Leanne Ford Was Once Deemed "Too Cool" for HGTV—and Now She's Transforming the Network
A little chaos doesn’t intimidate Leanne Ford. Some might say she thrives in it—and nobody knows that better than her brother (and collaborator, and Restored By The Fords costar), Steve. “When Leanne has an idea, I know it’s going to be awesome, but the effort involved is...” he pauses, weighing his words as we chat over the phone—with his sister also on the line. “Intense.”
The designer’s twinkly laugh rings through the receiver: “I’m not risk-averse!” she replies.
“I have a Jedi mind trick on Steve that I think he also plays on me, where I tell him I have an idea, he says no, and then the next day he’s like, ‘here’s how we’re going to do it,’” Leanne explains.
Sometimes, that’s finding a way to fit a 10-foot-tall door in an 8-foot doorway (which, for the record, isn’t as simple as trimming 2 feet off the door). Sometimes it’s going so avant garde with the renovation of a cookie-cutter house—tearing down walls to create the kind of epic master bath you’d only see at four-figures-a-night international resorts—that her cult following swells, even if it means losing the uber-practical, “most increased home value” criterion necessary for winning Rock the Block. (For the record, she did win the master suite episode, which featured said bath.)
“I want almost to blow it, just to see how far you can push things,” Leanne explains. “At the end of the day, the things that I’ve second-guessed were the best parts of the house.”
We’re on the phone just days before the release of their memoir, Work in Progress, which underscores how Leanne’s made a career out of making the impossible possible. The designer’s become a force in the industry and in the mainstream, starring in a spate of HGTV shows (including the aforementioned Restored By the Fords, A Very Brady Renovation, and the network’s summertime competition series, Rock the Block).
But following her curiosity is practically threaded into her DNA: As a college student at Ohio University, Ford cold-emailed Richie Rich and Traver Rains of Heatherette, offering to be the over-the-top fashion brand’s intern, despite living hundreds of miles away from their New York City headquarters. She didn’t give up until she got a yes—and used the money her parents would’ve given her for grad school to pay rent. Then, Leanne parlayed a gig at Roxy into work as a stylist, before uncovering a passion for interior design. No formal schooling? Pssh. That wasn’t going to stop her.
“Being in fashion and evolving into home and interiors was such a natural progression,” Leanne says. “Anyone who likes putting a look together likes putting a home together. It’s proportion, putting colors together, mixing high and low—it’s really the same part of your brain.”
Just as she’d layer clothes, mixing and matching until she found what felt good, she designed homes: An old schoolhouse would get flourishes of Americana (think framed prints of Johnny Cash and JFK amid weathered American flags) to stay true to its foundation, all within her blend of warm minimalism (white paint, wood tones, and plenty of natural light). “Trusting your gut and not second-guessing yourself is a big part of the creative process,” the 38-year-old says.
Her look soon caught the attention of a production company, and when they asked her to put together a demo video of the renovation she’d been working on with Steve, she decided, why not? Her hair was bleach blonde, and she rocked a fur coat and Iris Apfel-worthy sunglasses throughout the remodel; she was nothing like anything producers at HGTV had ever seen.
And they weren’t into it…at first. They deemed her “too cool,” and it’d be two tries later—minus the glasses and coat, with her hair back to its signature blunt brown bob—before the network ordered the pilot that’d make her a household name.
“I’m interested to see how it plays out,” she told me three years ago, just after she wrapped filming the first episode. She wasn’t so interested in stardom. “For me, it’s the option to create and be able to create more—that’s what drives me.”
In her book, she writes about filming early episodes of Restored by the Fords, and how the network asked her to infuse the interiors with more color. Color works on TV, after all, especially when you need a splashy reveal to keep people from flipping through channels. But, for the woman who’s turned “wear black, paint white” into a catchphrase (and a t-shirt), that’d mean defying a core part of who she is. She’d ditch the oversized sunglasses; but her can of PPG Pure Timeless White was staying put.
Leanne convinced HGTV to let her stick with her go-to palette of white, black, and wood tones—knowing full well that they, too, were taking a risk on her. The pilot was initially given one airing; it performed so well, they aired it again, before picking it up for a full season, which brought in 13.9 million total viewers. And then snowballed into a second season, along with offers for collaborations with PPG, Formica, and Target, just to name a few. They were all things Leanne had never done before—until she put her head down and gave it a shot.
“All of this is a risk,” Leanne says. “Any time you put yourself out there in any form you need to be ready for it to backfire or for people to chime in. Living a full and creative life is always risky.” As time has shown, it's a gamble Leanne's always willing to take.
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