For the first-ever season of Battle on the Mountain, Why the Heck Did I Buy This House? host Kim Wolfe mentored husband-and-wife team Amber and Trey. Inspired to dive into house flipping after renovating their own home in southeastern Ohio during the pandemic, this duo teamed up to tackle nine other houses in the last two years. They also welcomed their baby girl 10 months ago, so it’s fair to say they’re no strangers to juggling ongoing projects. “One person needs to be the muscles and one person needs to be brains," Amber said. "Well, that’s literally us." They know they’ll need plenty of both to come out on top in this competition.

Amber and Trey competed against two other teams of married couples: Lymari and Tony, Chicago-based renovators mentored by HGTV host and winner of Design Star Season 2 Kim Myles, and Massachusetts "renovation husbands" Stephen and David, a duo mentored by Rico to the Rescue host Rico León. The premise: With six weeks and $100,000, each team is tasked with turning a dilapidated mountain home into a picture-perfect vacation retreat worthy of its Breckenridge, Colorado, setting. The team to win each week’s challenge takes home $3,000 in cash, and the team to add the most value to their home at the end of the competition earns a cool $50,000.

Given just three minutes to survey online images and details for three different homes, Amber, Trey and Kim zeroed in on an 1,198-square-foot property with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a starting value of $815,300. The good news? Though they came in second in a challenge to determine selection order, they still scored their first choice. The bad news? That first choice had a boxed-off bummer of a kitchen requiring major demolition. It also lacked the handsome wooden ceiling they all imagined they saw in its online listing. The team planned to whisk away interior walls and integrate the kitchen with the rest of the main floor. Because they also planned to revamp a bathroom and replace the railing leading downstairs, they budgeted a generous $35,000 for the week's work.

What a difference a reimagined footprint makes! The now-airy kitchen flows from the prep and cooking area through generous countertop and island space to the dining room. Trey created a custom range hood to add architectural interest and, following Kim’s advice, the duo made a bold statement with two-tone contemporary cabinets (at $6,950, a significant investment).