HGTV’s Nine Best Shows: The Ultimate Renovation Porn Guide
Extreme Homes
As someone who tuned into MTV in high school not for Total Request Live but Cribs, this show fills a place in my heart that longs for totally ridiculous over the top homes with absurd features. Sure, Cribs gave us the Mariah Carey episode where the singer showed off her Moroccan souk-themed penthouse and demonstrated some exercises in stilettos in her personal gym, but that’s nothing compared to some of the design dreams realized on Extreme Homes. There’s the couple who were inspired by eggs for their design, which includes a gigantic sculpture of one half of a hardboiled egg, a sofa they’ve dubbed “Don’t Break My Eggs,” which is basically a chic ball pit filled with oversized white spheres in the shape of, wait for it, eggs, and a guest bathroom whose exterior looks like an enormous dinosaur egg. There’s also a seaside house made from refrigerator panels, a floating home that once was a ferry and spherical house that revolves with the sun. Photo: Courtesy
House Hunters International
In keeping with the premise of the original stateside House Hunters, HHI follows people around as they move from one country to another, buying or renting new places in a new land. Pros of this show: seeing different types of homes all over the world, living vicariously through couples who decide to, for example, retire and move to the south of France, and live that perfect proven?ale style life of bike rides, baguettes and bottles of Burgundy. Cons: the anxiety I get for the people who explain that they’re moving to St. Maarten because they went on vacation there once and hey, it looked like a nice place to live so why not just quit our jobs and do it? Photo: Courtesy
Vacation House For Free
The premise of this program is that if want to buy a second home and are not independently wealthy, you can purchase and renovate one (with the help of eye candy host Matt Blashaw) that will allow you to rent it out at a rate that will cover the mortgage— even if you’d rather be there during peak season. I love the idea behind this show because as someone who significantly overthinks things that happen to strangers on TV, it seems like the people are making smart, fiscally responsible decisions. I have an inner dialogue going DON’T buy the brand new house with the private beachfront that require planes, trains, automobiles AND ferries to get to! DO buy the house one block from the beach that renters can easily access and don’t worry because Blashaw can easily open up that crappy layout. And whatever you do, make sure to include an outdoor shower— the crown jewel of any vacation house. Photo: Courtesy
Rehab Addict
Host Nicole Curtis restores old, often abandoned homes in Minnesota, Michigan, and Ohio. What’s great about this show is that she makes the homes livable again (working plumbing and electricity, yes! squatters, no!) without going too overboard on splashy modern design. She also repurposes tons of old material, whether its beat up pallets made into outdoor patio furniture or an old dresser into a bathroom vanity. I appreciate that Curtis has a serious sense of loyalty to the region (she was born and raised in Michigan), particularly to the areas that need a lot of extra love these days, like Detroit. I also like that she’s got that Midwestern mettle and often enlists her teenage son to help sand down a door or paint a deck. She says she wants to raise a kid who is not just book smart— probably not a bad idea in this back to the land age. Photo: Courtesy
Tiny House, Big Living
Across the board, most people who appear on any given HGTV show dream of McMansions but not on THBL! These clients have decided— for reasons that range from budgets to carbon footprint awareness to wanting a home that can be moved via trailer hookup—that they want to live in a structure that is often a grand total of 180 square feet. At that size, we’re talking micro closets and dorm room fridges. It also makes for some serious creativity: I love seeing the tricks the owners and their builders come up with, like a dining table that converts into a bed for guests (Guests! In a house the size of some people’s bathrooms!) or a staircase that doubles as a bookshelf when not in use. I’m not saying I watch this show because it brings the fantasy of living in a dollhouse to life, but I’m also NOT not saying that. Photo: Courtesy
Fixer Upper
The show follows the well--worn territory of a couple wanting to a buy a house and finding out that to get everything they want, they’ll need to buy a place in incredible disrepair and fix it up. The game changer for this show is the hosts: married couple Chip and Joanna Gaines of Waco, Texas, who live on a farm with four beautiful children and a bunch of animals, are beautiful themselves, and make fun of each other but in a cute loving way as Chip executes Joanna’s designs. I watch for this show for the amazing transformations but really to see Chip play the air guitar on the spindle of an old banister while Joanna just laughs. I want to be adopted by them. Photo: Courtesy
