I Hung Out In The Brady Bunch Kitchen And It Was A Retro Wonderland

The Brady Experience is a brand new tour of a pretty old house. Located in North Hollywood, California, the "Brady Bunch" house has been a tourist attraction since the sitcom first debuted on television in 1969. Now, nearly 60 years since the premiere of America's first favorite family, the home at 11222 Dilling Street is sometimes called the second most photographed house in the country following The White House. 

But the facade of the house was the only part that we saw on TV. While the exterior of the house was used as the establishing shot, all of the interior scenes were filmed on a sound stage just over the hill at the Paramount Studios Lot in Hollywood. It wasn't until HGTV purchased the house in 2018 that the home's interior matched what we watched on TV all those years ago. The program "A Very Brady Renovation" took an array of HGTV stars — as well as some of the Brady kids themselves — to completely redo the home to match what the "Brady Bunch" house should look like inside and out.

Following the renovation and subsequent television series, HGTV sold the house to the current owner in September 2023. Now, three years later, Tina Trahan is welcoming guests into the home for the very first time, allowing visitors to photograph not just the exterior, but every room of the Brady house. I got to check out the iconic kitchen before the house opened to the public.

A lot of work had to be done by both Trahan and the HGTV team to make a nearly exact replica of "The Brady Bunch" set. The biggest issue, and the first tackled during the initial renovation, was that the house was too small to fit all of the rooms that the Bradys needed to live comfortably. HGTV contractors and talent built the kitchen and adjoining family room in a new addition to the house, scaling down the size of the already massive backyard to add another 2,000 square feet. It's estimated that $1.9 million was spent on the renovation. 

Everything from the brick wall to the retro linoleum floors had to be built from the ground up to match its soundstage counterpart. Unfortunately, Alice wouldn't have much to do in this kitchen with inoperative appliances, as Trahan revealed to The Guardian in 2023. "Anything you might do to make the house liveable would take away from what I consider artwork."

The bright orange countertops came from a laminate supplier that has been in operation for decades, meaning that it could potentially be the same source that provided the original countertops to Paramount Studios back in the 60s. To ensure that the color was correct, "A Very Brady Renovation" had Eve Plum, who played Jan, confirm which shade of orange was the best match. While the vibrant orange might be deemed ugly anywhere else, they feel right at home at the "Brady Bunch" house. 

The avocado green fridge, the stacked double ovens, and the stainless steel countertop burner are three instantly recognizable features in the "Brady Bunch" kitchen. The whole room would be thrown off without a perfect match for these appliances, and luckily HGTV left them behind when the house was sold.

Still, it was no easy feat to source major appliances popular in the 1960s. In "A Very Brady Renovation," Steve Ford finds the functional cooktop stove after rummaging through a vintage appliance store in Los Angeles. The signature green refrigerator, though, had to come from way out of state. 

After an appeal to the public for help, one "Brady Bunch" fan all the way in Michigan donated her working avocado green refrigerator that was collecting dust in a closet. "It's not the star of the kitchen anymore," the previous owner said about the fridge that her parents had purchased in the 60s. In order to get the massive double door refrigerator to North Hollywood, it was strapped to the back of a truck and driven all the way from Michigan. 

It's not just the major appliances that match the old "Brady Bunch" set, but every little detail from the bread box to the decorative fish hanging on the walls. "My life became a treasure hunt for the vintage items in the home," Trahan told Daily Meal. Throughout the process, she made an effort to find authentic pieces from second hand shops instead of making mostly modern-day dupes. "Only when something did not exist at all did I have it made," she says. 

Over time, Trahan managed to find exact matches for most of the ins and outs of the Brady kitchen. Floral salt and pepper shakers, an old coffee pot, dishes with chickens on them, and a hanging photo of a pineapple all adorn the kitchen just like they did on the set of "The Brady Bunch" all those years ago. Trahan even managed to find the same coffee mugs used by mom and dad Carol and Mike.

The details don't stop there, with finishing touches like an avocado green bread box and matching green blender adding to the 60s aesthetic. The kitchen table is a matching orange with chairs that had to be painted the perfect shade of green to match the rest of the quirky kitchen. Like the cast of "The Brady Bunch" pointed out during filming of the initial renovation: "There's only one place on Earth that you can be" in an orange and green kitchen.

The entire house is filled with easter eggs for fans of "The Brady Bunch" to discover for themselves, like the light-up skull in the fridge that starts singing once the doors open. The chalkboard in the corner of the kitchen lists the ingredients that kept getting erased before Alice could manage to bake her cake. You can find mail, trophies, newspaper clippings, and other personal items of the Brady family all throughout the two-story home. 

Some of the items are props that were used in the original series, sourced from Paramount as gifts or bought via auctions. Other items came from superfans of "The Brady Bunch" who graciously donated to this makeshift museum. An incredible amount of thought went into every little detail of the kitchen and the rest of the house. Even the paper towel roll has a soft green glow to it — an easy-to-overlook touch and a clever nod to Mr. Brady making a huge mess with Marcia in the kitchen. 

The house itself was built in 1959, around 10 years before it became famous as the "Brady Bunch" house. After the longtime owner passed away, HGTV purchased the property for almost twice the asking price at $3.5 million in 2018. Just a few years later, after "A Very Brady Renovation" had come and gone, they sold it to Trahan in 2023 for $3.2 million. "What drew me to purchase the house was the concern someone might tear the house down," Trahan says. "The connection people feel to the home is part of why preserving it matters." 

Now, The Brady Experience is hosting self-guided tours through the middle of July. Tickets are rather pricey at nearly $300 each, but a portion of the proceeds benefit Wags and Walks, a local nonprofit dog rescue organization in West LA. According to officials running the tour, over 1,000 tickets have already been sold in just under two weeks.

After publicly available tours conclude in July, Trahan says she will continue to showcase the house to benefit various charities. Private tours will be available to purchase as a unique auction item experience. For Trahan, it's all about preserving a piece of Hollywood history. "Even standing outside and taking a photo has become a meaningful ritual for millions of people," she says, "knowing that it's the second most photographed house in the country after The White House shows you how much the show meant to so many people."