• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, August 20, 2010

Robert Matthew Van Winkle will star in a home-improvement series on the DIY Network this fall. Yeah, baby! As in "Ice, Ice Baby." 

While some may have thought Van Winkle -- the performer known as Vanilla Ice -- has effectively fallen asleep since his 1990s star turn, he still tours, notably overseas. Back home, he has apparently developed a passion for home improvement -- so much so that he taught himself the ins and outs.

DIY could use some cool, and Ice might help with the "Vanilla Ice Project," where the 42-year-old will overhaul, room by room, his 7,000-square-foot mansion Palm Beach mansion in 10 half-hour episodes starting in October. The aim is to put the new creation on the market, but problems come with a range of fix-up tasks.

The network released some Ice insight, in which he stated that "the process of transforming something from grime to shine influences me."

DIY, part of Scripps Networks Interactive, is in 53 million homes and has been posting lackluster ratings. By one measure, from late September through early August, prime-time average in the 25-to-54 demo was 55,000, which was down 11% from the same period the year before.

Van Winkle isn't the first pop star to dive into reality TV. Flavor Flav did "Flavor of Love" for VHI, while Poison frontman Bret Michaels spent three seasons on VH1 as well as "Celebrity Apprentice 3."