HGTV Star Galey Alix 'Shut Down' FilmingHome in a Heartbeat: 'Don't Think I'd Survive a Season 2' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Galey Alix.Photo:Michael O’Malley

Michael O’Malley

Galey Alixmade a name for herself in the home renovation space, garnering a huge social media following thanks to her serene designs and unique business plan, for which she and her collection of contractors helped homeowner makeover their space in just 72 hours.

Over the course of seven episodes, viewers watched the self-taught designer transform spaces for her clients in a weekend. Leaning on her pre-planning skills, talented team of taskmasters, and her superhuman ability to seemingly surpass every obstacle thrown her way,

Alix made the shortened timeline look easy, and turned out jaw-dropping room after jaw-dropping room with a smile on her face.

But behind those dramatic reveals was a woman barely sleeping, and so overcome with pressure and anxiety that she’d have to wear long-sleeve shirts or copious amounts of makeup on reveal day because she had broken out in hives from the stress.

“My nervous system was completely shutting down,” she tells PEOPLE. “By the end of the show I realized, I don’t have a nervous system; Iama nervous system.”

Instead, Alix puts the responsibility squarely on her shoulders.

“I feel like I set myself up for failure, because I wanted to renovate whole homes in 72 hours with my team. But I’m also a perfectionist with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which means I’m not going to let us cut any corners. We’re not going to throw things up, do it quickly and not make it perfect because I don’t have enough time. It had to be right.”

That drive for quality meant non-stop work.

“We would be awake for sometimes 86 hours straight, going up and down ladders and installing drywall, lighting, built-ins, wallpaper — all while the cameras were filming,” Alix recalls. “And then add on top of that, I’m also hosting, I’m also producing, I’m the contractor slash designer slash day-laborer. I was wearing so many hats. And my whole body was just literally decomposing in front of me.”

“It’s like trying to build a plane while also flying it,” Alix says. “It was really, really taxing. And I just couldn’t stomach it. It got to a point where it was just like, I don’t think I’d survive a season 2.”

“I can’t doHome in a Heartbeat, because my heart will stop beating,” she jokes.

Galey Alix.Galey Alix/Instagram

Galey Alix/Instagram

That doesn’t mean Alix is stepping away from the spotlight.

She’s pitching different concepts to other networks, including one show where she renovates college dorm rooms or fraternity and sorority houses.

“I’ve got a lot of working ideas, but whatever I wind up doing, it’ll be more streamlined,” Alix says. “It really can’t be something like we did. It really impacted the mental health of myself and my whole team.”

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Mental health is something Alix learned to prioritize the hard way.

Prior to launching her career she was running herself ragged, planning for a wedding while, as a side-hustle from her job as a Goldman Sachs executive, she was decorating the 10,000 sq. ft. Connecticut mansion she and her fiancé planned on living in together.

But her desire for perfectionism — “itself its own disease,” she points out — had a dangerous effect on her. She had a severe eating disorder (both anorexia and bulimia) that she had been hiding from friends and family. And when she finally confided in her fiancé about her struggle, admitting she wanted to find a therapist and get help, he broke up with her, cancelling their wedding right before they were set to say their “I dos.”

At the lowest point in her life, Alix deleted social media and began working with a therapist and nutritionist. Months later, and finally felt strong enough to face the humiliation of her breakup, she logged back into her Instagram account and saw that her 800 followers had blossomed into tens of thousands more, many begging her to design their homes.

Since then, Alix has grown her business into a budding empire, amassing millions of social media followers along the way.

“It’s really a reminder that you have no idea what’s going to happen in the next month, or the next year, or the next decade,” she tells PEOPLE. “Here I thought I lost everything, and it turns out, I’m doing things I never could have imaged I could.”

There’s big things coming, too.

On Nov. 8, she’ll launch Galey Alix x Livabliss, a 34-piece rug collection she designed that will be sold online on Amazon, Wayfair, Home Depot, Lowe’s and Bed Bath & Beyond. Further lighting, furniture and decor collaborations are coming with the brand in January. She also has a wallpaper line, through Galey Alix Design, coming out the week of Nov. 11.

“It’s all at very accessible, very friendly price points,” Alix says. “They’re like pieces of me and my designs. I can’t physically go into every home and renovate it, so I wanted to create items that could help people bring that aesthetic into their space without breaking the bank.”

Galey Alix.Nate Bednarz

Nate Bednarz

And as for her mental health, Alix says that though things got rough duringHome in a Heartbeat, they never progressed to the depths of depression she had battled before.

“It’s actually a lot easier to be self-aware and protect your mental health when you’ve gone through literally almost losing your life from not prioritizing it,” she says. “It’s like when you see those signs that say, ‘Don’t text and drive.’ and you’re like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and then all of a sudden, you almost crash into a person on the sidewalk. I guarantee, you’ll never text and drive again.”

“I would be a fool to not take my own advice and do something that was not healthy for me,” Alix continues. “I’ve come this far; no going back now.”

source: people.com