Whatever Happened To Former HGTV Star Genevieve Gorder?

After making the unlikely pivot from MTV (she got her start commenting on “Sex in the ’90s”) to TLC, Genevieve Gorder quickly became one of the nation’s best-loved interior designers. She spent six famously barefoot seasons on “Trading Spaces,” the hit adaptation of the BBC’s “Changing Rooms,” worked her magic on several entire communities for “Town Haul,” and answered viewers’ queries for 78 episodes of advice show “Dear Genevieve.”

Gorder also found the time to sit on the judging panel of “HGTV Design Star,” host the seasonal special “White House Christmas,” and open up her own domestic life to the cameras on “Genevieve’s Renovation.” But what has she been up to over the last decade? From tying the knot at a Moroccan wedding and venturing into teaching to making her mark on the video game world and battling various health problems, here’s a look at the Minneapolis native’s recent story. 

In 2018, Genevieve Gorder joined the streaming revolution when she landed her very own home renovation show on Netflix. In a sign of the times, though, the twist in “Stay Here” was that the properties being renovated weren’t actually homes but AirBnbs.

Gorder, one of several HGTV stars with a considerable net worth, traveled everywhere from Austin and California to New York and Seattle, helping those in the rental market attract more clients. And the feedback, according to the star anyway, appeared to be overwhelmingly positive. “I’ve gotten calls from every single homeowner telling me they’ve been so booked up that they had raised their rates,” she told People. “Some are even making so much money that they have purchased three or four other properties.”

Gorder herself was so pleased with the response that she and future husband, Christian Dunbar, decided to get in on the short-term rental game with a property in Savannah. Unfortunately, Netflix executives weren’t as enamored with her handiwork. And after just eight episodes, “Stay Here” was essentially told to go away.

Five years after divorcing Canadian TV host and father of her only child, Bebell, Tyler Harcott, Genevieve Gorder walked down the aisle for a second time. The interior designer said “I do” to furniture designer Christian Dunbar before celebrating with a “super sexy dinner party” with their nearest and dearest in Morocco.

In an interview with Good Housekeeping, Gorder revealed that she was first introduced to Dunbar — who’d apparently been crushing on her for years — by a mutual friend. Following a string of hour-long phone conversations, the couple started dating. Within 12 months of meeting, they got engaged. “It takes a pretty big love to interrupt a beautiful life … this one was undeniable,” the HGTV star gushed soon after.

Dunbar, who, alongside creating a blend of industrial and organic pieces of furniture, has also modeled for Grey Goose, has been just as complimentary about Gorder, too. In a glowing Facebook post, he noted how her presence has completely changed his life for the better, ultimately making him “the luckiest guy in the world.”

In 2018, Genevieve Gorder joined the likes of Paige Davis, Carter Oosterhouse, and Ty Pennington for the reboot of HGTV’s hit interior design show “Trading Spaces.” But when the series returned for a second season, the Minneapolis native, whose appearance in 40 years has been predicted by face-app technology, was nowhere to be found.

“It was not my decision at all,” Gorder admitted to People about her notable absence. The former MTV personality then revealed that a scheduling conflict for a then-secret Bravo project (later confirmed as “Best Room Wins”) was responsible, quashing any rumors that there’d been any behind-the-scenes quarrels with her fellow home renovators.

Gorder, who appeared in the show’s initial run from 2000 to 2003 before returning for another two-year stint in 2005, claimed she “felt s***ty” for letting her castmates down. “First and foremost, these are my friends, and my family and we show up for each other. But everyone understood, and everyone knows that we all have careers that we have to manage.” The star expressed hopes to stage another “Trading Spaces” comeback in the future, but the revival failed to make it to a third season.

Genevieve Gorder added online tutor to her list of talents in 2018 when she teamed up with T.J. Maxx to launch a free course to help people unlock their interior design potential. Indeed, while the TLC favorite presided over Design A Uniquely-You Space, she was more interested in giving participants full creative freedom rather than imposing her own ideas.

“A uniquely you space, for me, you can’t buy it in a box,” Gorder explained to House Beautiful about its title before going on to add how she intended to change interior design habits. “I think a lot people are so overwhelmed with design that they often want to grab and go — they want to fast-food it.” Instead of giving out traditional written homework, however, the home renovator simply planned to get people thinking outside the box.

“It takes a lot of insightful questioning, I think, to get a really authentic space to yourself,” Gorder continued. “Unless you’re a designer, you don’t know those layers as intimately — and you shouldn’t—so it takes some work to get there.”

Not content with taking over the world of home renovation TV, Genevieve Gorder entered the lucrative gaming market in 2019 when she teamed up with publisher Jam City for Vineyard Valley. Blending mystery, world-building, and DIY, the title allows players to essentially cosplay as the HGTV favorite while reconstructing a rundown winery named Tangled Vine and several other properties. The Minneapolis native was instrumental in shaping how it looked.

“I wanted to bring a little bit more of a real-world kind of aspirational design for the players,” Gorder explained to House Beautiful. “So often when choosing a dining table, a sofa, or even re-doing a garden, the choices aren’t ones that I would ever pick in the real world. It’s definitely an afterthought and by bringing in a designer, it’s like adding that last layer of pretty.”

Gorder, who’s no stranger to video games, hoped that Vineyard Valley would also have another knock-on effect. “Players can see how to put a room together with real-world items and products that aren’t even in stores yet, and maybe it will trigger an idea for their house.” The star also designed add-on packs later released to help extend the experience.

In 2019, Genevieve Gorder revealed to the world that she’d been battling Lyme disease, an oft-debilitating disease borne via infected ticks, for the past decade. In an interview with People, the “Trading Spaces” star admitted that she feared for her life after being diagnosed.

