Though David Bromstad is one of HGTV's most popular stars, with "My Lottery Dream Home" due to kick off its 17th season on December 6, 2024, he says the show barely survived its early days on the air.

Bromstad, 51, won the network's first-ever "Design Star" competition in 2006 and nearly a decade later, he only said yes to hosting the pilot "My Lottery Dream Home" because he had "nothing else going on," he admitted to Watermark in October.

The show was a dud early on, as producers struggled to find people willing to be featured. But the series eventually found its footing and is now consistently the top show on HGTV, according to USTVDB. In January, the network said that new episodes of "My Lottery Dream Home" had seen given the HGTV a 72 percent ratings boost in its time slot compared to the previous six weeks.

"It's crazy," the Orlando-based designer told Watermark. "It didn't start that way. It was one of those things like, 'They're never gonna pick this up, it's barely hanging on by a thread.'"

Looking back on how "My Lottery Dream Home" started, Bromstad told Watermark, "I was still in my contract with HGTV and design shows had just died."

When the network asked if he'd be open to shooting the pilot for the new show, Bromstad recalled, "I was like, 'Sure, I have literally nothing else to do.' Now the show that should have never been is now one of the biggest shows on the network."

One of the issues with the show early on was that it was difficult to get lottery winners to come on the still-unknown series, Mike Krupat of production company 7Beyond told MediaWeek in 2017.

"We reached out to close to 1,000 lottery winners," he told the outlet, "and we got 10 to appear on our first season."

The following year, Bromstad told The Wrap, "It just started out so slow. It took a year for each of the first two episodes just to cast. So, it was a lot of being on hold- 'Oooh, we have one! Ooops, sorry, we don't.'"

With so many homeowners looking to renovate their houses, the pool of possible clients is vast for other HGTV shows, but Bromstad told The Wrap that "My Lottery Dream Home" has a much smaller pool to draw from.

"How many people win the lottery?" he asked. "And how many people want to buy houses? And how many people want to be on TV?"

Finding people to appear in the early days of the show was crucial for attracting other lottery winners, Krupat told MediaWeek, explaining, "Once other winners saw the show and how it was about wish fulfilment and making people's dreams become a reality, people were more willing to take part."

More than 150 episodes later, Bromstad now not only finds homes for lottery winners but also for people who have come into a large sum of money in other ways, including inheritances and lawsuit settlements.

Though "My Lottery Dream Home" had a slow start, it began to click with viewers after a couple of seasons, Bromstad told Watermark.

"Around season three, things started to pick up and then season four just blew up, and it's just been crazy," he said. "Each season just gets stronger and stronger and stronger, and the ratings go up and up and up."

Bromstad will kick off the new season helping a couple use part of their $1 million lottery winnings to find a "mountain oasis" in New Hampshire, according to a press release. Later in the season, he'll travel further than ever before to help clients find a vacation home in the Champagne region of France.

While Bromstad helps others find their dream homes, he's been busy renovating his own in Florida. In 2021, the designer found and fell in love with a five-bedroom, four-bathroom Tudor in Winter Park, about 15 miles from Orlando, and purchased it in early 2021 for $975,000, per documents reviewed by Heavy.

In July 2024, he revealed in his Instagram Stories that he'd begun major renovations on the home, bringing in two truck beds full of stone for the interior and exterior, and installing 13 new windows and sliding doors, per permits that Heavy reviewed.

In his Instagram Stories, he also gave fans a peek at his new roof and said that in his new primary bedroom, he was creating two balconies, including "one big mother-butler" that measured 15 x 15, a "delicious" giant closet, and his "soon-to-be bathroom."

Ensuring the house would be his true dream home, Bromstad exclaimed, "I have a pink ceiling, so if you think I'm doing a pink bathroom, you are correct!"