Tour Team Mika’s ‘Battle on the Beach’ Season 5 Home

Mika Kleinschmidt knows her way around time crunches and HGTV victories: She and her husband, Brian Kleinschmidt, complete 100 Day Dream Home projects in the time it takes some builders to get permits cleared. And they’ve won it all on Rock the Block and Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge. She knew she had her seven-week dream team in Anna and Josiah Julian from Baltimore, Maryland. “We got into renovation when we got married,” Anna explained. “[Josiah] moved into a house that had no kitchen. I had just finished the bathroom, and he was honestly not on board with the whole renovation thing, but we looked at the resale value and he was like, ‘Oh, we can make money in this!’” Six years later, they have a family business and a year-and-a-half-old daughter, Layna.

“Anna and Josiah have something I consider priceless, which is called youth,” Mika said. “They run rental properties, so they’re not rookies in this game. I think they’re gonna outwork the other two teams.” Mika’s angle? “I am going to be the perfect mentor for my team because I know how to listen but also to keep it real and candid if something is not going to help them win.”

The latest season of competition featured a “new beach, new mentors, new teams … same old Ty,” as returning mentor (and Season 3 champ) Ty Pennington joked. He partnered with mother-daughter duo Michelle Mueller and Sydney Lorence of Lincoln, Nebraska. Former judge Sarah Baeumler (Renovation Island) switched sides and chose to mentor a team of her own, married couple Steven and Angelina Jacobs of Waterbury, Connecticut. Taking over for Sarah in the judges’ corner, Renovation Aloha stars Tristyn and Kamohai Kalama would be rendering verdicts on the teams’ work each week.

The competitors faced off in Garden City, South Carolina, part of the dazzling, 60-mile Grand Strand of cities along the Atlantic Ocean that attract an estimated 17 to 20 million visitors each year. The rental properties they revamped were the biggest in Battle on the Beach history, and each team had $100,000 and seven weeks to push their values sky-high. Weekly wins (as judged by the Kalamas) would earn their teams either $3,000 in immediate cash winnings or a double-or-nothing $6,000 boost to the $50,000 grand prize that awaited the season’s ultimate champions. Read on to find out who rode the waves to victory.

Team Mika renovated a five-bedroom, three-bath, 2,143-square-foot home. It was the smallest of the competition’s three properties, but its starting weekly rental value of $1,900 offered a lot of room to grow. Mika urged Anna and Josiah to add Murphy beds on either side of the fireplace — in vacation rentals, heads in beds are the name of the game — but the living room’s tight layout and HVAC location made that power move a tricky one. Anna and Josiah decided to flank the fireplace with floating shelves and invest in an $8,000 slider that would add much-needed beach access from the living room. They planned to infuse the dated space with a photo-worthy, “boutique tropical retreat” aesthetic that would make the property listing pop online. With $14,000 budgeted for the week, it would be a tall order.

Anna and Josiah’s pivot from Mika’s Murphy-bed plan was a hit, thank goodness. Tristyn and Kamohai appreciated the floating shelves ($370) flanking the revamped fireplace and mantel ($1,890), though they did wish their tone matched the original flooring. They also admired the coffee table created with reclaimed wood ($150) — but it was rather bulky in such a small space, perhaps.

And that budget-busting, all-important slider? “I think that’s money very well spent,” Tristyn said.

“Very, very well spent,” Kamohai agreed.

The triptych of framed wallpaper panels ($830) behind the sofa was a major hit with Tristyn. “I love that you tried to go bold with the wallpaper and make it an art installation. I may or may not have done bamboo wallpaper myself,” she joked. The modern-tropical feel Anna and Josiah cultivated in the living room came through loud and clear, though the Kalamas had some suggestions. “Maybe that whole wall having wallpaper and then trying to maximize seating in that area?” Kamohai mused. “It did feel a little bit small in the space.”

Anna and Josiah chose a creative treatment for their staircase that added character without taking a major chunk out of their budget. They updated the wall beside their new “rail” with an abstracted blue wave motif, then lightened up the bulky pony wall beside it by embedding three inexpensive windows between its studs. Bright white paint and a colorful carpet runner on refinished risers completed the home’s first-impression revamp.

