Tyler Cameron Gets a Home Makeover from HGTV Star Galey Alix (Exclusive)

When Tyler Cameron was searching for interior designers to join the cast of his Prime show Going Home with Tyler Cameron, he immediately called Galey Alix to see if she was interested in the gig.

She was, but there was a problem. She had just been offered her own HGTV show, Home in a Heartbeat with Galey Alix, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“I was like, ‘Sorry, I have to pass. I can’t be a designer on your show, because I now actually have to do my own show,’ ” Alix, 31, tells PEOPLE exclusively. But the two had a lot in common as fellow South Floridians — and as a contractor and a designer, were both confident that it was only a matter of time before they’d team up on a project.

After leaving The Bachelorette mansion and spending some time bouncing between New York City and Los Angeles, Cameron, 32, eventually found himself moving back to his home state, just outside of Jupiter, Fla., where he now lives with his girlfriend Tate Madden.

As he returned to his pre–reality TV roots as a general contractor, Cameron purchased a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath home in the town of Hobe Sound, which he and Madden have been renovating for nearly two years.

While they’d made major headway, Cameron tells PEOPLE, “We had this upstairs space that I was going to get to eventually, but wasn’t really the top of my list.” His dream was to turn what was originally a bedroom and lounge area into an office space and a podcast room. And he knew exactly who to call to make it happen.

Alix, who went viral on TikTok for showcasing her surprise 72-hour home renovations, told him, “I’ll take care of it,” he recalls.

So, Cameron agreed to Alix’s unique design process, in which clients don’t see any aspects of the renovation until the reveal. But unlike many of her past homeowners, Cameron didn’t really have any requests for the HGTV star.

“Tyler was maybe one of the easiest clients ever, because he didn’t even send me inspo pics,” Alix reveals. “He didn’t talk about colors, he didn’t talk about his style. He was just like, ‘Look, I trust you and I know you do great work, and once you see the rest of my house, you’ll kind of see what the style is.’ ”

So, she drove out to the property to measure and order everything, and one year later, while Cameron and Madden were out of town for a wedding, Alix and her team finally got to work.

In addition to her crew, Alix also recruited three students interested in interior design from The Andrea Cameron Foundation — the nonprofit organization that Tyler launched in 2020 in honor of his late mother — and let them get hands-on experience.

“She didn’t have to do that, but she did,” Tyler says. “I’m grateful that she included them and let them be a part of it as well.”

The transformation was far from simple. Alix gutted both rooms, adding new ceilings, flooring and windows while leaning into a more modern, “lounge-y” vibe. While she didn’t want it to be a stark contrast from the downstairs area, Alix still wanted to elevate the office, turning it into more of an “architectural builder’s modern type space” and less of an “antique country” room.

“I wanted his office to be a little more modern so that if he brings clients in there, it feels like something more South Florida that they might want in their home, but still keeping a nod to the rest of the house,” she says.

Though Alix is used to fast-paced makeovers, the confined space presented some unexpected challenges.

“This project was deceptively hard because what I didn’t account for is that in such tight quarters, it’s very hard for everybody to move around and do their job because you’re all on top of each other,” she says. “We literally had to watch paint dry just so we could do the ceiling holes. It was a hurry up and wait situation that just kept slowing us down.”

One by one, Alix and her team transformed the small bedroom into a functional office, adding a wood feature on the ceiling, updating the lighting and replacing the door with a full-length window. She removed the closet doors, extended the opening to the ceiling and added custom built-in cabinets for extra storage, helping to make the space feel bigger and putting every inch to use.

“I’m really proud of that office, because I felt like we took a very, very small space and made it feel so much bigger,” she says. “If there’s one thing I’m really proud of in my projects it’s that I think I’m good at working with what I have. I am not coming in here breaking down all your walls and trying to create these open concept floors. I’m saying, ‘Okay, I only have 72 hours to do this. What’s the most I can do with what you give me?’ ”

By the time it was done, it was 7:00 am on reveal day, meaning they had just three hours to clean up, touch up the paint, get the carpets laid and move the furniture in.

