[1] Yvonne separated from Ty's father when he and his older brother Wynn were very young, and spent several years as a single parent before she remarried.
[7] A self-described "Jack of all trades",[8] Pennington learned woodworking early in life and began teaching himself about carpentry and home improvement.
In 2003, when ABC began developing a show that would rehab the homes of deserving families in seven days or less, Pennington was chosen as the leader of the eight-person design team.
Pennington was extremely dedicated to the show, spending on average 240 days of the year working, and was known to have fought off anything from pulled muscles to heatstroke to food poisoning to keep doing his job.
[citation needed] He stated that his career on the show resulted in the channel's commissioning Ty Pennington's Great British Adventure, in which he worked with communities including Portreath, Cornwall (UK) to restore a run-down town park in a week and Portishead, Somerset (UK) to renovate the town's derelict outdoor pool into a community-run Lido.
Afterwards, Pennington relocated from Los Angeles to New York City, where he was cast to take part in the lifestyle-based talk show The Revolution, which aired on ABC in January 2012.
In January 2021, HGTV debuted Ty Breaker, a show[12] that features Pennington helping families struggling to make their homes work for their changing lives.
Pennington joined the HGTV renovation competition series, Rock The Block, as host for its 2nd season,[13] which premiered on March 8, 2021, and has continued in that role since.
[15] Prior to his partnership with Sears, Pennington was the owner and designer of his company, Furniture Unlimited, based in Atlanta and Los Angeles.
On July 25, 2008, he announced a 3-year partnership with Marketplace Events, the largest organizer of consumer remodeling, home decor and gardening shows in North America.
In September 2008, Pennington became the spokesperson for Abbott Nutrition and their baby formula packaging innovation called Similac SimplePac.