House Hunters
With all the new programming that HGTV has rolled out over the years, many people I know have moved on from House Hunters, finding it less compelling than the other shows. And while I agree that it has a slightly HGTV 1.0 feel to it, there are many aspects to HH that keep me coming back, from the soothing narrator’s voice, to the sharpie marker sound they use to cross an option off the list when the individual or couple is narrowing the decision down. Also as a New Yorker, I get very jealous when someone tells their realtor that they “want 4 bedrooms, at least 3 baths with double sinks in the master, a brand new kitchen with stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops, an open concept layout, and a large backyard,” while confessing to a budget that at best will get you a 4th floor walk up studio in in NYC, and the realtor responds, “Done, I think we can get you everything you need." Photo: Courtesy
Love It Or List It
This shows ticks three important boxes for me when scoring this type of programming: Before/After shots, healthy competition and a sassy woman with a British accent and the man she spars with which you actually think could turn into a romance. Hilary Farr, the designer, and David Visentin, the realtor, meet with (typically) married couples (though sometimes sibling roommates) who have decided that their house is no longer working. However, the twist is that one person wants to scrap the whole thing and move while the other thinks a renovation will solve their problems. When I first started watching this show, I felt like Farr was sometimes a little too harsh with the homeowners, but now I very much sympathize with her when she’s forced to have a conversation that goes something like this:
Farr: "We discovered that your roof is collapsing and we need to replace it, so we won’t be able to put in that main level powder room.”
Homeowners: “What?!? You PROMISED us a powder room.”
Farr: “Yes, but now that money needs to go to the new roof. I can’t do both.”
Homeowners: “What the hell Hilary?!”
Farr: “The roof could literally crush your family at any moment, I’m sorry.”
Homeowners: “Screw you Hilary. Maybe David will give us what he said he would.”
In the end, everyone is happy with both Farr and Visentin’s work, making the last two seconds in which the decision to love it or list it is just great television. Photo: Courtesy
Property Brothers
Twin brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott meet with couples in Toronto (and occasionally points elsewhere) who have an idea of what they’re looking for but not the funds to get it in a brand new house. As any seasoned TV Twins worth their salt will tell you, two offspring produced by the same pregnancy must be differentiated by clothing, hairstyles, and interests. Thus, Drew as the realtor has short hair and wears suits, while Jonathan the designer has slightly more flowing locks and favors flannel shirts and jeans. Regardless, the brothers work together to convince couples that they can get everything they want if they buy a house in desperate need of repair that Jonathan will then transform into their dream home. The show’s premise fulfills my love of a good Before/After (the worse the property, the better the makeover!) and you also feel like the brothers are pulling for the clients. If Jonathan says he’s gonna get something done HE DOES, even if little issues pop up like finding out the foundation is crumbling. This show is my end all, be all. If an HGTV executive decides to start a network that exclusively airs Property Brothers episodes, I will be a
happy devotee. Photo: Courtesy
As a slightly strange child of the late ‘80s, early '90s, there were very few programs on TV to sate my inner decorator needs. There was Bob Villa’s This Old House, but that’s about it. Still, I did what I could to get by. While most of my friends would tune into Home Improvement to see heartthrob of the time Jonathan Taylor Thomas (AKA JTT) , I was glued to Tim Taylor’s projects around the house like building custom bunk beds for his sons or designing a dream bathroom for his wife. To my 11 year-old self, this was heaven! So when the HGTV network came along with 24 hour programming solely devoted to home renovation and design, I was ecstatic.
Upon learning of my HGTV obsession because, real talk, I regularly bring it up to friends and acquaintances, people will often ask me to recommend the “best” show. Yet picking just one series would be like picking a favorite child: impossible. They all offer something slightly different, whether it’s the fantasy of buying some decrepit home one day and turning it into a masterpiece or the soothing, dulcet tones of a host telling a client “It turns out that wall is NOT load bearing and we can take it down to create an open concept layout.” However, years of viewing and careful deliberation, I’ve been able to narrow down the network’s offerings to my Top 9, in descending order.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.