“When I first got Lyme, there weren’t a lot of people to talk to,” Gorder explained. “You’re just looking through the web, and everything says you’re going to die. Like I have a cold and I’m going to die on the web.” However, she soon discovered that the disease, which affects more celebrities than you may think, is a manageable one. In fact, her condition had been dormant for many years. And she now hopes to bring comfort to others who may be struggling in the same way, too.

“Autoimmune diseases are something that millions and millions and millions of people have that don’t really talk about it,” added Gorder, who, alongside pest control firm Terminix, helped to launch a new initiative designed to ward off multiple tick species. “But it’s important to have community for anything that feels difficult or hard to solve, whether it’s design or an autoimmune disease. When we have a community is when we fix things.”

In addition to working with some of the nation’s largest TV networks, Genevieve Gorder has also partnered up with several major lifestyle brands. Indeed, the home renovator has helped design wallpaper for Tempaper, rugs for Capel, and kids’ furnishings for The Land of Nod, while also putting her name to Crate and Barrel, Fiber One, and General Mills’ Box Tops.

Gorder has even managed to spruce up an everyday item that you might not necessarily think needed sprucing up. Indeed, in 2019, she joined forces with tissue manufacturers Scotties to redesign its packaging. “Tissue boxes are notoriously unattractive,” she explained to USA Today about the collaboration that included no fewer than eight wintry styles. “I thought, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s make tissue boxes sexy.'”

As well as changing the look of various items, Gorder has also helped to sell them. Indeed, the Minneapolis native is a regular on the TV infomercial break as the host of America’s Steals and Deals.

In 2019, Genevieve Gorder took to Instagram to excitedly announce that she’d be hosting her first show on Bravo. Alongside Whitney Robinson, the Editor-in-Chief for Elle Decor, the Minneapolis native also served as judge on “Best Room Wins,” an interior design challenge she compared to another of the network’s long-running favorites.

“I’ll be your Heidi, your Tim and your Nina,” Gorder quipped, referencing “Project Runway” favorites Klum, Gunn, and Garcia, respectively. And you can understand why she mentioned the two series in the same breath. “Best Room Wins” saw competitors given $25,000 to create a high-end look, the results of which would be judged on its aesthetics, client satisfaction, and use of budget.

Unfortunately, the show, which rewarded the most talented designer with a spread in Elle Decor, didn’t exactly enjoy the same longevity as its fashion equivalent. Indeed, despite also welcoming everyone from “Million Dollar Decorators” star Kathryn M. Ireland, “Queer Eye” veteran Thom Filicia, and regular Kardashian collaborator Martyn Lawrence Bullard to cast their eyes on proceedings, “Best Room Wins” lasted just a single season.

Genevieve Gorder’s health woes continued in 2021 when she disclosed to the world that she’d contracted COVID-19. The home renovator uploaded a sickly selfie to Instagram in which the lower half of her famous face was covered by a bed sheet. And she reassured her followers that she’d been double vaccinated, too.

“As a kid with asthma, an adult with autoimmune, COVID was not something I took lightly,” Gorder explained. “In fact, we were more careful than anyone I knew … And guys, Delta is a b***h.” The “Stay Here” host went on to acknowledge that her condition could have been so much worse had she not received the Pfizer vaccination and implored anyone who hadn’t been inoculated to do so immediately.

Luckily, seven days after she first took ill, Gorder started to recover. “[I] feel like a human being, and I have energy to maybe do laundry or brush the dread out of my hair,” she quipped in another Instagram update in which she reiterated how the Delta variant is like nothing she’d ever experienced before. “This is something totally different than the flu. The cough sounds like a strange machine that you didn’t know could come out of your body.”

Having previously given her words of interior design wisdom on HGTV, TLC, Bravo, and Netflix, Genevieve Gorder added free streaming platform, Crackle, to her resume in 2023 with her own lifestyle show. As its title suggests, “At Home with Genevieve” saw the School of Visual Arts graduate invite several famous faces to her own pad to discuss the latest in entertaining and home decor.

The brilliantly named mixologist Maximo Xtravaganza, culinary influencer Frankie Gaw, and former “Trading Spaces” colleague Paige Davis were just a few of the names who appeared on the three-episode series. And while announcing its launch, Gorder couldn’t stop gushing about how happy she was to welcome them in.

“This is the most inclusive show I’ve ever had the blessing to be on,” Gorder explained to People. “It’s not like, ‘No, we need someone more like this age, or looks like this, or comes from this place. Can’t be too city, can’t be too suburban.’ They’re just cool humans that we don’t normally get to hear from on talk shows. And their contributions are just beautiful.” However, as with most of Gorder’s post-“Trading Spaces” shows, “At Home with Genevieve” never made it past a first season.

Of course, you can’t keep an infomercial hosting, tissue box-reinventing, mobile game-creating, interior designer down for long. Indeed, although her famous face hasn’t appeared on screen as regularly as in the ’00s and ’10s, Genevieve Gorder has still been able to add to her recent filmography.

At the end of 2023, she braved the nation’s most tactile daytime TV series, “The Drew Barrymore Show,” to help viewers prepare for the holiday season. Here, Gorder recommended dressing your Christmas dinner table in the typically un-festive color of black, adding essential oils to your wool dryer balls, and illuminating your kitchen with a giant wooden centerpiece filled with 70 candles.

Then in 2025, Al Roker Entertainment, the production company founded by the titular Emmy Award-winning weatherman, announced they were partnering with the HGTV favorite for an original series titled “Better Living with Genevieve.” “In this new show, she’ll share practical life hacks and home tips designed to make everyday life just a little easier,” a LinkedIn statement read, although it’s not yet known when or where Gorder’s latest venture will air.