I think it's awful. They took a 1920's home and modernized it so it retained none of the charm. Additionally on the TV the colors were much darker than they are showing them on the computer. For example the outside of the house is supposed to be a very dark charcoal.

Oh wow I love it! Just goes to show there are different tastes in the world, I guess. It's a different layout than I'd want for myself full time but I'd love to vacation there and hide out in that loft! I spent a bunch of time clicking around but couldn't find any perspectives that show the view from up there looking down. Anyone have better luck? I also really like that gallery wall along the basement staircase, and all the industrial lighting.

Hmmm. I wonder what it looked like before. I love color but this house is too much for me. Too much gray, too much blue. The floor looks like laminate; hate the tile on the fireplace. Not my favorite redo.

Diane

Thanks for sharing the link! It's an unusual house....I like the kitchen. Nice windows and not a bad layout, with the sink placed as it is.

There are no stairs in the plan, but there are in the pictures. What's in the basement? The garage and laundry? More living space?

My one pet peeve with HGTV and other advertised "smaller homes" is that they always seem to add more living space in the garage, basement, loft, etc. Yes, it's nice to have more storage! But it's like.....look, we are celebrating the small home! But we know you will all need more storage and living space....so it's really much larger than 1,300 square feet :)

Many of us have taken over every available inch we could find in a smaller home, but that's what we had growing up. Or maybe as adults. And there's nothing wrong with being creative. But the new "I have a smaller home" trend seems to often be about hidden living space, posing as a smaller home.

I guess we should be glad it's catching on....but why not show an actual cute, 1920's bungalow and say, here's my 1,400 square foot home and I am so excited to get that extra 500 square feet of living space in the basement!

The shell reminds me of a bungalow, reputedly built in the 1910's, in which we lived in Colorado. I read the comments before clicking the link, so I was intrigued--but didn't care for anything but some of the artwork. I started with the kitchen pics and liked each room less as the tour progressed. There were too many dark colors, too much stuff, too modern for my taste, although my cream walls and earth tones might very well put everyone else to sleep.

Thank you for the link!

Here's the Before and After gallery: Before & After

Curtains outside? I liked the original porch and porch swing. Most of the rooms are too dark, busy, and cluttered for me. Of course, I have no blue or gray in my house, so the colors definitely are not my style.

TOO much blue! And why do the rooms look three times bigger in the after? It wouldn't be possible to get that much furniture into the before room. I could live with the porches but nothing else in that house.

Ehhh, overall I like it but don't love it.

I agree that it no longer resembles a 1920s bungalow ... but I think that was the idea. Some of us look at this original house and see vintage charm, while others just see OLD. They've brought it "forward in time" so that it can no longer be defined as any particular style, but it's full of today's trends and is fully staged.

I think they used the space well, especially in the living-dining-kitchen area. With the walls removed, the place looks so much bigger!

The kitchen is the single room that shows the most improvement. Wow, though I would've liked lighter colors here.

I like the blue. I think the idea is that using any one color throughout the house will make the space look larger -- and it definitely does look larger. Typically designers use white as their unifier-and-enlarger, but other colors can work just as well. In this case, I think the kick-back y'all are feeling is that they used a dark tone; I think if they'd gone with a nice pastel Carolina blue, more people would like it. Enlarging the windows played into the visual enlargement tremendously.

I also like that they dropped the blue for the bedroom, making it seem "a world away".

I do not like the tile fireplace. I don't know why "the powers that be" determined that good old brick fireplaces are passe', while tile is super-cool. I predict that in a few years tile will be O - U - T - OUT, especially when the tile is such a strong statement, as in this house.

I do like the navy walls and gray hexagon tiles in the master bath.

I don't like the loft. Yes, it provides additional living space, but it's not at all private, so it's barely a different living space -- more like an oddball extension of the living room. Sound would still travel up, so while it's more space, it's not really more quality space. Hauling things up and down the ladder wouldn't be all that easy. I think it would've been better to leave this as storage, something that is missing throughout the rest of the house.

I also liked the porches better before. I don't buy into the trend of outdoor curtains. Seems like they won't last long, and they sort of look weird to me.

The garage is a good "away space", but reaching it would mean leaving the main house -- not always a good choice. For example, if you have children, you can't use this "away space" as an office -- not if you expect to keep an ear out for what they're doing. Or if the weather's nasty, walking out to the detached garage isn't particularly inviting. Yes, it's more space, but I'd give it a grade of C at most.

As I said above, it is very strong on the staging, but I don't know why I'm supposed to enjoy looking at pictures of flowers and wine glasses -- that doesn't help me make my own plans.

Reinforces that I should trust my own taste if this is what a group of professional designers comes up with. Too dark. Unsettling mix of materials. I actually prefer some of the before pictures.

I'm not sure how the master bedroom went from looking 9' wide to a spacious area. What happened? Agree with mrspete on use of space. I also intensely dislike the tiled fireplace, the kitchen is ok, but blue outdoor curtains on the FRONT of the house? Can you imagine how that will look from the street with those curtains CLOSED? Yikes. Not an appealing look IMHO.

I think they totally bollixed up the entire thing. They could have restored the beautiful original windows and kept the lovely fireplace surround, but nooo, they had to put vinyl windows on a 1920's home, put paneling over the fireplace and paint it in "trendy" colors. More important to tout the sponsors product than do right by the house. This WAS a cute house that just needed some thoughtful restoration to make it a real gem, but they made it into a typical HGTV remuddled mess. However, that won't stop me from entering the contest to win it, 'cause I'd be happy to take the cash prize and continue restoring my 1927 bungalow and matching auto house with the proceeds.

Katzmom -- I totally agree. They absolutely butchered that place.

http://hookedonhouses.net/2015/08/13/a-bungalow-makeover-in-asheville-hgtvs-urban-oasis-2015/

I took another look at the site, and looked at some of the pics that I'd skipped before. Still don't care for most of it.

gramarows, the bedroom is bigger--I found the before and after plans, and if you compare them side-by-side you can see the extension on the master (top right) and the bump-out for the bathrooms on the right. They also added the garage (top left) and replaced the deck in back:

I don't see the charm... I wouldn't be one to ever have a designer redo my house. or even a room.

I'm with you, Steph. Too impersonal....and my style is too weird (nicer word maybe, unique?) LOL