It was never supposed to end like this. For years, Bargain Block captured hearts by transforming Detroit’s forgotten homes into colorful, affordable sanctuaries—and building a sense of hope one block at a time. But after five seasons, the hammers have fallen silent.

HGTV quietly pulled the plug on the fan-favorite series, and on September 10, viewers unknowingly watched what became its final episode, fittingly titled “Crumbling in Corktown.”

Yet as stars Keith Bynum and Evan Thomas reveal, that episode was never meant to be a finale. And the way it ended has left them stunned, heartbroken—and determined to rise again.

“We Just Got Caught With Our Pants Down”

The couple say they found out about the cancellation not this summer, but months earlier—in February 2025—while they were still deep into production plans for Season 5.

“We do have another house in Detroit that we’re finishing that was gonna actually be on season 5,” Thomas told PEOPLE. “But since that’s not happening…”

For Bynum, the abrupt phone call from HGTV sent shockwaves through their lives and business.

“Six months ago, our entire business was literally derailed,” he recalls. “Our revenue stream was built heavily off our television contracts. And we had already been moving in a direction to fulfill a fifth season when it was announced that they were not going to move forward.”

Then he said the words that summed it up best:

“We were just not in a place at all to prepare for that. We just got caught with our pants down. And as a business owner, that’s the worst feeling in the world.”

It was more than just losing a TV slot—it was losing the foundation their design company, NINE Design + Homes, had come to rely on.

Processing the Shock: From Silence to Speaking Out

For months, the pair gritted their teeth and stayed silent, trying to process what had just happened. But the silence grew heavy.

“We had to take aside the personal elements from that business decision and kind of analyze them like we would our own business, and that helped me process a lot of it,” Bynum explains.

Thomas, ever the realist, tried to frame it in industry terms. “A home reno show is a highly inefficient type of show to make,” he noted, pointing to the sharp production costs and the brutal competition TV faces in the age of streaming. “If the ratings slip because people are cutting cable, then it’s an easy choice [for the network to cancel their show]. They’re incredibly expensive per episode to make compared to simpler shows.”

By June 22, they couldn’t hold it in anymore. Keith opened up on Instagram, confirming Bargain Block’s end—and finally letting go of the frustration that had consumed them since February.

“Announcing it helped release a lot of the anger that we had felt for months,” he admits.

“We suffered for months, from February till June, and I finally was like, ‘I can’t take it anymore. I’m gonna say something.’ I’m glad I did because what it did is it helped me get my anger out of me.”

He even captioned his post with unflinching honesty:

“The last six months have been a pretty wild journey. Our entire business and lives have been put through the ringer at the hands of a giant corporation, yet we persist lol.”

Behind the Scenes: A Costly Genre in a Volatile Market

While HGTV has made no public statement about the show’s end, Thomas acknowledges the tough reality: network TV is a fragile world.

“When Bargain Block first premiered in 2021 it was during a particularly volatile time for network TV competing with streaming services,” he says. “Everyone always told us TV is a fickle world and they are very right.”

It wasn’t just them. Around the same time, stars of Married to Real Estate, Farmhouse Fixer, and Izzy Does It also revealed that their shows had been cancelled. The message was clear: even beloved shows aren’t safe when budgets tighten and audiences scatter.

Still, going public was ultimately cathartic. “What it did is it helped me get my anger out of me,” Bynum says. And beyond the relief, something unexpected happened—support flooded in from fans and fellow HGTV personalities facing the same fate.

“That comradery… it meant a lot,” he adds.

Returning to Their Roots—And Thriving Again

Once the initial shock passed, Bynum and Thomas had to do something far scarier than tearing down a crumbling house: start over.

They shifted all their energy back into client work under NINE Design + Homes, even though the adjustment wasn’t easy.

“There’s a massive cultural difference between doing television and then going back to client work,” Bynum admits. But the results surprised even them. The projects, Thomas says, are already “expanding a lot,” and Bynum agrees they’ve “turned out to be really magical.”

Perhaps most exciting, the duo are now “dipping our toes into other possibilities for other forms of media,” Thomas teases—though he won’t reveal specifics just yet.

And despite the heartbreak, they want fans to know they’re okay.

“We’ve gotten a lot of people who are like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry that this was canceled,’” Thomas says.

“And I just wanna say that things are good [and] our business is good. And if you need a house done, you should email us.”

Why Bargain Block Mattered—and Always Will

What made Bargain Block special wasn’t just the transformations—it was how they did them.

Unlike other shows chasing million-dollar listings, they focused on affordability and community impact. They bought abandoned houses, gutted them with their own hands, filled them with upcycled curbside furniture, and staged them with Keith’s whimsical hand-painted art—often featuring offbeat muses like Tilda Swinton.

“We found a niche where I feel like we were able to help the neighborhoods without drastically changing them because of the price points,” Thomas says. “People tell us they like Bargain Block because it’s not the million-dollar homes.”

That approach didn’t just build houses—it built trust. “Detroit embraced us immediately,” Bynum says. “And I think that was kind of the thing that we always tried to translate in the show — just how powerful the connection to Detroit has been.”

Adds Thomas:

“We’re definitely proud of what we’ve achieved. How we started… people saw it from the very beginning, basically. We’re proud of what we’ve done here and how we’ve grown.”

The End Is Just the Beginning

While Bargain Block won’t return to HGTV, Keith and Evan aren’t going anywhere. They’ve weathered the collapse of their TV world, rebuilt their business from the ground up, and are already sketching blueprints for what’s next.

And they want fans to know this isn’t a goodbye—it’s a reset.

“I want everybody to know that this is just hopefully the beginning,” Bynum says.

The blocks may be quiet for now, but don’t count them out. If Bargain Block taught us anything, it’s that even the most forgotten places can shine again—with enough heart, grit, and a little splash of paint.