July 14, 2015, Updated July 22, 2015
Ashton Kutcher surprises his parents with a renovation using Israeli app Houzz. (Houzz screen grab)
Ashton Kutcher surprises his parents with a renovation using Israeli app Houzz. (Houzz screen grab)

Ashton Kutcher has upped his role from an investor in online home design website, Houzz, to being the new face of the Israeli-created company.

The 37-year-old Kutcher can now be seen in short video clips all over social media, talking about his decision to use Houzz to remodel his childhood home.

“I think everybody has a place in their life that they call home that sort of has that feeling of home,” he says in the documentary. “The renovation we are going to be doing is on a place that I call home.”

Kutcher explains how he helped build his childhood home in Iowa with his stepfather, Mark Portwood, when he was just 13. He says his mother had long wanted to convert the basement into a lighter, airier space and as such he decided to do it for her as a surprise thank you gift. As he is located in California, the Hollywood actor — a known high-tech investor — says it was the obvious choice to turn to technology to get the project done.

Kutcher, with the help of Portwood, created an ideabook on Houzz, found a local interior designer in Iowa to implement the ideas, and bought nearly all the new furnisher through the Houzz shop. A camera crew followed them from the planning stages through construction.

In the documentary, the actor says the Israeli-made app – which draws more than 25 million visitors to its photo galleries each month – was the perfect choice to make the home “fit for the next generation of his family.”

 

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