Catching Up With Samantha Pynn, Host of Save My Reno

“I’ve been practicing yoga consistently for over 20 years,” says Sam. This might not be a total surprise to all the Save My Reno fans who have seen glimpses of her bust a yoga move on the show. In the above picture, she is showing co-host Sebastian Clovis one of her poses.

Sam’s healthy look and attitude is no mistake. She watches what she eats. “I eat mostly green stuff – raw vegetables,” she writes in an email exchange. “I’ve been an 70-30 raw foodist (vegetables only) for over 10 years.” But, she’s not above indulging in chocolate (more on that later).

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Sam Pynn

was part of HGTV Canada all-star, hit show, Family Home Overhaul. On the show, HGTV Canada experts help renovate the homes of community heroes who are in desperate need of a reno. She teamed up with Save My Reno co-host Sebastian Clovis and Family Home Overhaul host Cheryl Hickey to create a dream home for a community football coach in a reno that was supported by the whole neighbourhood. You can watch the full episode here at HGTV.ca.

Sam and Sebastian are the perfect team for any project (just look at those matching outfits for proof!) and they are rocking it in Season 4 of Save My Reno which premiered in Spring 2021. “We both joke around but in an entirely different way,” Sam tells HGTV Canada of hitting it off with her co-host. “Seb is funny and he’s got great wit and great humour. I’m just silly and I don’t intend to be funny. But we like to laugh and we have a great time. We’re both into design and we’re both into the saves. We’re both passionate and for us it’s all about the homeowners and inspiring people at home.”

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Relinquishing control can be one of the hardest parts for the homeowners on Save My Reno, and Sam definitely witnessed that more than once during production. But she reveals that’s also what makes the reveals so sweet-seeing the pure joy on people’s faces when they walk into their new space for the first time. “The reveal is always my favourite part. It’s the moment of truth when somebody walks into their home and they’re nervous because they’ve let go of the reins a bit and they walk in and they see this space for the first time. That’s the best part for me.”

Sam’s creations have an almost effortless appeal, but design wasn’t always in her cards. “Originally I was going to be an English prof, and then I switched to journalism,” she says. After being hired at a home style magazine … “the profs were like, ‘There’s nothing we can teach you that you’re not going to learn on the job and you don’t want to go into hard-hitting news anyway.’ So…” Well, we think she made the right decision to follow those design dreams. And now we get to benefit, via all of her inspiring ideas.

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What are the odds that two of our favourite designers share a birthday? Pretty good, it seems. Sam says she and Sarah Richardson have the same October birthday, which is just another reason for Sam to love the design expert. “I just love being around her,” Sam says. “I was working away at a magazine when she had her first show and she was such a huge inspiration to me. When her show would come on, I would run. It was scheduled television.”

Like Sarah Richardson, Samantha is a Libra. What does that mean? We’re no experts but we definitely see traits of the astrological sign in her character. As an air sign, her imagination is one of her strongest traits. Libras also value harmony which can be very helpful for a designer working with contractors, home owners and trades people. She definitely checks all those boxes.

We love the kind of design and decor flair Sam brings to the spaces on Save My Reno. And homeowners appreciate her love of thrift stores and ability to find that perfect item to complement a room. “There’s just so much inspiration and there are so many ways that you can save money and get the renovation of your dreams,” says Sam. “And I think that Sebastian and I are good at showing people that.”

Sam loves green juices and health food stores, but she also isn’t afraid to dig into the good stuff: chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. Straight-up chocolate, actually. “I’m a chocoholic,” she confesses. “I have a problem. I like dark, organic, fair-trade chocolate-the good stuff. I get a big bar of chocolate and I will eat a strip of it like in five seconds flat. I want it to be pure. It can have a little bit of salt. Sometimes it can have a little bit of nuts or a little bit of quinoa in it. There’s one chocolate-can you tell how much I love chocolate?- it’s called Quinoa Krunch. It’s so good.”

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Sam’s Instagram followers know it’s no secret she’s close with her mom. And after hearing her description of the woman we can understand why!
“She’s such an angel of a personality. Like she loves everybody. She brings joy. She’s solution-oriented and she’s such an inspiration because she’s getting close to her eighties and she is so social, like I have to book in time to see her,” Sam says. “She does it all, she is just super involved in the church and always doing things and baking for people and meeting with her friends. And at the same time she has nerves of steel because she was a head nurse of neurosurgery for 30 years and then she went to Canada Blood Services. So she’s very generous and she’s very nurturing and very caring.”

We all know and love Sam’s penchant for all things pink. As it turns out, her mom is the inspiration behind that, too. “I get the pink from her for sure. There was a point in high school where I was like, ‘I do not like pink,'” Sam admits. “Growing up she always had me in the frilliest dresses and I wanted to be in jeans. I didn’t have my first pair of jeans until I was in Grade 6 because she did not think it was respectful to wear denim… So she’s really frilly and fancy and likes pretty things.”

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Unfortunately Sam’s father is no longer with us, but she has fond memories of the man being as into home design as her mother was. “We grew up in a house that was super designed. In the 70s it was like, red shag rugs and damask wallpaper on the walls. Then the 80s came along and it was like golden beige rug and white cabinets with that strip of wood. Both my parents were into decorating, just in an entirely different way. My dad was very into greys and blues and my mom was like, circus carnival.”

One thing we love about Sam is her ability to integrate flowers into almost any space she creates. We’d even venture so far as to say that flowers are her thing, and we are more than here for it. (Is there anything more transformative in a room?) So it makes complete sense that when asked whether she had a dream project in her head, her answer is floral-based. “I think I’d love to do like a wedding that’s like all flowers. I’m a big flowers person,” she says.

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