‘Home in a Heartbeat’ Reveals the Worst Eyesore a Front Yard Can Have

On “Home in a Heartbeat,” Galey Alix gives new meaning to “weekend warrior” by completely renovating clients’ homes in one weekend. (OK, she actually spends weeks on prep work before a three-day installation—but still, it’s impressive.)

And the show’s latest episode, “Dan Cave,” is an especially formidable challenge, because Alix must make over the home of a single dad whose twin teenage daughters are leaving for college soon. So, he basically wants to take his home back.

“I want this house to be something that grows with me as the kids go off to school,” he explains. “I want it to be a place that I love now, and that it’s hopefully a place they’ll want to come back and visit as they grow their own families.”

Dan has a budget of $40,000 to redo the great room, front entry, upstairs family room, plus a few extra bonus spaces. That might not seem like a huge amount of smackeroos compared with the $100,000-plus people spend on other renovation shows, but Alix pulls it off by sticking to some signature rules.

Here’s how she keeps costs and time expenditure down without sacrificing style, with plenty of lessons that might inspire you to embark on your own weekend DIY projects, too.

Save money by not knocking down walls

Part of Alix’s secret for keeping renovation costs to a minimum is she never tears down walls. Instead, she works with the layout she has.

“Because I’m just adding to the space and I’m not going to have to break any walls down, it’s going to be really easy to make this budget go a long way,” Alix says. The project will mostly involve adding design elements to the home rather than actually expanding it.

Never put a trampoline in your front yard

“There’s literally a trampoline in your front courtyard, and you have to scoot around it to get to your front door,” Alix observes as she enters Dan’s home for the first time.

“It’s time for that to go,” says Dan.

Later, once Dan leaves, Alix says, “We should make over this whole outdoor area. If he’s all about wanting to entertain, this space is going to be empty. So why don’t we go ahead and fill it for him? Updating this space will have an immediate effect on Dan’s life. This area is the first space his guests walk through. We have to make it pretty.”

A fountain plus foliage can obscure street noise

Since the courtyard is right in front along a street, you can’t help but notice the traffic passing by.

“I’ll start by taking out the trampoline, adding cozy outdoor seating, and surrounding it with all-new landscaping,” Alix says. “I’m going to create almost like a sound barrier by putting in these really dense, tall plants right around his courtyard and block the traffic noise from the street.”

But the pièce de résistance is the fountain.

“I’ll cap this space off with a water feature to drown out that street noise in his new, private oasis,” she concludes.

Install a ‘laundry bar’ for folding clothes, mixing drinks

We admit we are a bit puzzled when we hear Alix is going to create a combination laundry-folding station/drinks bar. But there is method to her madness.

“His laundry room is in a hallway [outside the primary bedroom], and there’s no place to fold his clothes,” she says. “There’s this little nook on the second floor. I think we could build a built-in bar there, but we also make it dual-functioning, where we make the bar extra wide, so it could also be a place where he folds clothes.”

The built-in clothes hampers beneath the bar sell us on the idea, and the minifridge that makes it a drinks bar is subtle and hidden. It’s there so “he doesn’t have to run downstairs for a drink at night,” Alix explains.

Don’t forget the ceiling

Alix is big on decorating ceilings to add an extra dimension to a room, and she really outdoes herself in the upstairs family room when she turns it from a playroom into a cozy home theater.

She has a floating ceiling panel constructed of wood planks, then installs LED lighting around the perimeter.

It takes a decent amount of time and effort, but “this ceiling is going to be worth every minute,” she exclaims.

And once Dan lays eyes on his newly renovated home, it’s clear that Alix’s ideas are a hit.

“I feel like I’m in a resort,” he exclaims. “It totally exceeded my expectations. I’m really excited to enter the next phase of my life here!”