You can still find Candace reruns on public television.

When I was a very young adult I loved watching Christopher Lowell at lunchtime and I remember watching folks like Kitty Bartholomew before that. My memory might be a bit rose colored, but man I loved those shows.

As someone mentioned above the rediculous prices for some homes in different parts of the U S and Canada. And the sizes of some of them. How in the heck do you fit 4 bedrooms in a 1200 sq ft house and still call it spacious? HGTV should be classified as "what you shouldn't do to a home ".

Words on walls! I agree, STOP it!

I have always disliked the faux-distressed look. If something is old and shows its age, that's different, but purposely making furniture look like it's been dragged behind your truck seems silly. And chalk-painting of what used to be really nice furniture. Ruinous!

All those clear glass pendant lights. In the kitchen. Looking dusty all the time, and greasy much of the time. Please be a dad.

I think one of the worst things about these shows is how unrealistic price is. Removing all walls and redoing entire main floor including kitchen for 70k? I spent 75k on my small kitchen and didn’t take out any walls, or move plumbing or electrical. Second is making people think they have to have something (island, waterfall edge, pot filler, 8’ sink, commercial faucet, pizza oven) which is completely unnecessary or their kitchen won’t be a kitchen.

Dad, not dad.

Oy! Fad. Damn autocorrect.

I've watched several of the HGTV house flipping shows, and when it comes down to kitchens, they never really show you the layout and what will work (other than making everything open plan whether desired or not). It's more about form than function, and in looking pretty with the quick camera pan. People tend to care more about their White Kitchens than their personal needs for cooking usage.

As NJ Mom notes, there is value in being reminded over and over about knob and tube wiring in old homes (and about asbestos abatement). And I'm always amused at the vast differences in home valuations depending on where one is located. I'm also amused at how many times putative homeowners don't account for finding these expensive faults in their elderly fix-it-up homes and need to go over budget/drastically modify their makeover plans.

I did like "This Old House", because they actually SHOWED you how they repaired and modified many things. In current shows, you mostly see old cabinetry and bathrooms and walls being smashed up.

The main take home message from HGTV: PLAN TO HAVE A HEFTY CONTINGENCY FUND.

This Old House and plenty of other "real" shows are still alive and well on public television. They just generally aren't as snazzy and don't have the "OMG" factor of HGTV. Norm and Tommy and the gang def don't have the sex appeal of the cable bunch. ;)

hemina: Wouldn’t a show with Sophie be amazing to watch? Like Holmes on Holmes but with a edge.

^^^^THIS.
With Sophie/Holly playing off against each other like the Patty Lane/Cathy Lane (Patty Duke Show), only in drag.

I'd watch.

Lots of great points here. I must admit I have gotten some good ideas from the shows but It's always tempered with reality. I love on the flipping show with Taarek and Christina how the kitchen estimate is always $8000. On what planet? even if that's only for the labor, (or part thereof) make that clear, I also love how the homeowners on Love it or List it always yell at Hilary like its her ault their a/c is 35 years old and needs to be replaced or there are tree roots growing into their pipes and a part of the budget needs to go towards fixing that. And how do Chip and Joanna manage to completely renovate a house with the tiny budgets they mention.

Sophie tries to bring a dose of reality to the starry-eyed homeowners who want to ruin/change a perfectly good kitchen. The show could be like Property Virgins, but with remodeling a kitchen instead of buying a first house.

I miss the old HGTV and DIY shows - back when they used to actually show how to do things and weren't so sponsor driven. The Furniture Guys were the best. Now, everyone needs new floors, new windows, and Trex decks - we'll show you after this Home Depot/Pella/Trex commercial block!

My favorite of the HGTV/DIY shows is Renovation Realities—

Husband: "We've never done a lot—or any—DIY, but ..."
Wife: "But we watch a lot of renovating shows, and figure it shouldn't be too hard, so we're gonna start with renovating our outdated kitchen!"
(cue shot of before solid oak and plywood cabinets)
H: "I don't own a lot of tools, but my father-in-law says I can borrow his hammer."
W: "We have a budget of $1500, and we both are taking a three day weekend, so that should give us plenty of time!"
(cue twenty minutes of disaster after disaster, a final shot of a sad gutted room three days later, followed by low-res finished shots of plain white formica particle board cabinets finished by a pro three months later)

I actually watched Property Brothers last night because a friend of mine was supplying goods for the show, and got cut out in editing, and it was regionally close, in Nashville. I still ended up yelling at the TV and throwing rolled up socks then turned it off before I saw which of the houses they picked.