After pulling an all-nighter to wrap up the finishing touches with two of her teammates, it finally came time to show Tyler her work. “I’m always so nervous on reveal day. I cannot eat breakfast. I cannot drink water. I constantly feel like I’m going to lose my cookies,” she says. But this time around, Alix didn’t even have time to let the nerves kick in.

“That was the one blessing of working all the way up without sleeping until the moment I ran outside and was like, ‘All right, you ready to see it?’” she says.

When Tyler arrived, Alix had him close his eyes, as she does with all her clients. But instead of holding out his hands in anticipation, he crossed his arms as if he were being arrested — a reflex from his time on Fox’s Special Forces, where he was regularly led blindfolded into intense challenges.

“I went to grab his hand and I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And he goes, ‘Oh my God. I literally just got a flashback to Special Forces, ’ ” Alix recalls.

But while a reno reveal was far less stressful than his time on the Fox military training television series, Tyler did still have some jitters heading into the surprise. Since he and Madden were in full control of renovating the rest of the house, it was a leap of faith to hand the keys to someone else.

“I was a little nervous because her style is more modern than mine,” he says. “But I think everyone’s nervous when it comes to a surprise, especially when it’s your own house and your own money.”

When Tyler walked into his new space, he was “overjoyed,” he says.

“She did a great job tying in the traditional vibe. Our house is more like old French cottage. She carried a lot of the accents up here,” Tyler says, explaining that she gave it just the right touch of modern for his liking. “She also gave it a little bit of an industrial construction look because that’s what we do here.”

Looking back on the renovation process, there were a lot of things that made this project stand out from Alix’s previous ones, from the total freedom in design to the challenge of the small space. But the biggest difference was that it was her first time working on a builder’s home.

Alix explains that it was refreshing knowing that he would “really appreciate” her work since he knows the behind-the-scenes of what goes into a renovation.

“It felt good to be seen in that way, because most people see the end result, but they don’t understand all of the nuances, time and physical work that goes into something like this,” she says.

For Tyler, the new workspace couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I’m starting to pivot into a lot of things that are bigger than social media,” he says. “I have a rental business, a property management business and now, I want to start taking steps in trying to do some development stuff.”

While he’s developed spec homes on a “smaller scale,” Tyler notes he wants to get into “bigger projects,” with his eyes on a hotel a few towns over. “All things that are going to be much more work for us than what we’ve ever done,” he says. “But now we have a great place to lock in and do it.”

While a potential podcast is still just a possibility, he assures that, for now, the dedicated spaces are “just great place[s] for the meeting of the minds” — which has already been in full force just a few days into having the new working area.

“Everyone was talking and enjoying ourselves and we’re like, ‘This is so much nicer than sitting around the kitchen table,’ ” he says, explaining that his paperwork used to live in his dining area. “There’s smoke coming out of the upstairs now from all of the brain power going on.”

The new office space represents a new era for Tyler as he looks forward to the next chapter of his career, all in a home that he sees himself being in for the long haul, and maybe welcoming a few more family members into down the line.

“I want a lot of kids. I got to have my own little basketball team. I need five, maybe six, one coming off the bench and I want to coach sports around here and help kids go to college. That’s my big dream and goal,” he says, assuring that they’ll definitely be “Jupiter kids.” “I think this would be a great starter house to raise a family.”

Tyler adds, “But if I start having more than a couple of kids, I’m going to have to get some more house.”

For now, the reality star is happy to be back home in South Florida, returning to his roots while expanding his horizons.

“I’ve been taking what I’ve learned from my experiences in New York and LA, and traveling all over the place, and trying to bring them to Jupiter and make the place I love better,” he says. “I do believe that one way or another, I was going to find my way here. I just think I took the fun route.”