“It’s definitely interesting [and] unexpected — and I dig it!” Kamohai said. As for the rope handrail, “I don’t know about this,” he confessed. “I’m like, is this code?”

Living-room slider aside, the week’s major spend was $1,180 for kitchenette cabinets — plus a sink and a wine fridge — at the landing beyond those now-quirky stairs. Floating shelves and a few countertop appliances offer just enough functionality to let vacationers refresh themselves without going all the way down to the first-floor kitchen.

Tristyn was seriously impressed. “We’re staying in a vacation rental right now. It has a similar layout, and we kept having to go downstairs to get water.”

“This totally solves that problem,” Kamohai added. “The space for it is uncanny. It’s almost like it was meant to be here!”

“I think it adds so much value and it’s so practical for what we literally experienced just last night,” Tristyn said. “I can’t wait to see what they do in the actual kitchen!”

The squeezed-in, awkwardly multilevel peninsula was so tight that opening the refrigerator and the dishwasher at the same time blocked traffic. Anna and Josiah planned to streamline the installations in their home’s itty-bitty footprint, then bring in more of the contemporary Shaker cabinets that had wowed the Kalamas in their second-story kitchenette. And, replacing the nook’s slider with a window and building in a space-saving banquette would update the dining area. “We’re hoping the layout change and unique design elements will help us make up for the smaller size of this kitchen,” Anna explained.

Turning the peninsula into an island and rotating it 90 degrees, then swapping the refrigerator and range, made a world of difference. Team Mika built a sleek new bank of honey-colored cabinets ($8,830) around that relocated refrigerator and contrasted it with a dark, moody subway-tile backsplash that rises to meet floating shelves and fills the custom range hood’s ($520) interior. At Mika's urging, Anna and Josiah expanded the drywall arch’s interior to be just a bit taller. “We’re going for an architectural feature that’s going to wow the judges, but they are going to be very nitpicky. I don’t want to give them any opportunity to ding [us],” Mika explained.

For their all-important island and countertops’ stone, Team Mika chose a slab of Venata green quartz ($3,400). While its hues aren’t quite the jewel-toned drama Anna imagined, they aren’t the shock Mika feared, either — and that budget-friendly choice enabled them to make additional customizations elsewhere in the room. The cabinets’ streamlined Shaker style matches the slim wooden frames surrounding the wallpaper panels in the living room. And long brass cabinet pulls complement hardware on the fluted-glass pendants above the island.

“Our kitchen is small but mighty,” Anna said. Conscious of the potential for countertop clutter, she and Josiah built an appliance garage that would open and allow the microwave and coffeemaker to roll forward as needed. In a space as diminutive as theirs, clearing even that much real estate would be crucial.

Customization in the new-and-improved nook was all about a DIY coffered ceiling punctuated with chic wallpaper ($1,730). The diamond pattern Josiah and Anna chose echoes both the coffers and the three walls of windows surrounding a dark, contemporary dining table. A linen-wrapped drum shade draws the eye up to the all-new detail without competing with the dazzling views beyond it. “It’s way better than I expected,” Josiah said with satisfaction.

The Kalamas recognized the care Anna and Josiah devoted to their dining nook. “The amount of people you can fit and this ceiling feature really made this space feel special,” Tristyn said. “It’s not just a dining room where you eat. You can chill here!”

The drywall detailing around the range, on the other hand, dragged the design down. Despite the team’s efforts to make that space feel bigger, it still struck the judges as a bit cramped. “Mika did share with us that you spent a ton of time on the built-in hood vent custom feature, so for us to even give negative feedback on that, I feel bad,” Tristyn confessed. “But [it’s] probably not a fun place to cook,” Kamohai added.

“When you think of the main suite, this [guest] is probably the person that’s paying for the vacation rental, so we want to treat that person right,” Josiah noted. Happily, their relatively small home featured a bedroom and bath that claimed half of the second floor. They had room to build in perks to woo vacation planners. Team Mika settled on an updated “spa vibe” that reoriented the room around its spectacular view and would make it a proper oasis.

