Host of online show 'Freestyled' is latest Detroiter to become an HGTV star
Thinking outside the box is Adar Kirkham’s comfort zone.
“That’s where I thrive. I break out in hives when I’m inside the envelope,” says the host of "Freestyled," an online HGTV series. "I really like to push the boundaries and try something I've never seen before. I always say, if it’s on Pinterest and it’s all over Pinterest, I do not want to do it. I want to be able to search Pinterest and not find my idea and then say, ‘Perfect! This is what I need to do.’”
Although “Freestyled” arrived over the summer, it continues to draw viewers to the six roughly 10-minute episodes that give Kirkham one day and $1,500 dollars to reinvent a single room in a metro Detroiter’s home through paint, thrift store and yard sale finds and reinventing ordinary objects.
In one episode, Kirkham turns cosmetologist and musician's Chelsea Hood's regular Livonia living room into a vibrant space themed to a music studio. Some of the DIY touches from Kirkham include a chandelier of gold-painted microphones and gold-painted boomboxes converted as planters.
In another episode, she focuses on the porch of Daway and Brandy Mitchell's stately brick Detroit home, which they never got around to renovating, into a striking, plant-studded oasis that feels like an elegant solarium. Among its highlights is a table that Kirkham repurposes by covering the top with penny tiles to read "1968" on top, a tribute to Brandy's grandfather, who bought the house that year and became the first Black man to own the house.
Kirkham says she has been drawn to design ever since she was a child. A former professional dancer who has performed with artists like Rihanna, Pitbull and Usher, she spent seven seasons working as the choreographer for the Brooklyn Nets dance team. In 2016, she turned her hobby of refinishing furniture and other do-it-yourself home projects into a business named Tweak It Studio.
"My love for furniture flipping, I used to do it for myself, with all of the apartments I would jump from in New York, apartment to apartment," she says. “I always was painting and reimagining my furniture pieces that were passed down to me.”
Kirkham and her husband got married in 2019 in a DIY-themed wedding in Brooklyn that was featured in the Knot magazine. In 2020, her husband, Tyrel Kirkham, then working as a merchandising executive for the Los Angeles Rams, was hired by the Detroit Pistons as vice president of brand and marketing strategy.
Suddenly, she found herself relocating to the Detroit region, a place that she had never visited before. It was around this time that Kirkham was contacted about the project that became "Freestyled.” She had appeared in 2017 as a contestant on HGTV's “Flea Market Flip,” which gave two-person teams $500 to buy items that they could redo and flip for a larger amount. “We had the best time," says Kirkland, who competed with her mother. “We actually lost our episode. We lost by, like, $5, but we had a blast."
That experience introduced her to a casting director who helped open the door for “Freestlyed,” which got the green light around the time she was moving from Los Angeles to Detroit. The concept of the show is all about encouraging people to free their imaginations without emptying their pocketbooks. As Kirkham puts it: “(You) can reinvent the wheel with things they already have. You don’t have to go spend a boatload of money to be able to have a space that you really love.”
Kirkham says she has been pleasantly surprised to find that metro Detroit is “a gold mine” for fining unique used furniture and that thrifting for design finds is “a huge part of the culture here. I think there’s a huge appreciation for it.”
She continues, "Within the first few weeks of us being here I knew right away I was going to be all right. ... Detroit is like a hidden secret that I don’t want anyone else to know about."
According to Kirkham, she expects to find out early next year about the future of “Freestyled.” Some other news broke recently, however. The Free Press reported Tuesday that her husband is leaving the Pistons for a new role as the first-ever chief marketing officer for the Big 12 athletic conference, which is headquartered in Texas.
Stay tuned for what happens next and let's hope Detroit still plays a role in Kirkham's TV career. During an interview earlier this month, she laughed when the idea of a reality competition involving her show and three other Detroit-based HGTV projects: “Bargain Block,” “Steal This House” and "Rehab Addict Lake House Rescue."
Says Kirham, ”I would absolutely love that because I love their shows."
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: HGTV's host of 'Freestyled' calls Detroit a hidden gem
