My husband and I are big fans of the show, but we are dying to figure out what that tattoo is. We have TiVo, and have paused many times at many angles trying to decipher it, but since we don’t have hi-def or a big screen, we can’t quite make it out. We tried to google “mike holmes” tattoo, but didn’t get any info that way. Can anybody help!
Make it Right , but I can’t tell what the picture is.
http://www.tattooartists.org/Img55574_NIX_TORONTO_2006_Img55574_MVC-.asp
I’ve never heard of the guy, but does he ever uncross his arms?
Yes, usually to pull apart some idiot’s substandard construction. Then he looks disgusted, looks at his crew and says, “Take it all down.” I like Mike, I wish he would come and work on my house.
He does a show on DIY Network where he comes in and fixes the problems other contractors have done. Everything from shoddy flooring jobs to contractors who take the money and run without ever doing the work.
I think, based on the credits, that the show is shot in Canada, so Canadian laws apply. Among other things, I’ve seen shows where
A woman called because her basement window wasn’t installed correctly, and he ended up ripping out the entire basement
A couple who went a YEAR without a kitchen sink (the husband hooked up some garden hose/metal tub contraption as a fix) because the contractor booked with the money.
It’s nice to know that the “Make it Right” is a new tattoo … we thought it was a fake one. But what I’m really asking about is the one below that. I think it looks like an anarchy symbol.
Actually, it is on Discovery Home channel, not DIYNetwork. And yes he is Canadian, he has only done work in the US on one occasion I know of, when Ellen DeGeneres had him on her show and he helped run a reconstruction on a house in LA. Sometimes he deals with fairly small problems, other times he has gutted and rebuilt an entire house.
Ah…thanks…I knew it was one of the Home and Garden type channels.
This is getting more into CS territory, but who pays to have the houses fixed? I just discovered (no pun intended) the show about two weeks ago, and like it a lot. Do the homeowners pay to have it “made right”, or does the show pay for everything?
And I too wish he would come work on my house.
The homeowners don’t pay anything - which is good for them, as Mike frequently ends up doing far more to “make it right” than the homeowners ever thought was necessary, plus he throws in unplanned upgrades besides. I suspect he’s sponsored by the tool & material manufacturers whose products he uses on the show.
And I’ll give it yet another endorsement. It’s really educational to see how poorly things can get done, & what’s needed for a proper job. Plus it’s fun to see the homeowners’ faces at the reveal after months of contractor-induced hell. 
It should say “I’m really attractive and should take my shirt off more often.”
But I can’t quite make it out from the angle of the picture there. I’ve never actually watched the show, but as a followup, is the angle of the show similar to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where every episode is a sob story? I’m no longer able to watch that show because I either giggle at how over-the-top the family’s situation is or cry when they go into the newly done spaces and cry and cry and cry. I’m big on sympathetic crying.
The vast majority of his shows - the Ellen appearances may be the only exceptions - are shot in homes in the greater Toronto area, where he is from and ran his companies, so the laws of the Province of Ontario apply. I don’t imagine the laws much differ from anywhere else.
I’ve worked with some people who know him, and the general consensus is that he pours it on pretty thick for the camera, but is a genuinely honest contractor whose emphasis is on getting things done correctly, not cheaply. If I won a lottery, I would hire him, or someone he recommended, to build/renovate my dream home.
AFAIK, they don’t use the sob story angle. He might rip out a bathroom where the contractor didn’t install the tiling properly and there’s water damage and mould, but it’s not like EM:HO where they picked that family 'cause they have five kids and two puppies who are dying from asthma due to the mould. He just fixes shoddy construction, and they don’t really talk about the homeowner’s personal lives.
I did see an episode where a family was gutting out a house or something and they ended up living in an RV provided by the contractor because the contractor was having problems getting the work done.
In swoops Mike with his team, and they start fixing and finishing up so the family can move in. He did say at one point he had to tell the wife “We’re going to make it so you can move in, but we’re not doing this that and the other upgrades.” I guess she was asking for them to rip out stuff that was fine and upgrade it. I was shocked that she could be so nervy…she admitted living in an RV was putting a strain on her marriage, and she and the kids had to go stay in a motel every few weeks just to give her and her husband a break from each other.
I’m a huge fan. He does ham it up on occasion but I really do believe he’s offended by shoddy and/or fraudulent construction practises and wants to educate people on these issues.
He’s also done a show from Alberta and one from Newfoundland, but mostly from the Toronto area. Applicable codes would be the National Building Code of Canada (NBCC) and the Ontario Building Code (OBC). All provincial codes must be based on, or be derived from, the NBCC.
One of the recurring themes in his shows, esp. in the earlier episodes, is how building code minimum standards are often only barely adequate and how limited some legal protections for the homeowner really are.
To provide some background context for the show and why it’s Ontario location is particularly appropriate, is that one of the major problems we face here in Ontario is that unlike many (most?) other jurisdictions, there’s no licensing body for building contractors. That means that any moron with a hammer and a truck can set up shop as a contractor without having to meet any standards. I guarantee that Holmes has no problem finding shoddy jobs for his show.
In the small engineering firm I work at, we get 1 or 2 walk-ins every couple of months from people who have ended up with construction screw-ups as bad, or worse, than anything Holmes has had on his show. Of course, the competent and honest contractors I know, hate these fly-by-nighters because they give the entire industry a bad name. Unfortunately, I don’t think anything will change until we finally start reining these guys in.
He has had a few shows were the people had bad times going on. One of the renovations was redoing a bathroom for an elderly woman that was wheelchair bound. But most of them are just finding shoddy work and fixing it.
Actually, according to the FAQ on the show’s website, the home owners do pay for part of the job. It varies according to what is done and the ability of the homeowner to pay. On one show, the people got ripped off by the contractor doing their tiling (pretty much the entire first floor), then the tile company showed up looking for their money because the contractor had ripped them off also. The tile company helped the homeowners out, contacted Holmes on Holmes, and donated the new tile for the show to come in and do it right.
Interesting, thanks, I hadn’t realized that. Still, on those occasions when the job ends up being much bigger than the fix originally requested (e.g., homeowner has a leaking floor in an unfinished bath, and Mike H. ends up redoing the entire bathroom, complete with marble and glass tile of his choice), I can’t imagine the homeowners end up stuck with too much of the bill.
But what about the tattoo?!
I just discovered the show a few weeks ago, and now I’m hooked too. One thing I have to wonder is that it looks like sometimes he can spend weeks or even months on a project, and although I’m sure he has several jobs going at once, how does he manage to come up with a new show every week?
FatBalGuy, he has started up the Holmes Foundation in Canada to educate homeowners and work to improve the contractor laws and such. In the video where he talks about it, located on his website, he says he can only help at most 13 or 14 families a year, but he received thousands of requests for help.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have a new show every week. If you check the episode lists on his website, he only does 13 or 14 shows a season. Season 7 is only up to 3 so far, and I haven’t seen them in the US yet. You are lucky, if you are just starting to watch, there are a lot out there for you to catch up on.
I don’t know what his tattoo is either but wanted to mention one of my favourite elements of his show. Even though he lays it on a bit thick for the cameras, he does a great job of explaining what he’s looking for in a given situation and of explaining how to tell if the job is being done correctly when you do hire a contractor. It’s helped me tremendously when having work done.