Gidding was born in
Istanbul, Turkey, to an American father and a
Turkish mother. He lived in Turkey until moving to the United States for college after attending
Leysin American School in
Leysin, Switzerland. He graduated from
Yale University in 1999 with a BA in architecture, then the
Harvard Graduate School of Design with a Master's in architecture. At Yale he sang
a cappella with
The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, and choral music with the
Yale Glee Club, and at Harvard he sang with the
Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. Gidding moved to New York City, where he started John Gidding Design, Inc. after working for two years as a designer for
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. Gidding's start in television was with the
ABC Family TV show
Knock First, where he and three other designers took turns
making over teenagers' bedrooms.
Designed to Sell (Giddings' previous show from 2006 to 2011) was cancelled in early 2011 by HGTV, and
Knock First is still running in syndication internationally. He is best known as the designer on
Curb Appeal: The Block where his team spent $20,000 on improvements to the exterior and landscaping of chosen homeowners. Less expensive touch-ups were done for 2 or 3 nearby neighbors' homes to improve overall neighborhood property values. In 2015 he was one of the expert judges on the Fox TV show
Home Free. He joined the reboot of
Trading Spaces, joining the cast alongside
Paige Davis and
Vern Yip. He is currently back on HGTV, with a relaunch of the popular franchise, Curb Appeal Xtreme. ==Personal life==