Sarah's House is a favorite, because she spends BIG bucks on those rooms and they look fabulous! Farmhouse was the favorite, lake on the cabin least favorite. Tommy is a hoot.

Still love HH, HHI, and also Property Virgins and My First Place.

Do NOT like Holmes whatsoever. Color Splash is fun at times. Not so much:
Love it or List It
Property Brothers
Design on a Dime
Bath/House Crashers

One of my favorite shows is on another network, though. Flipping Out is about houses but they are just an excuse to get through the personal dramas, which can be hilarious. LOVE Jeff!

The Property Brothers freak me out. OK, you're twins, but do you have to try so darn hard to not look alike?

LOL, I think they're almost creepy. Their voices are sort of SyFy channel-y.

Anybody seen Dina's Party, with ex–Real Housewife Dina Manzo? Her taste is a little ... over-the-top.

It makes me want to scream at the T.V. "Don't do it!" Do these people not understand that a vacation home this far away will be a headache? It will be costly (insurance, taxes, repairs) and they'll feel tied down to go only there for their time off. Unless a vacation home is less than 2 hours away -- it's not easy.

I am back to my HGTV (and hgtv.com) obsession because I am doing some home decorating. :D

I am not feeling the White Room Challenge show, but can't wait for Design Star!

I just saw that the other day and I thought wow that sucks. With some of the things they make them do (decorate the room using candy) who would ever do that?

Good Morning America is talking about how HGTV's House Hunters is coming under fire for not being as real as it appears.

Seriously, a reality show is not as real as it appears? :p

http://shine.yahoo.com/at-home/8216-...172000660.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor...t_matters.html

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/enter...so-what/53450/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...yLcV_blog.html

From 2010:

http://hookedonhouses.net/2010/06/02...nters-on-hgtv/

LOL. In case viewers wondered why many of the house buyers are so calm. Home buying is often not a calm experience.

I just read that and laughed because the premise is so dumb anyway. The people on that show always go in looking for a specific house type and they show them three houses that completely do not meet there specifications. "We want a three bedroom house in the city." Here are your choices a) one bedroom shack in the woods b) dorm room in a city 100 miles away c) cardboard box under the interstate overpass. They always pick the worst choice, too!

I know, but I so love it. I love the manufactured drama, I love the silly choices, I still laugh when the "homeowner" complains about non-stainless appliances and non-granite counters and outdated bathrooms. I truly adore the scenery for most of the International episodes, even when they're shopping for a vacation home that costs a ridiculous fortune.

I am not feeling the Twins.

So, I'm watching Property Virgins, and there's actually someone who doesn't like the hardwood floors and wants to replace them with carpet. I was as shocked as I would be if I ever hear someone complaining about stainless steel and granite countertops!

Trends go back and forth. I figure the trend will go back to carpet as soon as I get my hardwood floors. Back in the 60s, everybody had hardwood. Hardwood is cold in the winter. Hardwood has to be refinished, which is quite a chore. Hardwood scratches and is slippery. It is beautiful.

Then carpet became popular and it was almost a status symbol to have carpet. Green shag even. Thick, plush, soft on barefeet. It doesn't scratch. It is easy to vacuum. It does collect dust and isn't great for people with allergies. It is hard to clean if you spill something.

Then, builders stopped putting in hardwood and put in subflooring because everybody wanted carpet. Suddenly, hardwood is popular again. Even stuff that looks like hardwood but isn't really hardwood is popular.

This too shall pass and people will cover up that hardwood with carpet. Then they'll rip up the carpet and like the hardwood again. This is just the way...

I'm aware of the nature of trends. My comment was more about that hardwoods, stainless steel and granite seem to be the holy trinity on these shows. If a house doesn't have them, then it is not worthy (on these shows). I wasn't meaning to sound critical of her taste.

Ahh, you're right there! They are the holy trinity on those shows! And travertine tile. Dont' forget the travertine!

I wonder if this is a sign that hardwood is on the way out? Because someone on HGTV says so? LOL

I'm so tired of the stainless steel and granite....

Give me butcher block and a not stainless steel and would be happy...

of course my dream stove/range is something like this:

A range from Lacanche
http://www.frenchranges.com/images/c...1800_large.jpg

Think of the stoves/ranges in kitchens in Ratatouille

see, I like this ^^

Love House Hunters, HHI, and Sarah's House. She is so incredibly talented.

Also like Selling New York. Selling L.A. was the most fake thing ever.

So, I've been home sick this week and watching HHI. Im just embarrassed for the entitled Americans in other countries. They have these amazing opportunities to experience life somewhere else, and they want everything to be like it is at home. If you want it to be like at home, stay home! Sheesh!

I really shouldn't allow myself to succumb to HGTV.

ETA: the only pass I've given so far is to the Jamaican-born guy who lived in DC and was transferring to Amsterdam. He literally couldn't fit comfortably in the bathroom at one place.

does anyone watch Junk Gypsies on the GAC channel (great american country). they're pretty awesome.

I'm a fan of Love It or List It. What I'd like to see is the statistics of how many couples stay married after some of these shows.

I have so many questions, such as whether or not you tell the designers that you prefer stark, or traditional, or another type of decor or house. My list of must haves is easily shorter than must NOT haves!

I stopped watching HGTV so religiously. There were a couple of shows that weren't interesting. I need to get back into it.