Anna and Josiah replaced the dated, disjointed window treatments with less-is-more, tone-on-tone installations that provide privacy without detracting from the panoramic view. They also bisected the room with a curved pony wall ($180) that gave them a reoriented “headboard” and provided space to tuck a Murphy bed ($550) behind it. “The pony wall came about because I really wanted to put the king bed in the middle of the room,” Anna explained. “I’ve always seen [that configuration] as [spa-like]. Your bed is floating, and it’s just very fancy-feeling.” White walls and bedding paired with simply finished wood, a woven pendant and caramel-colored leather contribute to that organically opulent atmosphere.

The en suite’s fixtures and finishes were worn and weird, but its footprint was fabulous. Anna and Josiah planned to update the double vanity with more of the slim Shaker-style cabinetry they’d used downstairs. They would then replace the room’s garden tub with a gorgeous, freestanding soaking vessel. “This needs to feel like you are going to the spa, like you paid a membership and now it belongs to you,” Mika advised.

Hey, it’s the 21st century! Twin fluted vessel sinks atop a handsome quartz counter impart a boutique-spa vibe, while a pair of crisp double-ended sconces add a contemporary feel. Across the room, a graphic tile treatment ($1,570) spans the wall from the fluted soaking tub ($1,230) to the now-massive shower stall beside it.

Tristyn and Kamohai had mixed feelings about the bedroom: While they loved the bed’s new and more intuitive orientation, the pony wall and Murphy bed behind it didn’t make as much sense. “The one space in the house where you don’t want to share it with a guest,” Kamohai sighed. Splitting the room in two, from the judges’ perspective, was not a great move.

The bath suite, on the other hand, was a resounding success. “Especially in a market [like the one] where we are right now, it’s so saturated with vacation rentals,” Tristyn said. “So it’s really like: What is going to make yours stand out? And something like this [tub] will.” It was enough, in fact, to inspire the rare declaration of a tie. Team Mika shared bragging rights (and their prize money) with Team Ty.

The fourth week’s guest room challenge featured a guest renovator as well. To test the teams’ abilities to adapt and think on their feet, the judges repartnered them: Sarah left to work on Team Ty’s house, and Steven came over from Team Sarah to help Josiah for the week. “[Our wives are] typically the designers, so it’s really going to fall on our shoulders [this week], but I think we’ve got what it takes!” Josiah said.

He and Steven planned to max out this relatively small space by building custom bunk beds and living large with a kid-friendly, kaleidoscopic palette. With just four days and a budget of about $6,000, it was an ambitious plan.

Josiah and Steven invested $1,530 and serious sweat equity in creating this pair of custom installations. They installed vibrant wallpaper ($800) to bring the beach vibe indoors, then let its palette branch out into their molding, woodwork and ceiling color ($100). Reading lights with charging stations add functionality to each berth, and curtains provide a bit of privacy.

“They thought of all the details! [It’s] really, really cool in here,” Kamohai said. “I love the use of the space — cause it’s not a big space! To utilize the bunk beds and get heads in beds, again, super smart.”

“Thinking about that compared to the other [teams’] spaces, although this space is smaller you’re sleeping the same amount!” Tristyn added.

Details like the plywood Josiah and Steven wrapped around the bunk beds’ bones gave their work a sophisticated look. They balanced their bold botanical wallpaper, in turn, with more mild-mannered bedding and accessories that complement those tones without making the room feel too busy or nursery-like. Tristyn appreciated that restraint: “This does feel younger, kid-esque, but adults could totally sleep here,” she noted.

Steven and Josiah didn’t want to clutter the room with a big screen, but they did take Mika’s point in observing that the room lacked a source of entertainment. Why not a pair of VR glasses for rainy days at the beach house?

The judges lit up at that detail. “Of course you can tell it’s the dudes [designing this room] with the gaming!” Tristyn laughed. Though she and Kamohai would have liked to see more storage than the room’s meager closet offered, she had to concede that Team Mika (minus Anna, plus Steven) thought of just about everything — and they earned their place in the weekly winners’ circle.

Josiah and Anna needed every bit of their winning momentum to power through a fifth week of renovations, for the tasks at hand were daunting. They had to transform a bathroom on each floor of the house and a guest bedroom, and the Kalamas gave them another twist. Since baths are so pricey, why not cap that bedroom budget at $2,500 to balance things out?

