Huh, well there you go. I was hoping it’d be in the US, to give a better sense of the housing market (I have no idea what sort of other costs, fees, etc. are involved in buying a house in Canada).
I enjoy watching the shows, tho I have no delusions of them being “real”. I enjoy Love It mainly because it reflects the difficult tradeoffs that must be made in a rehab/move.
The prices are really crazy, tho. Would be really nice if they would provide a link to a breakdown of costs. Sure seems like the appliances and materials and furnishings alone would eat up a HUGE portion of the stated budgets.
I used to like Bang for Your Buck as well.
We are currently gutting our kitchen and main bath - in a home we wish to be carried out of in boxes. I am astounded at the number of choices that must be made to make them the kitchen and bath WE want to use. Couldn’t imagine letting someone else make all those choices for us. Of course, there are some decisions where we defer to the experts - our designer and the installers.
There is a show that does exactly that, actually. I don’t know how it works in detail- whether they come back and finish up, or whether it’s just kind of sketchy, but the idea is that the homeowners go out to dinner, and they do a bunch of renovation work in 2-3 hours.
I like the comments about it not being “real”. My wife used to watch those shows all the time until we actually had our kitchen renovated (with an excellent contractor even), and now she just watches those shows on occasion mostly to make fun of them, since they’re so obviously, absurdly unrealistic that they’re not fun to watch.
She does like that show where the homeowners do their own idiotic home improvements and botch everything, but I don’t like it- I’ve done enough of that kind of thing so that watching other people do the dumbest things imaginable isn’t entertaining at all.
I have a really really really specific sense of style, and I have spent untold hours trying to decide between different shades of green paint, or agonizing over whether to use flat or semi-gloss. No way in hell would I let anyone re-do my house without my input. ESPECIALLY no renovations. Yeah, I want some shoddy ass worker yanking out my 60 year old, period perfect bathroom tile to replace it with some poorly installed garbage he got at a discount because they advertise on the show. :rolleyes:
In other words: DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY HOUSE!
Note that the people who appear on these shows do not have guns held to their heads; they choose to participate. So presumably, if you’re picky about your “specific sense of style” or you love your “period perfect bathroom tile”, your house will not be on one of these shows.
I read something by someone who had this done to her home a while ago, and she said that because of budget and the deadline the work was really shoddy. They can film around mistakes.
I wouldn’t let any such show near my house.
The only people that I would let anywhere near my house are the crew of “This Old House.” According to the FAQ on their website, (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/info/0,20045197,00.html) all renovations are paid for by the homeowner although some deals/discounts may be negotiated by the show. This show has been on for decades and they can renovate circles around the folks on DIY or HGTV (except perhaps for Mike Holmes as he also seems to know what he is doing). On “This Old House” the homeowners are consulted on every step of the renovation process.
My husband and I often joke that if we ever win the lottery we will call up “Tommy and the boys” to come and renovate our house. Of course depending on how much we won, we might end up moving…
:dubious:
Well, yeah, obviously. The question in the OP was, “Don’t TV renovation homeowners have preferences? Do you?” so I answered.
Personally, I’m in love with Norm and I flat out told my husband if I ever have the chance, I’m leaving him for Norm’s workshop. I mean, Norm! 
We are also addicts of these kinds of shows.
In part, you are correct when mentioning there are hundreds, if not thousands, of little choices to be made in any renovation. Just check out the godawful Candy Spelling series where she built her “mansion in the sky” and that woman is a nutcase -she will fly in someone to hand paint over electrical outlets and spend a fortune to have all the handles in the kitchen custom designed…working with her would be a nightmare. She is a prime example of micro-management, with an unlimited budget, that still looks garish and tacky when it is all complete.
I would think if you gave a good designer a decent budget and a few must-haves, plus an over-all description (ultra sleek modern), you would probably get close to what you want, and you could make a few minor changes later down the line. Plus, from a lot of these homes “before”, well - a well placed bomb would be an improvement.
I do notice in Love It or List It, they will give $50,000 and the overall increase in home value (after deducting that $50,000) is only about $25,000 - so no big deal there.
But a lot of the value is from the choice of color, paint, fixtures, design, upgrades - and if you have someone else do it, well - you will never get exactly what you wanted, but sometimes a good designer can do better than what you thought might be a good idea.
Note that a lot of people (me included) don’t have a well-developed sense of style. So we can appreciate what the designer comes up with even if it doesn’t match our initial, vague sense of what we want.
Totally agree. Though I really can’t see them doing ugly. Plain instead of fancy, yes but never ugly.
