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.