“Since this bathroom’s on the first floor and it’s not far away from our main living areas, do we trickle that design aesthetic into this one since it’s on this main floor?” Mika asked.

“I think so,” Anna replied. “Keep the main floor more consistent, and then we can have more fun upstairs.”

Team Mika emphasized their bathroom’s height and created a moment that would stop vacation-rental scrollers in their tracks by creating a high-impact, striped tile wall in the shower. Anna made a strong color statement that picked up on the ground floor’s midcentury vibes by painting the vanity a warm shade of terra cotta, then DIYed a wall pattern with a fish stamp. That 10-minute treatment gave their room a one-of-a-kind look that nailed their “modern beach boutique” aesthetic at a fraction of what wallpaper would have cost.

Anna and Josiah budgeted $6,600 for the upstairs bath, an itty-bitty space that would retain its footprint and gain all-new fixtures and finishes. They planned to get creative with tile around an updated tub to attract those all-important browsing views.

Curvaceous, midcentury-inspired details like the new vanity mirror and triple sconce haul this bath out of the wishy-washy '80s and give it properly retro character. Sleek contemporary details like the stylish new faucet, in turn, layer in that all-important boutique feel. As in the updated bathroom downstairs, Anna chose an eye-catching, contrasting paint color to update the vanity and anchor the space’s new palette.

Anna updated the must-have tub area by stacking a tile with a bold, tambour-like vertical texture beneath square, hand-glazed white tiles, then highlighting the new shampoo niche with green tiles that match the paint she chose for the new vanity. Brushed brass fixtures extend the midcentury vibe she established at the vanity sink, and a terra-cotta-toned shower curtain continues the strong color story.

Tasked with transforming this bedroom for just $2,500 for Week 5, Team Mika knew sweat equity was going to get them across the finish line. “First thing I’m thinking is: What can we build with wood to make this bed pop?” Josiah mused. Anna, in turn, planned a gallery wall of beachy, thrifted decor and artwork that would make the space feel like much more than a standard-issue rental property.

Since this room gets plenty of light from its slider, Anna and Josiah felt free to splash out on bold, oceanic paint colors for the gallery wall and ceiling. A mint-green canister light in the new ceiling fan folds in yet another shade of teal, and its blades complement the reclaimed-wood wainscoting-as-headboard ($65). Elements of design from other rooms sneak in here as well: Anna framed a piece of wallpaper left over from the living room, used her fish stamp to create another piece of framed art and created an abstract canvas with the terra-cotta and green paint she used for the bathrooms’ vanities ($360).

Mika couldn’t wait to show the Kalamas her team’s design-challenge space: “Lucky for me, I got the team [that loves] to DIY and they love to thrift!”

Tristyn and Kamohai admired the headboard feature’s built-in LED strip lighting and the layered gallery wall above it. “Photo-wise, when I’m talking about marketing, this room would make me stop,” Tristyn said.

They also loved the bold stripe in the downstairs bathroom and Anna’s stamped “wallpaper” (definitely a first for the competition), but weren’t as wild about the many, many material choices in the full bath. “I just think they’re pushing it here with three tiles in the tub,” Tristyn commented. “I almost would have just liked to see just the white tile and let this [floor] be the moment.”

Josiah and Anna had just one more interior space to complete in their sixth week on the beach, but the assignment was a doozy. This room had to have multiple functions, one of which would be to dazzle renters as they sift through properties online. Anna markets the properties she and her husband rehab and rent out back home in Maryland, so she knew just how to approach the challenge. “It’s all about how it looks on camera,” she said. “Photos, videos, so let’s just go all out with this room.” Reasoning that families with kids would prefer rentals with built-in entertainment, they planned to build a game room that converted into a bedroom in a unique and memorable way.

Anna let her creativity go wild in this space and color-blocked a portion of the room with blue-gray paint, then draped fishing nets to create another photo-friendly backdrop. Graphic, wall-mounted board games offer rainy-day options, and a custom-built table tennis table features graphic stripes that echo the bold vertical tile pattern she and Josiah installed in the first-floor bathroom. Did we mention this table happens to share dimensions with an RV queen mattress?