Oh my goodness, yes! My significant other and I always watch this show and get SO MAD at the people who look for a place that's just like home. My favorite ones are when people move to a country like China, they want to live in the middle of a major city like Hong Kong, they have very little money and are then surprised that they're basically living in a small box. And then there are the complaints about how there's no oven! Ugh. Do you really think people in China need an oven? Look at their food!

I would be happy living in a box if it meant I could be in an amazing place halfway around the world. Who needs a perfect apartment when you can go out and explore a foreign country?!

Oh, and don't even get me started on the people who are in warm, tropical places with great outdoor spaces who complain about the size of the bedrooms…

Yes!

I even stopped watching House Hunters because the people were doing nothing but acting and complaining for the sake of dramatics.

Exactly. My SO and I think that if we ever tried out for that show, they'd deny our request. We'd be too easy to please and we wouldn't argue with each other. :p

Riddle me this; since every house in Toronto has faulty construction/shoddy wiring (if Love It or List It is any barometer), how has that entire city not collapsed and burned to the ground?

Are all the episodes in Toronto? I just started watching this semi-regularly recently and I always wondered where they are.

And is it just me, or does the "love it" designer seem to get very little done with very big budgets? I watch some of the other shows on HGTV, and they can modernize twice the rooms with half the money she can. She seems "above" staining cabinets or using less expensive materials. She just rules out rooms completely when an unexpected cost comes up.

A $70,000 budget for renovations only increases the value of the house by $80,000? Um… yea, it's because NOTHING was done to the kitchen while she spent $5,000 on a new closet.

Fixer Upper with the couple from Waco, TX. She's grown on me and I just love Chip. The budgets and houses in Waco seem a little more realistic.

I used to love Yard Crashers with Ahmed and then he just got kicked to the curb.

Yes! I just started watching this. Aside from things being a little cheaper in Waco, she (I can't remember her name) knows how to repurpose materials and she doesn't go way over the top with expensive items.

There's an episode of HHI (or one of those) that showcases a friend of mine. I can tell you the stuff is wildly manipulated. I mean, I know you KNOW that, but some of the stuff I heard people say on the Dubai episode sounded completely retarded, including my friend who was in no way stupid.

But people really do move to places on the other side of the planet and freak out because they can't have stuff just like at home. Another friend in Dubai was in an eternal state of depression over the lack of Arizona tea. Seriously, icky sweet bottled, chemically, overpriced tea is what it will take to make you happy? How about a nice iced tea made from a FRESH tea bag from Sri Lanka, just across the way from us?

You'd be shocked how many houses in ANY given city have poor wiring and/or plumbing problems. Any house built prior to, say, 1980 probably has the old Orangeburg pipe type of sewage pipes, which allow roots to penetrate them much too easily.

As for the wiring, most people who have a house with the normal amenities (tv, computer, major appliances) have a breaker box at this point. Whether or not they're up to code is the question. When I had my rather small house brought up to code (back around 1994), it cost me $2,000 just for the breaker boxes.

That's the one place where DIY vs having a designer differs - a lot of people don't bother to get the official inspections that should be, and are done by the city/borough. If you do it yourself, many people (wrongly) don't bother with the official paperwork.

The house I owned in Kansas City would have come across as the same nightmare - asbestos, poor wiring, bad plumbing. It was a constant work in progress, partly because the city vomited up these houses (and the associated public utilities) post WWII, and 60 years later they were falling down. To tear down and rebuild on these oddly large lots in working class neighborhoods wouldn't make sense, so you just band-aid your way through the next disaster. Or sell it and move to Dubai.

Oh, believe me - I have a house built in 1930 - I'm sure old girl would be shittin' kittens if she had to look at our wiring, plumbing, etc.

I mean, I get that it's dramatized for TV, but you think Hillary would stop being surprised by all the hot mess infrastructure.

And truthfully, I'd gladly hire experts to get the bones of the house in shape and do the DIY pretty stuff myself.

I'm just always amazed that they are bitching about all of the costs for major renovations and then put in bazillion dollar kitchens and furniture when they could have done something very nice and been able to do a whole additional room or something for what thet spent on appliances. My other favorite, Property Brothers, does the same thing. The kitchens are beautiful, but are you really going to put that kind of kitchen in when the siding on most of these houses is atrocious? Have you noticed the costs for the lighting they choose? INSANE. Like Maroon said, do the hard stuff. I'll buy my own damn chandelier.

Oh, definitely. You can kind of tell when they're clipping certain phrases and editing the show to make these people look worse than they actually are. But then there are the really annoying people who keep going on and on about the same thing. I watched an episode where a guy and his gf were moving to Australia, and he wanted to be near a beach. His gf had a job (not near the beach) and he didn't have a job at all at the time, and every 2 minutes he would say, ".. but it's not near the beach." I wanted to strangle him. People don't see the big picture.

Oh my. I miss some stuff from where I grew up, but I wouldn't be depressed about not having a certain drink.

:D

Yes!

That's what drives me crazy on 'Love it or List it'. I always look at renovations and decorations and think, "Uh, I could have done all of that pretty cheap.. how does this come out to $65,000?!??!"

I'd rather have a nice looking house with "lower end" material (i.e. nice but not blatantly expensive), than 3 rooms redone with upgrades that I could never match throughout the rest of the house, should I opt to update it later.

I dig Rehab Addict. Nicole Curtis has an incredible work ethic.