HGTV Guide
Written: Jan 11 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The right mix of shows for those who have a lot of money, and are now refining their home, and shows for those of us who are learning how to own a home on-the-fly and on a tight budget.
Cons: A little lack of focus on programming that homeowners can apply to their everyday lives
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| ziprz's Full Review: Home & Garden |
Amazing how interests change when you get married and buy a house. Here's a guide of what to watch and what not to bother with. This epinion represents a male Do-Everything-Yourself point of view. Other demographics should chime in and let us all know if any of the other shows are worth watching.
------------------Must See TV-----------------
Shows you should program your VCR for
Fix It Up!- This is the most realistic and helpful Home Improvement show on HGTV. Pat Simpson and Jodi Marks do projects that run the gamut from easy to involved. The projects are always finished in 1 episode, so you don't have to worry about missing the next one. The hosts do not make any assumptions about your expertise, so the hints are useful for beginners right up through the pros.
Gardening by the Yard- Paul James provides a huge amount of information on all types of gardens. He's really entertaining to watch. This show is the most useful garden show on HGTV, as this shows you how to take care of the typical vegetable and flower gardens that rookie homeowners have.
Room by Room- Make sure you see every one of these. Each show takes a different room of the house and transforms it. You will pick up some tips of how to help any room inexpensively. This show is catered to DIYer's, with Shari Hiller and Matt Fox, the show's hosts, never bringing in "professional help". This element along with their sometimes overly-goofy antics makes me feel more confident about my own abilities to decorate my house. At the very least, you will learn a lot of new painting techniques, and what an "inspiration piece" is.
Room for Change- JoAnne Liebeler, the show's host, typically brings in a professional interior decorator to transform ugly rooms. I think I like this show because she has a more practical and "do-able" style to her designs, than many of the other shows.
The Fix- This is really a hip home show. Have the Record button ready. This show is divided into home improvement snippets about how to fix all kinds of stuff around the house. For instance I recorded how to fix a hole in a wall. Sometimes the things that they fix are way too basic.
--------------Catch them if they're on-----------------
New Yankee Workshop- Who can resist a half an hour of Norm Abram using every tool on God's Green Earth to create a home made piece of furniture? You'll never be able to actually make anything he's making, but seeing the newest gadget is worth the time by itself.
This Old House Classics- This show is on every cable station anyway, so most of the projects are old news. It always amazes me how they can make an old rat trap into a masterpiece. The problem here is that the homeowners always seem to have an unlimited budget, and there is very little practical knowledge to be gained.
Before and After- Pat Simpson's other show is entertaining, but impractical. There are some people in this world that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars turning a 1950's cape cod into a mansion. I'm certainly not one of them, and I doubt there are many others. Sometimes I just want to jump into the television and ask the homeowners why they didn't just build a new house? The whole first half of the show is dedicated to the "before" while the whole last half of the show is dedicated to the "after"
If Walls Could Talk- Takes you through people's ghost stories, and accounts of the things that they found while fixing up their old house. I love history, so this show is just great.
--------------Good For a Laugh-----------------
Savoir Faire- Check out what people who don't own a house do in their spare time. Nik Manojlovich brings his eclectic ideas about how to throw a cocktail party complete with "spritzers" and delicate crudites. I laugh because I've still got gutters to fix, and windows to repair, but like I said, this is good for a laugh.
Extreme Homes- Check out people who live in caves and airplanes. Pure entertainment.
At the Auction- Check out the stuff that people buy for thousands of dollars to fill up all that "empty" space in their home.
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A few parting shots. I could really watch this channel 24 hours a day except for a few reasons. 1. Leave the cooking shows to the Food Network. I would much rather watch Emeril Live anyway. 2. There are a couple of the old timer crafting shows that really could be retired. I'm all for crafts, let's just make the shows about them as hip and up to date as the rest of the shows on the network. 3. Please HGTV, pick up HomeTime. It is a great show that airs all too seldom on The Learning Channel. You could definitely replace some of the Obligatory Bob Vila "Classic" Shows with
a more up to date and interesting remodeling show.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ziprz
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Member: Kris Rzepkowski
Location: Naperville, IL
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 8 members
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