<p>Has anyone watched “Renovation Raiders”? I like many other HGTV shows (Property Brothers, Income Property) so I thought I’d give it a chance. The premise is that they do a complete renovation in only a few hours while the couple is out to dinner. One spouse is in on the deal; the other has no idea and is surprised upon return.</p>
<p>Why anyone would want serious construction and renovation done on their home in order to beat the clock is beyond me. I’d much prefer someone thoughtful and careful renovating my house. Such work is too important to use a beat-the-clock gimmick.</p>
<p>I keep meaning to watch it, but haven’t done so. I had the same thought, though. Why would you want to limit yourself to something which must be done in one evening? Seems like a foolish notion to me.</p>
<p>Maybe if someone else is paying for it, it would seem okay. Unless you hated it. Then you’d be paying to fix it. Still seems silly.</p>
<p>My guess is that if something is not “right” after the few hours, the show will fix it off the clock. </p>
<p>I’d give it a chance for certain spots in my house - because someone else is paying for it!</p>
<p>The show my girls have been enjoying lately is Flea Market Flip - but man, those prices at the Brooklyn flea market are outrageous compared to the midwest!!!</p>
<p>I remain a die hard House Hunters fan - sometimes its the only thing that I watch in the evening - a half hour of House Hunters is my cookies and milk before bed - as I eat a cookie and drink a glass of milk. :)</p>
<p>The homeowners on List It are very annoying too. They all put on a n I’m very difficult to please act. Hillary Clinton is a fan of this show with a Hillary. </p>
<p>One of the things about HGTV is that for many of their shows you don’t have to watch the whole show to get the gist. Just the last few minutes will do. On list it you get a recap. On House Hunters they do that house 1, 2, or 3 thing, and that’s all in a nutshell. On the renovation shows, you’ll see the before and after. Kind of like turning to the last page of a mystery.</p>
<p>I agree; I like to watch the last ten minutes of an hour show, and the last five minutes of a half hour show. I find I’ve gotten very good at figuring out which of the three houses the people will buy. I think I have around a 90% guess-right rate.</p>
<p>I have a room I’d let them do. Actually it is two adjoining rooms at the back of my house that I have plans to turn into a bathroom and laundry/exercise room. Whatever they did would be better than it is now. How does one go about getting on this show? :)</p>
<p>I’ve only ever seen those shows at the gym. The amount of repetition drives me crazy. I think they have 5 minutes of actual content spread over half an hour. And most of the redecorating is cheesy.</p>
<p>I watched a Love It or List It marathon last year and haven’t watched the show since. And, yes, they are very annoying and the show is very obviously scripted. It’s interesting how it used to be a half hour show when it started but has now expanded to a full hour. There’s also a LIOLI Vancouver show now and the host is Jillian Harris from The bachelorette.</p>
<p>I still record House Hunters and watch because I enjoy seeing the houses in various places. It’s disappointing to know that it’s totally fake but still fun. I liked Million Dollar Listing which doesn’t appear to be on anymore, other than the NY version.</p>
<p>I like the Property Brothers - they’re cute. But it always amazes me on these shows how few times they have a contingency margin for the things you know will go wrong in construction in older homes.</p>
<p>It seems like a lot of those shows that do the 1, 2, or 3 approach seem to also do it Goldilocks style. Show one the wife likes, one the husband likes, and then a compromise.</p>
<p>For people that can’t get enough of this sort of TV, check out Ion’s programming. It basically consists of crime dramas and cheaper Canadian versions of HGTV.</p>
<p>I think what annoys me about the shows even more than the way they’re produced are the people they have on. “John is unemployed and lives at home, Jane is a secretarial assistant. Both currently live with their parents. They’re looking for a $400,000 house with an upgraded kitchen (neither cooks), scenic view, in the hip part of town, a man cave, and upgraded hardwood floors throughout. They are unwilling to make any changes of their own to the home to make it suit their needs.” </p>
I don’t care if it’s fake at all. It shows me decorating styles that might be unfamiliar and also how different areas have different housing types, ilke places with no basements or a lot of split levels. I’ve noticed that Florida has a lot of tiled floors. I hate tiled floors, so I would be aware of that if we were ever looking in Florida. Which we wouldn’t be, but this makes sense to me, ok?</p>
<p>A show I like is Sarah 101. (OK, I LOVE the show and have taped every episode. I rarely watch TV, so that’s saying much!) I enjoy the banter between Sarah Richardson and her sidekick Tommy. Though her designs are over the top expensive, I still take away ideas that I use in my own home.</p>
<p>I swore off House Hunter when I found out it was fake. Now I don’t pass it by if there’s nothing else on. I look for clues of which house they already have by their comments (sometimes the tense of the verb they use gives it away) or other things. Once there was a dumpster in the driveway of a place with an ugly kitchen that gave it away.</p>
<p>I miss the show where they spent $1000 to spruce up a house to sell or other quick decorating shows. I’ve been in my house 19 years and need to update some stuff, not concern myself with gutting my kitchen. </p>
<p>My big step this week was to take down sheers in LR & DR. Told H they were dirty, which they were, but I want to see how it looks w natural light. Also think the sheers are ‘old people’ curtains. H wants them back up, as he likes the privacy. We agreed to a one week trial…</p>
<p>I love Sara 101, and I also LOVE Candace Olson.</p>
<p>Has anyone seen the new Love It or List It, with the very very young people as hosts? It seems stupid because it is exactly the same show as the other one, and it looks simply as if the young people are just pretending to be the older hosts. Same dialogue, same joke attacks at each other, same everything.</p>
<p>My new favorite on HGTV is Renovate to Rent. I appreciate that these guys are trying to please future renters and want to get the best rental income possible. They don’t seem to overspend on renovations that are totally unnecessary, and end up with a great final home to add to their ever-expanding number of rentals.</p>
<p>What are the cheaper Canadian versions? Many, maybe even most, of the HGTV shows ARE Canadian, including many that are being discussed in this thread.</p>
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