The Oakville resident and host of Home and Garden Television’s (HGTV’s) Disaster DIY was recently recognized with a Gemini Award for Best Host of a Lifestyle/Practical Information Series.

Baeumler said he was overwhelmed to receive the Canadian broadcasting award, especially considering he never thought he’d work in the television industry.

“To be sitting in a room of 5,000 people that you watch on TV on a daily basis is an amazing event, but to hear your name be called is something else,” he said of the awards ceremony. “I spend 12 or 16 hours a day staring at 40 or 50 people behind the camera who are making it all happen and come together. To be standing there as the one everyone recognized is very humbling.”

Baeumler was nominated for a Gemini Award last year, but said that this year’s nomination was just as exciting.

“I was shocked when I was nominated for season one and surprised again for season two,” he said. “Everyone says it is such an honour just to be nominated, and it’s true. It is amazing to think that a group of your peers in the television industry have reviewed your show and chosen your show as one of the five or six best.”

Although he has been building things all his life, Baeumler said he never had any ambitions of taking his talents to the small screen.

“My intention was never to be the host of a show. I watched This Old House, Holmes on Homes and Real Renos, but I never thought I’d be on that list,” he said. “Those guys paved the way for this big explosion of home reno and do-it-yourself shows. I’m actually a very self-conscious person and it is very odd for me to watch myself on TV.”

HGTV plugs Baeumler as “a natural in front of the camera”. It would seem viewers agree, as Disaster DIY premiered in January 2007 and is already in its third season. The show’s contract has been renewed for three more seasons.

Disaster DIY is about property owners who have failed at their own renovation projects and are in desperate need of some help.

Enter host and contractor Baeumler and a team of tradesmen from his Oakvillebased company Baeumler Quality Construction, who give the troubled homeowner some handy advice and demonstrate how to fix the problem.

Season one featured 13 episodes, but seasons two and three each have 26 episodes.

This means a lot of filming.

Although each episode is about 21 minutes in length without commercials, it takes much longer than that to film. The shows are usually taped in three-week periods from April to November.

“People watch the show and think we just renovated a bathroom or kitchen in 15 minutes,” Baeumler said. “In reality, we do three shows every three weeks. I have three crews of four guys who work on each site and they work 10 to 12 hours a day for three weeks straight.”

Even when he is filming for Disaster DIY, Baeumler still oversees his construction company’s projects.

“We were doubling our business every year when we started the show and we have continued to do that,” he said. “My general manager and construction manager run the business and regular work while I’m filming, but I’m pretty involved in projects still and keep a good finger on the pulse of the company. Right now we’re running 11 projects outside of the show, from Burlington to Toronto.”

Running a construction company and hosting a show is a lot of work for the 34-year-old Oakville native. If that weren’t enough, he also has family responsibilities, with a wife, Sarah, and two small children, Quintyn, 3, and Charlotte, 1.

They are his top priority, he said.

“If working 12 hours a day means that my kids can have what they need and my wife can spend more time with them, that is worth it to me,” he said. “We try to reserve weekends for family time, so I don’t work weekends. Every six weeks or so, we take a week off from shooting so we’ll do little trips with the family to different places.”

Baeumler has been given the green light from HGTV to go ahead with three seasons of a new show, called House of Bryan. The show will feature his adventures renovating his family’s bungalow in Oakville. It will be filmed by his production company starting in the spring.

“The show’s going to be more based on how to build a home properly,” he said. “It will also be about what it is like to own a construction company, host a TV show, have a wife and two kids and managing all that. It will be fun.”

If that weren’t enough, Baeumler also has an endorsement deal with Lowe’s.

“We’re working on a how-to DVD/CDROM series that will answer questions for people,” he said. “There’s a lot of industry tips that professionals know and use that make jobs go much easier. We’re also trying to put a little humour in it to make it easy for people to navigate.”

Although filming takes him across the Greater Toronto Area, as well as to various locations in other parts of Ontario, Baeumler is dedicated to his community.

He has spent the past few weeks building a float for this weekend’s Oakville Santa Claus Parade. The float will combine the talents of the construction company with those of his wife’s students from her dance studio, Balletomane.

“This is the second year we’ve done this,” he said. “We build the float and then we have kids dancing on the float and behind the float. We’ve been (jokingly) talking about opening a school of ballet and construction soon.”

Baeumler said he regularly gets noticed around town, whether he is picking up a few groceries or in a hardware store. He usually gets bombarded with questions from property owners on renovation projects they are undertaking.

“I get recognized everywhere, it’s amazing,” he said. “I get people who say they love the show, but I also have a lot of people who come and start with a story about a project they are working on and what they need help with.”

He also receives about 1,000 e-mails a day from viewers and fans of the show asking for help. He responds to as many as he can, but said it is overwhelming.

“We get e-mails about everything from tiling to people asking if we can do their bathroom to people who need their light bulb changed,” he said. “I wish I could get back to everyone.”

Despite the hoards of e-mails, Baeumler said his mom is actually his number 1 fan.

“Every week, my mom calls after an episode airs and says, ‘That was a good show,’” he said. “It’s great.”

For information on Baeumler Quality Construction, visit www.baeumler.ca . For information on Disaster DIY and show times, go online to www.hgtv.ca .