Photo: Courtesy Magnolia Network
Last Friday, Candis and Andy Meredith’s renovation seriesHome Workpulled from Magnolia Networkafter several of the homeowners who appeared on the show came forward with accusations of shoddy workmanship, doubled budgets and myriad broken promises from the couple.
But who are the Merediths? Read on to find where they came from, how they landed on Chip andJoanna Gaines’s radar and why the network decided to pull the plug on their show the week it premiered.
Flipping in Salt Lake City
Other EarlyProjects
In 2017, the couple released their first book, also calledOld Home Love, and continued to expand their personal brand on social media, where they frequently showed off their various projects.
In 2018, they launched a Youtube series calledTraveling Home, which followed them as they helped theBucket List Family’s Garrett and Jessica Gee renovate an 80-year-old beach bungalow in Hawaii into their permanent home.
Their Show Takes Shape
In 2018, the pair met up with Magnolia Network, before itwas officially announced, and began talking about a potential show.
At the time, the Merediths were just about to embark on their biggest project ever: renovating a 20,000-square-foot schoolhouse to turn it into a home for their blended family of nine (they each had three boys from previous relationships before they married and had a girl together).
Courtesy Magnolia Network
They decided that part of the series would follow the couple as they renovated the school, while also showing them completing room makeover projects for other historic homeowners — something that, with the exception of the Gees, they’d never done before.
Discovery+Magnolia Network Launch
The Merediths also acted as the producers of the show, and after putting out a casting call, they found several willing homeowners in 2019 and began multiple renovation projects.
Due to Covid-19-related production delays, Magnolia Network’s launch was pushed back from its original October 2020 date to “early 2021,” then again to a streaming-only launch in July 2021.
Thirteen episodes ofHome Workdebuted alongside numerous other original shows on Magnolia Network via the Discovery+ streaming service. The plan was for them to also air on the network’s cable channel whenit finally launched on January, 5, 2022.
Clients Come Forward
TheMerediths have since admittedin a social media post of their own that timelines were greatly extended, numerous construction issues occurred during the renovations, and in at least one case, money was misallocated.
Pulled from the Network
On Friday, January 7, Magnolia Network confirmed to PEOPLE that it would be pullingHome Workfrom its platforms.
Episodes of the show have since been removed from the Magnolia Network app, and are no longer slated to run on the channel.
The Merediths Respond
On Friday, the couple took to Instagram to share their side of the story, posting a lengthy note in response to the homeowners who have come forward.
“We’ve seen stories that has [sic] been circulating, and although we cannot speak for anyone but ourselves, we can say that we have always tried to give everything we have to make anyone we work with happy,” they began.
They continued, “We will never take away their truth and how they are feeling. We can only say that there are two sides to every story and while we chose not to go public with our truth, because we know how hurtful this feels, we understand that only hearing one side can paint a negative picture.”
“We ask that these threats and piling on without the full story stop, they are the same handful of stories spinning and spinning, looking like there are ‘so many’ hurt people in our wake,'” the statement adds. “So many believe that we are frauds, have hurt people intentionally, and that we are not who we say we are. That is simply not true.”
source: people.com
