Always the Same

lacksheep

The hosts are entertaining enough and they at least have some chemistry as a couple. I prefer watching this show to Flip or Flop.

The problem is every house is given the exact same treatment. They do find plenty of actually cool houses in their area, some of which are very old. They throw the word character around, and then proceed to strip the character out of every home they find, unless that character is hardwood floors. They bust down all the interior walls to make room for the massive, trendy, all-white kitchen with the white cabinets and the marble counters and the bin pulls. If there's wood trim, they paint it white. If there's brick, they paint it white. White, white white. Gray, gray, gray. Everything ends up looking like their own house.

What really annoys me most is when some unforeseen cost comes up, and they ask their clients for more money to fix it. It never occurs to them to accommodate the new problem within the budget, or to leave a cushion in the budget for unexpected costs, or to compromise on some of the renovations. Or, god forbid, to *not* gut a kitchen full of perfectly functional cabinets. A lot of the houses they fix are actually move in ready, and they do a ton of unnecessary work. They could save money by keeping some of the stuff in the house and working with it. But it's like there's a rule that the client's money has to be used up totally. If the client is willing to give them 100k, then by god they will come up with a renovation plan that costs 100k.

score 6/10

lacksheep 21 June 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3491838/