If you don't know Drew and Jonathan Scott, then get out from under that rock where you've been hiding for the past four years, because you're about to be invited to their home.
The "Property Brothers" and "Buying and Selling" stars' latest challenge is their own. "Property Brothers At Home" is a four-part miniseries that follows Drew and Jonathan as they renovate their Las Vegas house into a breathtaking, gorgeous home. But aside from the main house, the boys are also building a guest house, adding a pool, pool house, outdoor theatre area and their very own fun zone -- and it all needs to be done in time for the big Scott family reunion they're hosting.
HuffPost Canada spoke with Drew and Jonathan in Toronto, and not only did they make me feel small (no, really, nothing makes you feel tinier than two six-foot-five dudes), but Jonathan also talked about the water slide he had to have while Drew revealed they went over-budget. Obviously. Because a two-storey, commercial-grade water slide'll do that.
HuffPost Canada: What was it like working on your own home, but also working on your own home while being filmed?
Jonathan: It was a little unnerving. We're used to having cameras around when we shoot the other shows but when it's your own home and they're on all the time ... and we'd said we would not allow them to cut. If something happened, something disastrous, a diva moment [they subtly side-eye and point to the other], we would keep the cameras rolling. You're seeing behind the scenes but it's also very much about the story.
How big is the house?
Drew: It's 5,500 square feet. We built a guest house for our parents that's just under 1000 square feet. And then the yard is a half-acre. The most drama in here was putting in the pool house, guest house, the pool, the theatre screen, the outdoor dining space and then Jonathan wanting to basically take the entire space and give it to his dogs for them to run around.
Jonathan: I love my dogs.
Drew: I want it more for me.
Jonathan: Drew only goes home two weeks a year. He's only there for Christmas, that's it, then he's on the road filming most of the time. I go home at least twice a month for a couple days here and there and I like to sleep in my own bed. The dogs technically are there more than he is.
Drew: The dogs technically don't pay for it.
Jonathan: But the dogs are cuter than he is.
Drew: True, true.
Jonathan: Are you a dog person or a cat person?
[Awkward silence]
Drew: See, you're on my side. Thank you.
No! [Bows head] Yeah ...
Drew: Would you rather have a dog area or a basketball and putting area?
HP: Oh, a basketball and putting area, for sure. [High-fives a waiting Drew]
How did you guys get along? Was it all normal, or because it was your own thing, were you more free with your emotions?
Drew: Yeah, with our opinions and our emotions. The thing is, we always get along. We have a no-BS policy, that's how we operate. We run several companies together, we shoot several shows, we want to make sure that if there's an issue, we deal with it, we get it out and we move on. And that has always worked for us. You can work with family if you know to separate family and emotion from business.
Is it your similarities, or is it the differences in the way you manage things that keeps your relationship so heathy?
Jonathan: Well, we're very different in that sense. Drew, we call him the robot. I think about things through an emotional process. OK, well, this is how I would do it. Drew, it just makes sense. This either works, or it doesn't work. This is how it's going to be. We had very different opinions on a couple of different ideas and so we finally decided he would tackle some areas, I would tackle some. So Drew did his own bedroom, the courtyard by his bedroom and the garage. And I did everything else.
Drew: Whoa, whoa, whoa. We collaborated on mostly everything else. He tried to do the putting area and he made a mess of that.
Jonathan: I may have underestimated how big he wanted the putting green.
Drew: Yeah, but that's the thing. Jonathan's the designer, the contractor and obviously he did the plans, he came up with the idea of the overall design. But together, we've been working together since the '90s in real estate, we know each other, we know what we like, we know what would be good in a space, and so I find collaboratively we come up with the best ideas and the best designs.
Will we see this from the beginning, from the purchase stage?
Jonathan: No, we didn't include the purchase. It took me a year-and-a-half just to get the permits for this property because it's such a massive project. We broke ground January 5 [2014] and we started going non-stop.
Drew: The final reveal was in June. It was a massive project. This should've taken over a year but we crammed it in to five months.
That's a crazy timeline.
