HGTV and friends

We take a break from politics on the tube by watching HGTV and other building shows.  I find myself sympathizing with the designers and builders, not the clients. If I worked for somebody like that, I’d quit. Someday I propose a show where they review old episodes and people get to phone in votes for the jerkiest client.  I guess I understand this as a carpenter. We buy an old property, it’s like a crazy puzzle to see what kind of lemonade we can make out of a lemon.  The joy of creating useful space out of a fallen-down shack makes our day.  Not so, the recipients of design on HGTV.  They whine that an unfixed laundry drain they neglected for 15 years has now undermined their foundation. They bitch because the architect has to spend 10 grand to fix it rather than give them the spare bedroom.  They show houses full of unbelievable clutter “before” and designer-inspired redecorating after, and I want to ask the network, “did the crap come back out the day the cameras left?”

            Love It or List It pits a remodeling designer against a realtor who wants to relocate the clients.  After all the moaning and groaning the clients have to choose.  Now you tell me, if a world-class designer came to remodel your home while a super realtor looked for a new house for you, is this in any way not a win-win situation?  I’d be grins and gracious thanks from ear to ear.  Or eager collaborator.  But no, the recipients are such crabs, they should be on the menu at Red Lobster.  And if all goes well with the construction, they add more dreamy things to the wish list, with little regard to the building schedule, as if miracles are expected.  Reminds me of that old Nazi spoof: “Vee vunt the vorld, und vee want it now!”  Then comes the big choice to live with it or list it and you hear whispered conversation that never includes the obvious like, “How the heck do we afford to refinance?” or “let’s go back to the drawing board”  or “why don’t we ask the kids what they want to do”.  I’ve watched shows where they decided to love their old barn while the Taj Mahal waited and thought, “Can’t afford the Taj Mahal after this remodelling, can you.”  Or you have the infernal crabbing about how the designer had to concentrate on main floor only because a massive problem cropped up somewhere and I want to ask, “So why don’t you just add 5K to the budget.  Maxxed out?”

            Other shows have a family giving ultimatums to the builder that they have to move in—in 2 weeks because they are getting kicked out of their rental.  And the builder needs four weeks.  You know what a sensible person would do?  He’d check into a motel for two weeks and let the builder do a professional job rather than slap dash.  Don’t be a bozo.  I’ve had contractors who didn’t stay on the job, but still you have to work with them.

            Which brings up another weird observation.  Why do so many shows have some impossible deadline? “We’re going to remodel this kitchen over the weekend.” Really?  To what purpose?  And then they always show the clients trying their hand at demo by swinging sledge hammers at cabinetry.  I want to run into the house and say, “Look, amateurs swinging big hammers is highly dangerous.  Use a flat bar and do it carefully.  Those cabinets you successfully salvage can be used in the garage.”  Indeed, how many programs have I seen where they brag about being ‘green’ because they use bamboo or walk around on recycled corn stalks or some other silly thing while having demolished all kinds of cabinets and salvageable flooring and toilets to a 30 yard dumpster? Just recycle your stuff, dummy! 

            And then there are shows which I wonder about the purpose.  Tiny houses.  What advantage is there to building a stick built house on a flatbed trailer compared to spending the same $68,000 on a splendid fifth-wheel trailer with good resale value?  Who do you sell an old, tired Tiny House to?  Some hippie like Bernie Sanders before he got into politics? Unabomber? Flea Market Flip turns everything into some sort of weird coffee table.  How many odd coffee tables does the world need? And then there is the flipper who curses and screams at everyone who works for him.  Last episode will feature some guys coming to get him with a straitjacket.

            What seems to be completely out of popularity is landscaping.  I see interior remodelings that run in the six figures while leaving the exterior looking like something Elvis would stand in front of and sing In the Ghetto.  The kitchen has gorgeous gneiss counter tops (which they dub ‘granite’) and drawers that shut themselves and a Viking gas stove.  The outside of the house has evergreens trimmed into balls and cones.  You think this helps resale value?  Curb appeal is the first order of business when selling or even renting.

            And nobody, but nobody explains the theory or art behind the design techniques that look so good.