Yup - this. I have issues watching the property flipper type shows - I about had a stroke after watching one show where the fuckwads chainsawed through pristine early craftsman woodwork to install a large screen tv home theater system.
The show where you let some neighbor in to redecorate one room - some dumb idiot put adhesive on a wall and then more or less tossed handsfull of straw at the wall - GTFO of my house you dumb bitch. I swear, I have no idea what gives people their ideas. The first design show I remember was some woman who was a no shit interior decorator back in the 80s - but her stuff was always the front cover of magazine style designs that are difficult to live in if you have kids or tons of books.
Though there was a show on with some big burly biker looking guy [Antonio?] who did some striking nontraditional work, one hotel suite had tag art [the stuff guys do on walls with spray cans] that while not to my personal taste for at home, I could enjoy staying at a hotel for a weekend as it was very visually interesting.
I also like the guy who goes in and does the basement apartments so the people can make some money to defray their mortgages. He has pretty decent taste in colors and finishes - he is at least more neutral than some designers. [Though the guy who is really into colors and will sit down and use colored pencils and color in his design plans is interesting. ]
I would love to see what Mike Holmes and his crew could do to this huge Queen Anne Victorian I went to a party in - absolutely beautiful bones, just too many years of lack of maintenance ruined the plasterwork medallions and fancies on the ceilings, and someone stained the original woodwork badly.
We recently bought a house. As we were looking we saw one a flipper had bought from foreclosure this March just as the market started to heat up. It was just about exactly what we wanted in our desired location. We offered to pay her what she paid + her desired profit, but to let us make the changes/updates WE wanted. She turned us down. Eventually we made her a cash offer of $150k over what she paid - rejected with no counter.
Probably 2 months after she turned us down she had it on the market for $75k over what we offered. It sold in about 2 weeks - not sure for what. We walked through an open house. Some of her updates were nice - but totally not our taste or what we would have wished to do with the house. And she appeared to have run out of money - some finishing touches were missing, and attempted cover-up with paint. And she did a couple of things we thought downright stupid.
But it ended well. We found almost the same home a couple of blocks over for $35k over what she paid. And if hers sold for anywhere near what she asked, we could pour $200k into our house and still not exceed market value.
But it messed with my mind to offer a business person her costs + desired profit in cash - and be turned down! :smack:
Oh yeah, I totally get this. And it’s fine. I don’t think people who who paint all their wall beige are losers or something. If anything, I’m the one with the problem. It’s not completely sane to spent this much time on paint colors. But, it’s how I am!
I care a lot about the more superficial details (color & furniture) that can be quickly undone with a can of paint or (several) trips to the right store. I don’t care as much about the structural details. With those, I have general preferences and a couple of styles I just hate, but I’m generally ok so long as it is well made and in good repair.
When I remodeled my kitchen, I let the designer make the decisions about the way that things were laid out and just kind of approved. It’s fine. I spent 3 weeks hunting multiple stores trying to find the “right” cabinet door pulls ( in spite of the fact that the layout is a choice I can’t change and the door pulls can be replaced in 2 hours.) I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed where light switches are; as long as they’re in a generally reasonable place, great!
I can’t imagine letting most of the tv decorators anywhere near my home. I hate their senses of color.
This would be a big concern of mine. They’re rushing through everything that I doubt if they do it all correctly. How many headaches await the homeowner behind that new drywall and paint?
One thing I’ve learned from those shows is to not trust the contractor. They’ll cut corners where ever they can. Unless you’re an experienced home builder, you have no idea what they are messing up. If I ever do a big renovation, I’m hiring my own home inspector to go over all the work.
You can’t wait until the end. My old office mate’s father was a contractor, and my office mate had an electrical license. He as building a house, and was there every day to make sure they weren’t screwing it up. It was a good move - at one point they misread the plans and were about to put the windows in the wrong place.
ETA: Little know fact - the Leaning Tower of Pisa is the result of a reality show.
Absolutely agree. I want them to have a good hold of what I want (open concept, large kitchen, audio/visual space, etc.), and would just let them have at it. I can fix the details like hardware, paint colors, fixtures, etc.
I’m exactly the opposite. We built a kitchen a few years ago, and we poured over catalogs, picking the best layout of drawers/cupboards, and where to put the sink/oven/fridge/lighting. If my countertops were a slightly different pattern, or my wall paint a different color, or my drawerpulls different, I really wouldn’t care, as long as they all go together.
Paint and flooring can be changed, but if I can’t open the fridge while someone is using the sink, then the kitchen sucks.