Even by Anna’s DIY-maven standards, this convertible piece is something special. She and Josiah combined fold-down legs, a hydraulic lift and a fold-over hot tub lift ($90) to create what must be the world’s first Murphy-pong installation ($1,070). “I feel confident the ping--ong bed will work, but I’m afraid the judges might think there’s too many steps in the [conversion] process,” Josiah said.

“I think the only concern I have going into judging is the ping-pong table might be more successful with an actual tutorial video, not just written instructions — so that might cost us this win,” Mika said.

Anna layered in one more creative flourish by using a paint pen to draw a sunfish mural on the wall ($15), another selfie moment Tristyn and Kamohai couldn’t resist. As for the all-important convertible bed (as demonstrated by Team Mika’s trusty mentor with Kamohai’s assistance), what did they think? “The only thing I would say is because it took two of you [to convert], I think a tutorial along with the instructions [would be helpful],” Tristyn reasoned. That said, “This is cool, this is something that will stay in my brain forever, you know what I mean? And that’s what you want.”

Team Mika’s last days on the beach (and the last $16,130 of their budget) were spent polishing up their home’s all-important outdoor spaces. Happily, the house’s paint was in good shape and its color complemented the palette Anna and Josiah had developed indoors — so they decided to save themselves $10K by skipping a refresh. They also couldn’t add the hot tub they wanted to add to the beach-level deck, as its infrastructure couldn’t support the weight. What they could do was outfit their home with every amenity a renter could dream of (and some that might never have occurred to them and would be game-changing surprises).

Welcome to The Mariner’s Story! Anna and Josiah created an eye-catching logo that references Henry the sunfish, the larger-than-life character Anna drew on the game room wall. That pop of red carries through this beachy-bright ground-level space, where a fire pit anchors a casual sitting area and a cabana-striped outdoor shower ($680) nestles against the staircase.

While a hot tub out here would have been nice, a beach-level outdoor kitchen area with a built-in barbecue, wood-burning pizza oven and elevated stone countertops is pretty spectacular in its own right. Combining the outdoor dining and grilling areas on this level gave Anna and Josiah the ability to dedicate the home’s two other porches to very specific activities. They were determined to make sure this home left no vacationer unsatisfied.

Fighting the wind gusts that want to fling your nylon cabana into the ocean is great, but have you tried kicking back in a rocking chair on your own screened porch overlooking the waves? Anna and Josiah outfitted this space with lanterns, garden stools and textural container plants to create a gracious indoor-outdoor space that serves as the half-step between their chic interior and their many al fresco activity zones on the levels below.

The topmost deck became a private retreat (complete with curtains to come between guests and the neighbors) for the main suite’s occupants. The piscine theme continues on a graphic outdoor rug beneath a colorful yoga mat, and fitness accessories and free weights offer just enough equipment to keep a wellness regimen going. A wicker plant caddy and rolling recovery-tool cart add natural texture to keep the space from feeling too gadget-heavy.

Technically Henry the sunfish and the transformable ping-pong table in the game room are Team Mika’s social-media moment, but can we talk about how they transformed their carport into a picture-perfect pool deck complete with a disco ball? Pivoting from a hot tub to this stock tank ($650), Anna and Josiah created the ultimate outdoor fun zone with a custom deck, twinkling outdoor string lights and accessories that just don’t stop. The coup de grâce, parked just out of sight here: They invested $3,300 in the “secret X factor” of a golf cart. Can you drive a new coat of exterior paint along the coast and to the grocery store? You cannot.

It should go without saying that Team Mika won this round easily, but we’ll make it official: Kamohai and Tristyn couldn’t help giving them the win. Tristyn praised them for being the only team to put a fire pit on the beach (with a hammock hanging from the stairs beside it, no less). Both she and Kamohai gasped at the unexpected addition of the stock-tank pool and deck area. “Tell me,” Kamohai said, “this golf cart comes with this rental?””

“BAM!” Mika replied.

The very last challenge was a walk-off home run for Anna and Josiah — but was it enough to carry them to an overall win on the beach?