Live Oak Builders, a custom home builder in Beaufort and the Sea Islands, announced that they collaborated with Home &amp; Garden Television (HGTV) on their <em>Vacation Home For Free </em>TV program this spring. “We were contacted in January by the producer and was eventually chosen from a field of five local contractors, based on our small company structure” explains Todd Bradley, owner of Live Oak Builders. “It was important to them to have access to an on-site project manager for communications and a project coordinator to facilitate material orders. Those are two key positions in custom home building,” he said.

<a href="http://www.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EXTERIOR.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-23954" src="http://www.yourislandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/EXTERIOR-300x168.jpg" alt="EXTERIOR" width="300" height="168" /></a>With a list of renovation tasks and a budget of $60,000, Live Oak Builders was charged with completing the work in six weeks at the home of Ann and Bill Lamm at 508 Craven St. in the historic district. A new kitchen and powder room, removal of interior fireplace and wall removal to create open space, repainted interior and exterior, refinished all original pine flooring, new light fixtures &amp; fans throughout, added a gas lantern on front porch and freshened front landscaping were the main renovations. Eighteen local subcontractors assisted Live Oak Builders with the renovations.

HGTV’s <em>Vacation Home For Free </em>is hosted by Matt Blashaw, a contractor and renovation expert. He helps couples realize their wish to own a vacation home.

He helps them shop for and renovate a “diamond in the rough” home in their dream location to command top dollar as a vacation rental. The idea is for the homeowner to be able to rent out the vacation home for 16 prime rental weeks at maximum income, covering all their annual expenses. For the rest of the year, they live in their <em>Vacation Home for Free</em>!

HGTV will air the show Sunday, August 23 at 12 noon, EST.