TV: Petra gets a home life

By LOUISA CLEAVE

Marriage, a house and a new prime-time show and TV3's hot property, Petra Bagust, still doesn't feel "grown up."

The 28-year-old has had a huge year — marrying cameraman Hamish Wilson in April, working on her sixth season of Ice As and travelling to Cambodia to film a video for the 40-Hour Famine with Ice co-host Jon Bridges.

The pace has not slowed yet. She is half-way through filming her new show, Hot Property.

The cross between Changing Rooms and Location, Location, Location has Bagust, interior designer Peter Reid and handyman Wayne Bowden sprucing up hard-to-sell homes which have been on the market longer than usual.

Not an easy job in the depressed property market, admits Bagust. The first two homes have not sold. Not so difficult has been adjusting to married life.

Bagust, a Christian who made it known she would not have sex before marrying, says: "It's quite fun, quite like a kind of adventure. You've only got one flatmate and he stays in the same room as you. You've only got two people to clean up after. It's great." But now the newlyweds find themselves constantly dodging questions of children.

"As soon as you are married that is the question you're asked. I'm like, 'Yeah, one day maybe.' I'm not ready for a cat yet!"

Hot Property is giving Bagust courage to start making moves on decorating the home Wilson bought and she rented before they married.

With a degree in fine arts and an interior-decorator mother, Bagust has ideas by the truckload.

"I think I'll theme each room [to countries],"she says. "Hamish travels quite a lot so I'm collecting different things from different countries.

"Mum's trying to make us paint our lounge red but I haven't given in yet. I might give in."

Bagust says New Zealanders' notorious interest in other people's homes and the variation on the theme of other makeover home shows should attract viewers to Hot Property.

So, are shows like her latest one and the previous Dreams Come True and Time of Your Life the grown-up side of Bagust?

Working for a youth-oriented network, she doesn't think so.

"TV3 see it as a really adult role for me and I say, 'Oh, really?' You wonder what you've been doing that's really childish you have to stop doing it. I just see myself doing another show."

Besides, she has a hard time thinking of herself as a grown-up.

"Doing those things like joining a gym or buying a house is like, 'Does this make me an adult now?' TV is a funny thing. The way I work it is to never have a strategy. Your plan can't go wrong if you don't have one."

That freestyling attitude comes through when Bagust says she often turns to her husband and exclaims: "Guess what? We're married! We're like married to each other. Did you realise that's what we were doing?

"Which is really cool, but it's like when sometimes you freak out when you get on an airplane, and then you get off the plane and all of a sudden you're in a different country, and it's only been a number of hours."

Bagust does not feel the need to change her presenting style when moving between hosting Hot Property and Ice As, which still has seven episodes to run this year, but she found she had to make some adjustments to her language.

"I keep going, 'Let's sell this puppy.' You can't really call houses puppies on the show, and that's something I've picked up from Jon Bridges."

Bagust and Bridges, good friends, travelled to Cambodia this year to make their fourth 40-Hour Famine video for schools.

Bagust says her six days in the country were an eye-opener — seeing people living on rubbish tips — but she was impressed by the good work being done with money raised through the annual event.

Yes, she is still "hanging with God," which makes the "spoilt princess" persona she has developed this year on Ice As all the more contradictory.

This stemmed from the revelation that her wedding boots, which she had hoped to borrow but ended up buying, cost $835.

"It's a complete act. We muck around with me doing fashion stories pretending I don't want to get my hands dirty, which is not really me," says Bagust.

"The [Ice As] team to me feels like it's really gelling. I think the show's really sifted or percolated now, in terms that we're all balanced. Like a train now, we're all rolling. Is that a mixed metaphor or what!"

She is not sure what plans TV3 has for Ice As but if a seventh series went to air she would be in for the ride.

"Hell, why not make it seven? As it keeps growing and changing you stay challenged."