HGTV’s newest renovation competition, “Totally ’90s House,” premiered August 26, 2026, sending two teams of celebrities who built their careers on 1990s television into homes that look like they’ve been sealed in a time capsule since the decade ended — and the before photos of honey-oak cabinetry, mirrored closet doors, and sponge-painted walls are exactly as dated as the premise promises, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Key Points
- The six-episode series is hosted by Jaleel White, and airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.
- Two celebrity teams compete against each other: one made up of Brian Austin Green, Beverley Mitchell, and Jodie Sweetin, the other made up of Melissa Joan Hart, Matthew Lawrence, Keshia Knight Pulliam, and Joey Lawrence — seven stars total whose original TV credits run through the exact decade the show is renovating out of these houses.
- Each team searches the country for a home still frozen in 1990s design, then gives it a full renovation, with the winning team earning bragging rights and a $25,000 donation to the charity of their choice.
- Design experts Carter Oosterhouse and Sabrina Soto guide the teams’ renovation decisions, while guest judges including Vern Yip, Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt, Drew Lachey, Mina Starsiak Hawk, Paige Davis, and Jonathan Adler evaluate the finished spaces.
What’s Actually Getting Renovated
- Honey-oak kitchen cabinets — the warm, orange-toned wood finish that defined builder-grade kitchens throughout the decade — are among the most prominent features teams are tearing out.
- Sponge-painted walls, the mottled two-tone paint technique that briefly took over dining rooms and powder rooms nationwide, get replaced with more current finishes.
- Mirrored closet doors and wall-to-wall carpeting, two more signature relics of the era’s builder-standard homes, round out the list of features the show singles out for removal.
The series arrives alongside a companion YouTube series, HGTV’s House Call: ’90s Edition, launching simultaneously, and later episodes are built around specific throwback challenges — including one delivered via VHS tape — layered on top of standard kitchen-and-bathroom renovation work, according to reporting on the show’s format. For a network built almost entirely around the fantasy of walking into an outdated house and walking out with a finished one, pairing that formula with recognizable faces from the exact decade the homes are stuck in gives the before-and-after transformation a specific kind of double nostalgia: viewers get to watch both a dated house and a familiar face from thirty years ago get a modern-day glow-up in the same hour.
