Sunday, July 13, 2014

Take on the HGTV shows

For the last few months we've had the HGTV channel on about 90% of the
time the TV is on. It's a great channel with a bunch of good shows on
home improvements but what continues to kill me (and a few buddies who
I have discussed this with) is that every one of these shows seems to
be able to a complete gut renovation for the cost of a Honda Odyssey.
These shows will take a complete dump with mold in the basement,
structural problems, low ceilings and are basically made completely
out of asbestos. The owners of the house give a couple of brothers
(literally two brothers not a bunch of black dudes) $30k and they turn
a complete wreck into a million dollar mansion

What is frustrations is that we redid our fireplace for about $10k and
these guys will put on an extension for that price. I get that a
lot of the stuff they do is very cosmetic and decluttering which makes
these places look a lot better but what I have to think is that the
show must be subsidized by the show. For one, the "contractor" is
often the host of the show, so he's not taking his same cut.

Mostly, I am annoyed that if a house around NYC costs a million
dollars and the same house in Texas goes for like $150k. I get that
living in Texas isn't for everybody but at some point the cost of the
work and renovations is just so ridiculously overpriced around here
that watching this channel is akin to asking your four year old to
kick you the groin for thirty minutes per night

No comments: