The Big Picture

Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt compete to transform two North Carolina hotels with a tight budget and timeline, judged by Property Brothers.
The six-part series is a unique twist on home renovation TV, combining competition, collaboration, and drama with HGTV’s brightest stars.
Viewers can expect compassion through competition with a mashup of different design styles and personalities, transforming more than just hotels.

The competition is on! The winningest couple on HGTV, Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt, are heading to North Carolina to engage in a competition. But this time, they are not taking on other teams in the reality competition series. They will be battling each other. 100 Day Hotel Challenge watches as the Kleinschmidts transform two beach-side hotels in need, as they are joined by some of HGTV’s biggest names. With Property Brothers stars Jonathan and Drew Scott serving as judges, Brian and Mika have guest rooms, lobbies, and lounge areas to bring up to date with a tight timeline and a budget of $225,000 each. With the title of winner of Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge and Rock the Block Season 2 on their mantel, which spouse will be adding the title of 100 Day Hotel Challenge to their resume?

Speaking with Collider, Brian and Mika shared that this experience is just like summer camp. They got a chance to work with some of HGTV’s brightest stars in a capacity they never would otherwise. And on top of that, 100 Day Hotel Challenge has been a rewarding opportunity to work with the owners of The Beacon Hotel and The William & Garland Motel to make their dreams come true. This six-part series will be like nothing viewers have seen on HGTV before.

100 Day Hotel Challenge
Married real estate developers Brian and Mika Kleinschmidt will compete against each other to transform two dated hotels in North Carolina within 100 days.Genre Reality TV Number of Seasons 1 Debut Date August 13, 2024 Studio HGTV

It’s the Battle of Brian Versus Mika on ‘100 Day Hotel Challenge’
COLLIDER:Hi guys.

BRIAN KLEINSCHMIDT: Hey Michael, how are you doing?

Good, how are you?

BRIAN: Good. Hey, thank you so much for doing the write-up. I saw the one you did with the Wes Anderson trailer. And, believe it or not, that was the first time I saw the extended version of the trailer. I had only seen the minute and a half version.

It was so much fun. I loved it. I’m a huge Wes Anderson fan, so I was like, this is so cool.

BRIAN: It was even cooler to make.

Well, first off, congratulations to you both on this show. I watched the first episode. It is so much fun.

BRIAN: Yeah, thank you. We’re excited about it, and we’re excited that this is, it just feels like something that HGTV viewers have never seen before. The way it was shot, the format, I mean, all the different teams, the head-to-head, we are. We are so pumped to show this off.

As the winningest couple of HGTV, what is it like to turn the competition inwards on each other?

MIKA KLEINSCHMIDT (Laughing): I like it. I mean, honestly, at first you were a little bit hesitant to the idea, but I think ultimately it allowed us to be outside of our comfort zone and partner with different talent. Like, I love Brian as my teammate, but it’s kind of cool to see what collaborations and other people can contribute to design as well.

BRIAN: And Michael, I realized how much I miss Mika when she’s not on my team and how much, how much I need her. So we both learned something.

I love that. Did you borrow any tips or tricks you’ve learned from each other over the years to incorporate into your own process?

MIKA: Oh yeah. We know each other very well. So that was a challenge, already trying to think, okay, what’s Brian gonna do? I know he likes this and that. And then, of course, every day after filming we had to stay together. So it was like we were trying to like not tell each other secrets.

BRIAN: You had to stay with me?

MIKA: Yeah

BRIAN: She got to stay with me.

MIKA: I guess. Had, got, same thing.

Now, obviously, we love competition and I love that you were both very open to admitting you’re competitive. But really which spouse is more competitive?

BRIAN: I will tell you right now, the only person more competitive than me is Mika.

MIKA: Nope, I’m gonna say this, I’m gonna say Brian.

BRIAN: Hey, we’re even competitive, figuring out who’s more competitive!

MIKA: I’m gonna go with Brian because I have a threshold, and kind of just a, there has to be a time where you cut work off, right?

BRIAN: And I never turn it off.

MIKA: And he won’t. I’m like, you can, you can stay out to your hotel till 3 a. m. I’m taking my butt back to the Airbnb. It’s 10 o’clock, I’m having dinner, I’m going to bed.

BRIAN: I will say that I’m a workaholic. I never quit on anything. Even if I’m behind, I never quit. Everyone worked so hard on this show. Production, construction, you know. Everybody came together to hopefully turn this into HGTV’s next hit show.

‘100 Day Hotel Challenge’ Will Be Like Nothing Viewers Have Seen Before

Absolutely. Why do viewers love home renovation television so much? What is it about it that draws audiences in?

MIKA: I like to say it’s almost just instant gratification because they’re not seeing all the hours and hours and hours of filming that don’t make the episode. And work that happens behind the scenes. I also think that just getting ideas and inspiration for their own personal project at home. This component’s a little different though because this isn’t just renovation. This is like seeing the chemistry and partnerships of different talents that have never worked together. So I do think people like to see personality drama a little bit.

BRIAN: And I think with so many people doing their own renovations at their own house, I think it’s become really relatable. I mean on 100 Day Hotel Challenge, we show stuff going right, we show a lot of stuff going wrong. They can kind of commiserate with us. And I think people, they love watching that. And then adding the competitive atmosphere on it, they pick their sides. I mean, it’s almost like cheering for their favorite football team and, that’s why they stayed to the end. It’s six episodes, and we’re hoping people get hooked from the beginning and stay with us for the Super Bowl.

Now I would love to know what were some of your first reactions when you saw your respective hotels. Did anything really scare you?

BRIAN: Oh my gosh. Absolutely everything. You know, the first time that we quote unquote met our hotels was the first time you saw the camera. Our production team scouted out these hotels, but we didn’t physically go until we started filming. I just remember thinking to myself, what have we gotten ourselves into? How in the world are we going to make this happen? I think you’d be pleasantly surprised. We were very scared. We almost wanted to get back on the plane and come back home to Tampa. I think Mika’s hotel was probably worse than mine.

MIKA: I’m not going to say, I mean, it was. I’ll put it this way. You couldn’t pay me to stay in one of the rooms. But you know what? That was kind of good. And this is selfish, but If your before is terrible, it’s going to make your after seem that much better. So I was like, wow, I can take this opportunity. It’s like anything I do is going to be a win.

Absolutely. Now, it is all fun and games, but the beauty of this show is you’re bringing your talent and expertise to two hotels that really, truly needed your help. What was it like working with the owners to bring these hotels up to date and to breathe new life into them?

BRIAN: I think that was my favorite part of this. Each of our hotel owners had two completely different stories. But these were actual businesses. So the longer we were shut down, the longer they were losing revenues. We had to keep that top of mind. My owners had a sentimental story. They’re immigrants from India, and this hotel was their American dream. A hurricane came soon after they bought it. Basically wiped it out and flooded it. They had to put $800,000 into it just to get it operational. My hotel’s difference from Mika’s is ours was kind of forgets the past and look forward to the future. And I feel like we did that now with the renovation and now their American dream is alive and well. And then Mika did the opposite. She basically honored the past.

MIKA: Yeah, my hotel honored this super cute couple. When we started filming, she was about maybe seven months pregnant. I had baby on the way, young couple taking over the family business. I could just relate to them, man. And I really respected that they were trying to keep that business in the family. You don’t see that very much anymore. So I think that that holds a really high value. That gave me more incentive, like literally when I did not want to do the work, I’m like, you know what, you got to do this for them because they’re the ones that need it.

‘100 Day Hotel Challenge’ Celebrates HGTV’s Brightest Stars

100 Day Hotel Challenge is bringing together some of HGTV’s favorite personalities. Who was the most fun HGTV star to work with? Any fun stories you can share?

BRIAN: I don’t know. Man, so many. You know, we’ve worked with a lot of these people before. Some we’ve just met for the first time. I keep telling everybody, it was almost like the first day of summer camp when I was a little timid to kind of play games and eat with each other and talk to each other. And at the end, nobody wanted to go home. We had so much fun. I don’t want to pick favorites, but we, we competed against Michel Smith Boyd on Barbie. We judged him on Rock the Block, so we knew how talented he was. But the fact that I got to work with him and share ideas and renovate the lobby with him was an experience I will never forget. I can say that about every single teammate, but Michel and I. You’ll see the episode. We had probably a little bit too much fun.

MIKA: I’ll bring up who went against you in the show. My girl Galey Alix, who also is a Floridian on the east coast. I had never watched Galey’s show. I did follow her on social. She’s got a huge following. I really had no idea what a hard worker she was. I think that she is a match for Brian. Like, I know Brian won’t rest. Neither will Galey. I said, you have met your match because this girl, she will go on fumes to get the job done. And she’s so talented. Like she was literally in the carpenter’s tent, like legit doing the work and using tools that I was scared to use. I was like pleasantly surprised and learned a lot from her.

Is there anyone from the others’ team you wish you could work with in the future?

BRIAN: Yeah, Mika!

MIKA: Awwwww.

Aww!

BRIAN: I wish Mika was on my team again. Honestly. We like the whole competition aspect, but I did find myself missing her through the competition. I was like, I wonder what Mika’s doing. And we have a bunch of fun crossover scenes, we call them, where, you know, I sneak over to her hotel, she sneaks over to mine. Those are some of my favorite moments.

We obviously see Drew and Jonathan Scott. They are very familiar competing with one another. Did they give you any advice going into the show?

MIKA: You know, not really necessarily going into it. I think some of the best times that we had was when the cameras were shut off and all of us would go out to dinner together. Even our teammates that were competing against each other the next day for judging. It was great to get insight from them just because they’ve been around, and they’ve been doing this for a while. Just giving us some relatable stories of shows they’ve worked on and things they’ve learned in the business. It was really, really cool. We did bond with almost every person. I mean, we consider everyone friends now. I hope we get to work with them agian.

BRIAN: Yeah, it was an honor to have not just one Property Brother, but both. And we feel like we hit the jackpot getting both of them. And their schedules are so tight. I remember them telling us that, you know, this small little time frame was the only time they could have made this work. And so glad they did because the show is going to be that much better with them as judges.

Yeah, they were a lot of fun. I’m excited to see how it all turns out. Is there anything you want to tease about what viewers are about to see with this amazing series?

MIKA: Oh man, I think, how do you want to word it? I think it’s kind of a tease of like like the chemistry. It’s like it’s a HGTV mashup. Because some of the talent that we partner with, it’s like you would never picture these two different design styles meeting in one room and making it cohesive. It’s like personality boot camp.

BRIAN: You know, I think, you know, with viewers, we hope that they get out of this show is the fact that, yes, it’s a competition. But we always say it’s kind of like compassion meets competition. We took the competition seriously. Don’t get me wrong, but we didn’t take ourselves too seriously. So we had a ton of fun. Our goal was to leave Salter Path, North Carolina better than how we found it. And we did, and we didn’t just transform these hotels and these hotel owners’ business. We transformed the town and everybody who was involved was also transformed.

I love that. Well, my mom is now North Carolina-based, so I might have to convince her to go take a trip to stay at these two new hotels.

BRIAN: Just make sure she stays at my hotel.

MIKA: Oh, whatever

We’ll do one night each. Well, thank you both so much for chatting. I can’t wait to watch the rest of the season. It, it was so much fun. I loved it.

BRIAN: Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it.

MIKA: Thank you very much.

100 Day Hotel Challenge airs new episodes every Tuesday at 8:00pm on HGTV. All episodes will be available to stream on Max.

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