Nicole Curtis of Rehab Addict! Her show is sometimes on DIY, sometimes on HGTV, but if you’re looking for someone who rips out old cabinets…then takes them home to her garage and puts in hand-refinished ones she pulled out of the trash…she’s your gal!
We wonder about this ourselves when we see new developments in our area with prices several times the value of our house.
Where do they get the money to buy these places? This ain’t exactly Bel Air.
Nah, Joanna is running for “Oprah.” 
I pretty much gave up on HGTV a couple years ago. There’s so little real carpentry content anymore.
Stone House Revival with Jeff Devlin is the last show I watched regularly. It had the typical “oh my” moment before the commercial. That was instantly resolved after the commercial. I haven’t watched the show in over a year.
There should be a show where Mike Holmes and his crew come in and fix all the mistake the Property Brothers and the Fixer Uppers make.
Really?
I found it curious how nearly every house he renovated had a basement drainage/leak issue which required excavation and sealing the exterior. Sure, it works but most of the time it’s overkill and completely unnecessary. It’s much easier to install a French drain system for a fraction of the cost. But, you know, it’s not as dramatic.
Also, the guy has some weird obsession about putting his fist through drywall. Ok, we get it, Mike. You’re a tough guy. Now step aside and let us get to work.
I blame Ty Pennington and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It may not of been the first one but it was the first one I noticed. I don’t know if anyone remembers but it used to be a real home-improvement show. The families were all regular people. They actually fixed up the house and showed you how they did it. Then they realized they got more ratings if the family was a walking sob story. They no longer spent time doing real renovations they just knocked down and put up a McMansion. Any real work was shown in quick cuts and no detail. All with the added bonus of making property taxes too high for the sad sack family to live there.
Can we lay any blame at “home Improvment” the sit-com? It was intended to parody this old house and yankee workshop, and went largely to an audience that had never heard of this old house and yankee workshop.
I never really watched, and I was rather young when I did, but my memory of it was of the “host” constantly messing up and breaking things.
You must not be watching any recent episodes, the ones with his kids doing a bunch of the work.
Last one I saw, they completed a kitchen remodel started by a company of con-artists who had no business being anywhere near a kitchen remodel.
Well, of course HE does the work with calm professionalism and a minimum of drama.
He’s Canadian.
True, haven’t seen it in several years. In fact I wasn’t aware it was still on.
I believe there has to be an untapped market for non-manufactured-drama home improvement shows. So many of them suck. Thank God for Youtube.
The shows I watch to learn craftsman technique; or mostly non-scripted content (at least not scripted in the sense of creating fake drama and fake problems) are:
Youtube video subscriptions to the content providers that I trust.
Ask This Old House
Woodsmith Shop
Rehab Addict when I can find it.
Basically Public Broadcast, and trusted Youtube providers are the way to go.
To play Devil’s Advocate, how many home reno projects have you ever done that went perfectly smoothly? Even the minor stuff like sanding the mud smooth before priming can take on Hellish overtones when things start to go wrong.
Having said that: I’d let Paul LaFrance build my deck in a heartbeat. I’d trust Mike Holmes, maybe Brian Baeumler, and Samantha Pinn to do the interior design. It does amuse me to watch Sarah Richardson consistently order the wrong item and overspend her budget.
I like the Maine Cabin Masters. They are respectful to each other and seem to do pretty damn good work. They did have one jackass who would tear shit up in the first season or two, but he’s gone.
Having spent my whole life in Maine (so far) I was prepared to dislike this show intensely if it indulged in the usual fakery. t doesn’t! Any of those cabins or homes that they touch can be seen on any of a hundred lakes within driving distance. Their techniques are rock solid and the crew is a hoot.
I don’t think we can. Home Improvement preceded HGTV by 4 years.
Yeah, it’s all become “reality TV” rather than anything from which you can glean good examples of best practices or what to watch for or helpful hints.
For someone like me who is absolutely uninterested in “engineered stone” or stainless steel, they’re largely just an incentive to make me an apartment dweller, and yes, as OP said, blooper comedy.
So are the Property Brothers
'Course, the Holmes clan have always made a point of never settling for minimum code and berating those who do. Especially when previous contractors couldn’t even get the minimum right.
Brett Waterman on Restored. I think it’s actually a DIY show, but they do air it on HGTV, too. He does beautiful work.
I HATE the mandatory demo hijinks. So lame. So boring.
Oh, and the Property Brothers wanted to be actors. They’re completely fake. And bad actors. Which is why they had to go with their current shtick.