The realist part was that they did the demo for the old house they were trying to spiff up, and then the plan got denied by the Historic Committee. Except in the Real World, no one does demo without an approved and permitted plan. The only real reason that they eventually got approved for the exterior changes was that they are TV stars. Everyone else there gets denied. But that would have been bad publicity.

And the funny thing is, the single “wrought iron custom cabinet” actually cost more in the Real World than all of the rest of the cheepchinesecrapola cabinets put together. But, all of the products were free, and a lot of the labor was donated too. That’s never mentioned in the fictional presentations.

The “budget” was a ludicrous 50K. Which was supposed to cover taking down multiple walls, redoing multiple windows with the exterior changes, relocating the plumbing and electric, all new floors in the whole house, and all of the glamming up the space. With 2/3 of the Real World budget being donated, 50K might squeak to cover the rest. But it’s NOT a Real World Nashville budget. I know too many people there doing work, and they wouldn’t touch that for less than 150K.

Sophie, we still think that you should have your own show, "the real reality of renovating" :)

luckyblueeye - No one would watch that show. Proven here time and again that when someone gives some truth, the excuses start or they disappear. Only a small minority stick around and listen.

All the HGTV/DIYnetwork shows are fake, with fake timelines and fake budgets, because their goal is to brainwash viewers into thinking they can get their dream kitchen in 2 weeks for $10K. Once the seed is planted, the damage is done. Homeowners will dig deeper in their pockets or go into debt to get the dream. At least, that is what the sponsors hope.

luckyblueeye

Sophie, we still think that you should have your own show, "the real reality of renovating" :)

lol..it would be a very grim show.

@crcollins because people don't actually want advice, they want validation.

I'm quite happy to read Sophie here..real time shows are too.. calculating..and well-combed so to say..and yeah they insert fakeness as assumed upthread..which is totally anti-concept

Now. good series..but can HGTV even manage it? I'm doubtful. Of course I don't know everything they produce, just snippets here and there. Whatever I know doesn't leave much hope. For anything authentic.

The Sophie Wheeler Show - pleeeeeeease!!!!!!

If we can't get her on TV, maybe a YouTube channel? This could be epic. Her and Jan Moyer.

I was gonna mention all you need is an iPhone and you upload to YouTube. Imagine all the HGTV refugees flocking to the Truth in Remodeling Channel?

FB Live - Ask Sophie, But Be Careful Because She'll Answer

I miss Sabrina Soto too.

Old people with gray hair and canes do not exist in TV World. And there isn’t much Reality on the scripted reality shows. I’ve got a local friend who was promised TV credit for her design participation in one of those. That meant spray painting ugly restaurant chairs at 2 am.

HGTV is directly responsible for our trade imbalance with China. And other evils.

I actually learnt quite a bit from watching This Old House when it first aired. That was also a different time and different TV format with less commercial breaks and none of that stupid time wasting thing they do now, the repeating of the same clips they just showed before the commercial. A half hour program is dragged into a full hour simply by showing the same clips twice.

What is with HGTV shows having to throw hammers at windows. Last thing you want to do while remodeling is to clean up broken glass and remove windows with jagged glass in them. Stupid

Or destroy everything. It's way easier to just unscrew the cabinet from the wall and carry it out than pick up 82 pulverized pieces - or reuse the cabinets in the garage or the workshop. But that doesn't involve a sledgehammer and doesn't make for good TV, I guess.

Totally agree. Chip Gaines’ smashing windows made no sense, but I guess it’s fun if you’re not the one to clean up?

I agree on the glass lighting. I chose glass lighting so it won’t block line of sight and to disappear in the background. Sadly it means taking them down weekly and cleaning the cooking grease off them.

It is only a matter of time before the globes break during cleaning.

Agree with wiscokid. On the rare occasion my husband catches me watching HGTV he'll see someone taking a sledgehammer to cabinets. Or a hammer to a countertop. Drives him nuts. When we DIY'd our own kitchen a couple of years ago I pictured mayhem and mess all over the place. Nope- he calmly pulled out or unscrewed the cabinets from the walls. And the same thing with the soffitt above them. Minimum of banging around. No drama. Sure, it would have been fun to bang things to smithereens but who wants to clean that up. I had more than enough to keep me (the helper) busy.

@mrsm I always yell at the TV, YOU KNOW, YOU COULD DONATE THOSE!!!!

“HGTV is directly responsible for our trade imbalance with China. And other evils.” Yup, Agreed, now is whose gonna tell the boss? Lol

Sophie, the TV world is not the YouTube world. Authenticity matters more on YouTube, in a way, not real authenticity, but something less intermediated than regular broadcast shows.

Has anyone been watching "Flip and Move"? It's new and takes place in Texas. Small groups of flippers bid on small old houses ... then they move them to a construction site, where they renovate them. They aren't high-end renos; my husband and I agreed that they look like something he and I could do if we had a truck, a Home Depot card, and a set of basic tools -- and nothing else. They paint the old kitchen cabinets, replace carpet with carpet, make homemade kitchen islands, etc. At the end, they auction off the houses, and it's moved again.

Moving the house twice isn't realistic, but I'm enjoying the show. It comes on tomorrow night -- Friday night.

I also watched another new (at least to me) show this morning -- we're out of school because of the hurricane -- called Restore. I've only watched one episode, but I liked it. The guy redid a small bungalow for a woman who began the reno with her husband, then he died before they finished it. His design was very nice, and it was absolutely appropriate for the 1920s house ... and it was far from cookie cutter.

PG, I've made sure to try to contribute as little as possible to that trade imbalance!

I bought as many American made products as I could for all my projects. Most of my tile was made here in the US and several of my faucets. Some from Europe. Kitchen cabinets came from Wood-mode in PA. My range hood was made right here in the LA area and most of my sofa/chairs also came from a store/factory right here in LA.

Oh, yeah - "Restored" - I do like that one! He's one of the few on HGTV that actually respects the old houses and tries to keep it authentic. It's not on very often but Comcast had some on demand that I watched a while back. Cool old houses in California, lots of character.

With Sophie/Holly playing off against each other like the Patty Lane/Cathy Lane (Patty Duke Show), only in drag.

O.o

Not sure how I ended up in such august company, but I'm not sure I would make a sufficient foil for Sophie. Lackey, maybe. Heh.

I am so far out of HGTV's target market, I can't even see it from my backyard. In fact, we're so far out of that "mainstream" market that we can't even find what we want without REALLY hunting.

HGTV shows don't really give me ideas, beyond "what not to do." Whereas I grew up watching This Old House with Dad (a frustrated fine carpenter by nature, systems analyst by trade), and then right into the New Yankee Workshop. Lots of this education has made it into our new build. The fine carpenter on the job is either going to love me or hate me.

In my opinion, to answer the OP: Everything you see on HGTV is likely to be trendy and dated. Not a whiff of it respects the era of the house or attempts to convey the solidity of actual craftsmanship. Then again, few people really want that. They want the shinies. It's OK if you're really going to flip or stage a home. (I have to do some serious work on my 1940's cape to sell it once we get our house up. I'll probably actually use a few of the "trends" there to inexpensively make it attractive to Millenials - who are most of our target market for a little starter house). I wouldn't go anywhere near any of it for a house I meant to keep. Everything that looks "fresh" and new now will look old and tired in 5-10.

Real life contractors then face home owners who say, but they redid the kitchen on xyz show for $8000. :But i have learned a lot and gotten ideas from HGTV, iIve learned that you can move walls. I grew up in a country where interior walls are made of brick (often double walls ) so it's not so easy. i've learned how to steal space. I've turned this house from a 3 bathroom house to a 5 bathroom house. I had one long jack and jill bathroom with a tiny hallway with all 3 doors coming off it. I annexed the 2 foot indentation of a hallway. moved the 3 doors. split the length of the bathroom and made 2 smaller bathrooms. I took a space from and adjoining garage and moved a closet to make a small study a great kids bunkroom with an ensuite bathroom. So I think it's great to take ideas and include a pinch of salt.

^^^^^^^ Brick walls. That must have been nice. Way better than our paper walls here ;-)

It was definitely colder in wintereven though the climate wasn't as extreme. Putting up pictures was very different. It required a drill for starters. I'll never forget the first time my then husband put up a nail for a picture. He got out his dril,l started to drill the "wall" and almost fell through the wall as he was expecting brick and mortar resistance.

Waverley, my Dad could not believe that I was able to use monkey hooks because drywall isn't used where he lives. He looked terrified when I started pushing it through and it actually held a large mirror! Funny stuff ;)