Oprah, which was the real beginning of his television career.
Brent, meanwhile, was busy actually getting fired from his position as a styling assistant for Rachel Zoe. The incident led to two things. According to Bustle, Brent was inspired to start his own design firm because of his experience with Zoe. She’s also the person responsible for bringing him and Berkus together. He told A Drink With, “There was a moment when I thought, ‘What’s the point of this? Why did I start working here? Why am I in fashion?’ but then the truth is I met my husband because of that.” A few years later, the now-married couple decided to take the leap into TV together.
Brent, meanwhile, was busy actually getting fired from his position as a styling assistant for Rachel Zoe. The incident led to two things. According to Bustle, Brent was inspired to start his own design firm because of his experience with Zoe. She’s also the person responsible for bringing him and Berkus together. He told A Drink With, “There was a moment when I thought, ‘What’s the point of this? Why did I start working here? Why am I in fashion?’ but then the truth is I met my husband because of that.” A few years later, the now-married couple decided to take the leap into TV together.
Married to Design
YouTube
When the show was first announced in 2016, it went by the name Married to Design: Nate & Jeremiah. At the time, both Berkus and Brent were excited to be able to bring audiences into their everyday lives. According to the series press release published by Houzz, Brent recalled the joy he and Berkus felt at their daughter’s first birthday. He said, “To invite people to see that side of us, it just feels right.”
Berkus also emphasized how excited they were to be in the perfect position to give back to struggling homeowners. “They’re lost,” he said. “We’re not. We know where to save, where to spend, where to shop… it’s what we love most.” Since the beginning, “saving” has been a huge focus of the show. Its press release noted how the couple would work with homeowners to redesign their space “with a tight budget in mind, of course.” But just how tight is that budget expected to be? A 2018 casting call for the show posted to Backstage notes a $65,000-plus renovation budget as a must in order to be considered.
Berkus also emphasized how excited they were to be in the perfect position to give back to struggling homeowners. “They’re lost,” he said. “We’re not. We know where to save, where to spend, where to shop… it’s what we love most.”
Since the beginning, “saving” has been a huge focus of the show. Its press release noted how the couple would work with homeowners to redesign their space “with a tight budget in mind, of course.” But just how tight is that budget expected to be? A 2018 casting call for the show posted to Backstage notes a $65,000-plus renovation budget as a must in order to be considered.
Finding compromise in spaces
An unexpected design source
All about love
Letting the world in
During their interview for Larry King Now, Brent described the series by saying, “We wanted to create a show that was really about love and exposing people in the rest of the country to our love story.” Berkus told People that doing the show has been wonderful for them because it’s served as documentation of their own lives over the past three years. “We’ve watched them unfold,” he said of seeing their kids grow up on camera.
The biggest issue with homeowners
“It’s the first decision,” Brent said. “People grab a sledgehammer and swing at a wall and think that they’re going to be a ‘weekend warrior,’ and, you know, get this house fixed, and it doesn’t work like that.” He stressed the importance of educating yourself before you jump head first into a huge renovation project. Ultimately, if you don’t have a plan in place, you’ll likely wind up in need of a real professional.
The couple does advocate for doing cosmetic stuff on your own, but that’s about it. According to Berkus, the big stuff should always involve someone with a license. “The minute you start cutting wires and dealing with electrical, the minute you try to weld a pipe or change where a toilet is, leave that to the professionals,” he said.
Responsibility to the LGBTQ community
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Fighting back against homophobia
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Berkus and Brent approached the online hate the same way they’ve approached everything else related to their show — with love. Berkus appeared to respond with the tweet, “My hope with having a show like #NandJByDesign on @TLC, where we go into people’s homes and welcome viewers into ours, is that we can start to break down barriers & normalize the way our family looks & the way our family loves.”
At the time, TLC had already fired Dillard on account of his personal statements against the LGBTQ community.
The Living Spaces diss
Amy Sussman, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
But the collaboration wasn’t without its cynics. Reality TV star and former Living Spaces designer Jeff Lewis took to Instagram to “caution” Berkus and Brent on working with the company, and, in the caption, he included the hashtag “#sloppyseconds.” According to People, Lewis said the post was never meant to be a diss against the couple. He told the magazine, “I have nothing against Nate and Jeremiah, but I have everything against Living Spaces. I was fortunate enough to land in a better position working for a nicer and more professional group of people. I just hope Nate and Jeremiah will, too.”
For their part, Berkus and Brent haven’t allowed the bad blood to affect their working relationship with Living Spaces — they released another collection in April 2019.
Reality TV crossover
Randy Shropshire, Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images
For a pair used to working with at least a $65,000 renovation budget, the experience on Trading Spaces — where, according to People, they’d have to abide by a strict budget of $2,000, only their homeowners and a carpenter could help do the work, and they had to get it all done in 48 hours — was an adjustment. After the experience, Brent told People, “Everything you’ve seen on that show, it’s so true … they’re really strict with the budget.” Berkus, on the other hand, spent most of his time trying to figure out how to get around the restrictions. “I was like, there’s got to be a loophole,” he said.
Teaming up with the Property Brothers
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The twins also seem hopeful that Berkus and Brent will someday consider doing a Brother vs. Brother-style show. The Scotts interviewed the couple on their website Drew and Jonathan and pitched the idea. In response, Brent said he’d love to do it: “It would be interesting (and so fun) to see us compete against each other. We have complementary skill sets in design so it’d be quite a match if we went head-to-head.” Now we just have to petition TLC to make it happen.
An emotional third season
TLC
Brent reiterated how important each job the couple does for homeowners is to them, especially because, for many of the families, they’ve reached a point of total hopelessness. “It’s the best job in the world when you get to stand next to somebody and dream a bigger dream for them than they even knew was possible and validating when people see that they’ve been heard and that somebody cares,” he said. Coupled with the increased visibility into the stars’ own family life in the third season, fans might want an extra box of tissues when sitting down to watch.
