Got any beaded curtains or avocado appliances lying around? HGTV is reuniting The Brady Bunch kids to bring back the home of television’s first blended family. What’s more, they’re asking fans to contribute ‘70s-era items similar to those we saw on screen.
A Very Brady Renovation will feature all six actors who played the Brady brood—Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Eve Plumb (Jan), Susan Olsen (Cindy), Barry Williams (Greg), Christopher Knight (Peter), and Mike Lookinland (Bobby). But the split-level ranch where the sitcom took place was a star in its own right.
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Here’s the Story …
“The house wonderfully set the scene for the dramas and antics of the Brady family,” says interior designer Cynthia Espy, president of Amenities Home Design in Chicago. “The set designers created an aspirational, quintessentially American middle-class home that spoke of affluence but was also relatable. Mike Brady was an architect, so the house and the interiors had to be cool and up-to-date, but having the kids share rooms made it feel real.”
In other words, those of us glued to the tube during The Brady Bunch’s ’69 to ’74 run grew up in a place much like it—or wished we did. Hence HGTV’s enthusiasm for its version, in which each actor will recreate a room. “It’s been a really long time since all of us have been back together,” McCormick recently told Today. “The whole show is filled with so much love—it’s a work of love.”
The split-level ranch where the sitcom took place was a star in its own right.
HGTV remodeling gurus, including Property Brothers’ Drew and Jonathan Scott,
will help reboot the rooms. And fans with relics of the era—floral chintz, rotary phones, ceramic sculptures, avocado anything—who hope to have their stuff appear can send photos to BradyBunchCrowdsourcing@gmail.com or via #verybradyreno.
“The house was decorated in what was considered modern and cutting edge in its time—an advance on Mid Century Modern—with some late Sixties kitsch in the pop-art posters and orange counters,” says Espy, who adds, “I doubt that the aesthetic will return with a frenzy.”
That said, she predicts that A Very Brady Renovation, set to debut in September, will have a very Brady following. “The familiarity with the furniture will remind us of our childhoods,” she says. “We may cringe at the style, but we bond in remembrance.”
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