Drew: We crunched our timeline. We had to start certain things at certain points because if we didn't start it we would never have it done in time for the family to come for the reunion. So Jonathan paid $10,000 to put all the footings in for the two-storey, commercial-grade water slide when it had already been denied by the county and he was waiting to get in and appeal it.
Jonathan: It's Vegas. You gotta gamble. I attended the council meetings, the advisory board committees, and in the end my charm paid off.
Drew: He tried bringing in signed Jonathan bobbleheads to give to them, to persuade them.
Did that work?
Drew: No.
Jonathan: No, I carried my People's Sexiest Men Alive magazine with me. They were wavering at first, so I pulled it out and was like, 'Does this change your mind?' And the three dudes were like, 'Not really. No.'
Your clients have wants for their homes. What were the must-haves for your house?
Jonathan: I had to have the water slide. [Drew] did not want the water slide. He was not having it.
Drew: I said he's going to use it once. He was going to spend all that money, was going to go on it once and then he's never going to use it again.
Jonathan: The other must-haves were I wanted the entire back wall removed and have a collapsible glass wall panel so that you could just open it up. I also wanted to have a big, beautiful bookcase with custom shelving so we could display all the stuff from our travels.
Drew: For me, it was important to have my own space. So even though we sold our individual places and got this one house for the family, it's big enough that we have our own areas. I have a private courtyard off my bedroom and we went with a Parisian feel because my girlfriend loves Paris. I literally designed this courtyard to feel like you're walking down a cobblestone street in Paris.
Do you ever make decisions based on production value for TV?
Drew: For "Property Brothers," it's all about the homeowners that we're working for. I'm not going to sacrifice their dream home just to make something look pretty for the camera. We want to focus on the areas that they want. And on "Property Brothers," it's only three to four rooms that we do. We typically renovate the entire house but that's a separate budget and that's outside the show, we just can't fit that into a one-hour show. For "Property Brothers at Home," there was no need to sacrifice something we wanted just to do something big for the show. Everything that we're doing is big. We wanted to make sure that this really is an impactful space for all of our family and friends.
It was a great project. When it airs, it's going to blow fans away because this is what they've been asking for for so long.
Jonathan: We didn't have to make up any drama for this because there was just so much going on with the project to start with, it made for exciting TV.
Drew: And it is big. It's an impressive project. Your dollar goes a lot further down in Vegas than it does here, even for the purchase. That home, 26-foot ceilings, five-car garage, half-acre lot, 5,500-square feet -- $400,000 is what we paid for the house as opposed to what you'd pay up here.
That's bananas.
Jonathan: That's, like, a parking spot in Toronto.
Seriously. OK, so did you guys stay on budget?
[Laughter from both]
Drew: What's this budget you speak of?
You must've set one? How far-ish over did you go?
Drew: What I originally anticipated we were going to do for the scope of the show, it ended up turning into a much bigger show. I wasn't originally planning on building the guest house, and I wasn't originally planning on doing a couple of the features we ended up doing. And then we just decided, while we were doing it, let's just do everything all at one time. So that's what ended up making the budget go high.
Jonathan: Yeah, additional projects that we weren't going to do. But the thing is, it's the space too. It makes the most sense which anyone can relate to with the project. If you have multiple things you're looking at doing, while you have crews there and while you're doing certain things, it's the most cost-effective to do those other projects at the same time because then you can save on your electrical, your plumbing, your ...
Drew: It's not just "Property Brothers" homeowners that do add-ons. We do too. Like Jonathan here.
Jonathan: Oh, because you didn't add anything.
Drew: No, I didn't add anything.
Jonathan: It's going to be a fun special. It's giving our fans what they've been asking for years. They've wanted to see behind the curtains, what we would actually do with our own space because they're so used to seeing what we do to other people's spaces.
OK, would you guys ever do something like this again?
Jonathan: No. Never again.
Drew: I would. I like taking on challenges.
Jonathan: I'm thinking the next show is "Island Brothers" and we just go and spend six months on an island.
Drew: And the only action that happens there is I pick up my mai tai and have a sip. The rest is relaxation.
"Property Brothers At Home" premieres on Tuesday, February 17 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on W Network.
