Hilary Farr Leaving Love It or List It After 19 Seasons: ‘I've Given It So Many Years of My Life’ (Exclusive)

“It’s time for me to move on and face new challenges,” one of the hosts of the long-running HGTV hit series tells PEOPLE

After 19 seasons on HGTV helping families transform their homes Like or mention, Hilary Farr is saying goodbye to the show.

The home design expert, who has co-hosted the series with real estate agent David Visentino since 2008, shared the news exclusively with PEOPLE.

“I gave so many years of my life,” she says. “He got me through hard times. He carried the audience through difficult times. It developed into a mainstay of people’s lives and was incredibly satisfying. But now it’s time for me to move on and face new challenges.”

Farr, who is beloved on the show for her sophisticated renovations and quick takedowns (usually of her co-stars), reveals that she made the decision nearly a year ago, when she finished filming the final season. “I realized that everything is that I am like a woman, which is [that I] look for challenges, look for inspiration, look for new ideas, be excited about all the possibilities that are out there, they really should have blossomed and found their way,” she says. “I told everyone I was done.”

“I thought everyone accepted it, but they didn’t,” she says. When it came time to shoot the show’s 20th season, “Everybody came back and said, ‘So Like or mention?'” She admits that she had to “rethink and really examine, did I want to come back or not? With all the love in the world, the answer was no. It’s just time.”

David Visentin and Hilary Farr.

courtesy of Hilary Farr

2021, while it is still being made Like or mention, Farr began starring in a solo network series, Tough Love with Hilary Farr, which he says he enjoys in a different way. The series, in which Farr comes up with creative solutions for clients’ dysfunctional spaces, aired its second season this fall.

When Farr told Visentino she was leaving, she says, “He didn’t believe me. He said, ‘Oh, you say that’.”

“We are who we are [in real life] in that show,” she adds. “Think of your brother as his most obnoxious and boring, that’s David.”

Farr says she will miss “everything” about working with Visentina, recalling how he supported her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014 and underwent three lumpectomies and radiation. He is now in remission.

“I worked all the way through cancer and it was always there,” she says. “And he had his little rough patches here and there, and we were there for each other. Yes, it’s a big deal. I don’t know if that will change.”

He adds that the long-standing friendship “will not just disappear because we don’t work together.”

WATCH: Hilary Farr tackles a very different project on ‘Love It or List It’ — her own home

Farr doesn’t know if he will Like or mention will continue without her, but says she “wouldn’t be surprised” if the show is looking for a new co-host.

“I wish them all the happiness in the world,” he adds. “And I would probably tune in and watch.”

As for the third season Tough love? “We will see what happens there. I won’t move away at all,” she teases him.

In the meantime, Farr says he has “a few other things in the pipeline.” It also focuses on an unexpected purchase she made last fall: a piece of land in Italy where she intends to build a “little house.” “It will be an adventure,” he says.

Bryan Bedder/Getty

‘Love It or List It’ Hilary Farr reveals breast cancer for the first time: ‘I could have died’

Farr says her experience with cancer has changed her perspective on what’s important to her and how she spends her time.

“Now I’m very aware that I really want to get joy out of every day and that’s one of the reasons why it’s time for me to leave Like or mention, because it was getting too easy … I was in a daze. It’s been so many years. You want to feel that every day is something different and special and take on these challenges. I think that actually drives me.”

HGTV

Still, Farr says being on the show taught her things about herself — and the viewers it touched.

For the designer, “this show covered divorce, cancer, my son getting married, my son having three children, my long-term breakup. In fact, my partner of all those years got cancer.”

Farr says the experience was particularly inspiring tough love in which she wanted to highlight “difficulties or challenges in your life that fly at you.”

“I really learned about the tremendous impact this show had out there,” she says. “I mean, I meet people who have gone through terrible experiences and desperate grief and they tell me that this show was a lifesaver for them. This helped them. It also helped me get through the good times and the bad.”

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“I’ve learned that every minute that I think that there are so many things going on in this world that are so horrible, I’m sure I should be doing something more meaningful, that I was actually doing something meaningful doing the show,” she continued. “It was a pleasure to reach that understanding. I grew up as a designer, I grew up as a man and I understood the value of love and friendship. Every season and episode was a challenge. That’s what I love.”

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Source: HIS Education