Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack Together Again—for Season 11 of ‘Flip or Flop’

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Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack are back for Season 11 of “Flip or Flop.”

So much has changed since these exes were last on air together—El Moussa is engaged to Heather Rae Young, Haack is divorced from Ant Anstead—but this flipping duo has stuck together and stayed the course. And for good reason: For all their differences and occasional bickering, they make a great flipping team.

In this season’s premiere, “Fifties Flip,” El Moussa and Haack buy a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Norwalk, CA, for $395,000. Since the house comes with some fun 1950s appliances, Haack decides to give this house a retro-inspired design.

Yet with only $82,000 to spend on the renovation, money is tight, and these two butt heads (as usual) on a variety of decisions. Here’s how they finish this flip, which contains plenty of take-home lessons for the rest of us on how to renovate a home.

Make your front door pop with color

This house wasn’t retro—it just looked dated.

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While Haack and El Moussa want this house to have a retro look, they decide that the existing exterior color is just plain dated. While Haack originally suggests yellow, they decide to go with a more subtle look, including white and gray with a blue door. The gray and white style looks great, and the blue adds a little extra personality to the exterior, even though it’s not easily visible from the street.

When El Moussa takes his and Haack’s 10-year-old daughter, Taylor, to see the house, she’s surprised to see the blue door.

“Wait, why is the door popping blue?” she asks.

These colors make this midcentury house look fresh again.

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“You just said it,” El Moussa responds. “A pop of blue because it stands out, and we wanted to bring some character to the house.”

It seems the exterior is Taylor-approved—and perhaps El Moussa and Haack have a new designer in the family!

Taylor El Moussa is impressed with her parents’ latest flip.

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A backsplash can be colorful, too—to a point

Christina Haack loves this retro oven.

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When Haack and El Moussa first tour this house, they’re delighted by the mint green oven from the 1950s.

“The best part of this house is that ’50s-style oven,” Haack says. “It’s so cool, like, I love the color.”

While the oven unfortunately must go, Haack wants to at least take inspiration from it by choosing a fun pink tile for the backsplash. It’s a retro color, like the oven, but El Moussa disapproves.

These two colorful backsplash tiles would both look great in a midcentury modern kitchen.

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So in the end, they stick to a safer color palette by choosing a tile with whites, blues, and grays. This geometric backsplash looks retro without being too pink. Both Haack and El Moussa are happy with it.

“It has that retro look with a modern vibe,” Haack says.

Butcher block counters add some nice wood tones

This old kitchen needed a refresh.

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In the kitchen, Haack continues with the midcentury look by using butcher block counters.

“Butcher block counters are not necessarily retro,” Haack says, “but they are that same nice wood tone that [was] here in the original cabinets.”

Some wood tones bring a midcentury style to the home.

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In the end, the light butcher block brightens up the kitchen and complements the white cabinetry.

Gray tiles add more depth than plain old white

These shower tiles weren’t their first choice, but they look great.

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While renovating the bathrooms, El Moussa and Haack run into a problem when their original tile choice is out of stock. As a plan B, they can either replace it with a larger version of the gray tile that they liked or use a plain white tile.

El Moussa ends up liking the larger gray option: “I love this one. It gives a little bit more detail, a little bit more depth.”

Once installed, the gray tiles look perfect—adding some drama to the bathroom that wouldn’t have been achieved with plain old white.

Go bold with bathroom wallpaper

This space already had wallpaper, but this floral design was too dated.

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In the second bathroom, Haack and El Moussa want to put up some midcentury-inspired wallpaper and they select one with lots of color and shapes.

“Love the geometric-ness of this, and I like how it has the pops of gold,” Haack says.

However, it seems they may be going overboard with wallpaper because once it’s up on one wall, Haack and El Moussa decide that it’s just too busy to extend to the third wall. Still, the wallpaper looks great. It’s a bold bathroom—but also stylish.

This wallpaper is modern but also has some midcentury flair.

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When this house is finished, Haack and El Moussa decide to list it for a mere $599,9000, hoping this will spark a bidding war that’ll drive up the price.

Sure enough, these flippers end up receiving a staggering 19 offers over the following weeks. They sell the house for $650,000 and, after paying closing costs and commissions, walk away with a profit of just over $130,000.

It looks like in the end, Haack and El Moussa can still work together for a successful flip!

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