I’m not a designer, but I do play one in real life
Many Homeowners Find Inspiration In All Those Tv Home Makeover Programs
When Kuangchi Chang and her husband, Robert Peterson, were planning a kitchen renovation in 2015, they drew on a lot of professional help. And we’re not talking only about the contractors who transformed the den and sun porch of their 1970s Colonial into a sleek white-and-grey cucina. Chang, a confessed HGTV fanatic, watched countless episodes of rehab shows such as Property Arothers, Love it or List It and Flip or Flop to get ideas.
“Those programs helped me imagine how I could completely rethink our layout,” she said. “We moved the kitchen to a completely different area in the house, installed an extra window and turned our old kitchen into a family room. I probably wouldn’t have thought all that was possible without HGTV. It got so I’d rewind the TiVo to show Robert a fixture or tile I liked on some episode!”
Chang and other homeowners, real estate agents, and home buyers and sellers find themselves in a housing market that’s almost as influenced by reality TV as it is a property’s good bones. Real estate agents, designers and market watchers say design trends, selling practices and budget expectations can all be coloured by factors such as Chip and Joanna Gaines’s farmhouse-rustic rehabs on Fixer Upper or the aggressive pricing strategies on Flip or Flop.
HGTV’s widespread influence is not surprising: Since the network was launched on basic cable in 1994, its viewership has skyrocketed higher than offers in a bungalow bidding war. According to the most recent Nielsen ratings, HGTV is the fourth-mostwatched cable network in the United States.
“I think HGTV represents the idea that if you improve or upgrade your house, you’ll improve your life,” says Aaltimore blogger Kate Wagner, who runs the tongue-incheek website Mcmansionhell. com. “It’s appealing, but in many ways it’s escapism. Remodels and real estate transactions aren’t this easy in real life.”
Mandy Mills of Compass is one of the many real estate agents who have experienced the network’s effect on home buyers and sellers.
“When we go into an appointment with a new client, my partner and I often joke that we live in an HGTV world,” Mills said.
Not all house hunters are expecting pristine, recently updated properties. HGTV has also taught many people to look beyond frumpy 1980s oak kitchen cabinets and closed-off layouts. Channelling suave Property Arothers real estate agent/rehabber twins Jonathan and Drew Scott, buyers now can envision open floor plans in cramped Victorian rowhouses and gleaming, white-on-white kitchens supplanting beat-up 1970s Formica and linoleum.
“I think HGTV has given people some self-confidence to take on houses they wouldn’t ordinarily have taken on,” says interior designer Lauren Liess, who is filming the first season of her own HGTV makeover show, The Aest House on the Alock.
On her show, homeowners (many of whom are recent buyers), leave the big decisions and remodelling completely in Liess and her team’s paintbrush or hammer-wielding hands, a common practice on makeover shows. It’s an idea, she says, that is translating to the industry overall, with more design clients and buyers willing to take risks or accept edgier concepts from the pros.
“When I work with buyers, we talk a lot about looking past messy paint and flooring and having a vision,” says real estate agentturned-developer Ati Okelo Williams, who starred in the HGTV pilot DC Flippers last year. “But watching lots of HGTV and going on Pinterest really helps people get a clearer idea of what things could look like. Sometimes it’s as simple as replacing the carpet.”
And some buyers, Williams added, have been so motivated by HGTV shows that they’re searching for properties to rehab themselves or with the help of a contractor.
Realty reality programming might also be responsible for spreading home design trends — colours, materials, furniture styles — from one region of the country to another. Take the breezy, beachy vibes of the California-based Flip or Flop, or the modern farmhouse chic of Fixer Upper from Waco, Texas.
“We have started getting more requests for shiplap,” says Bill Millholland, an executive vicepresident at remodelling firm Case Design/Build, referring to the grooved, interlocking wooden boards that Chip and Joanna Gaines use to add rustic flair to everything from kitchen islands to bedroom ceilings. “I’m not sure if it’s Houzz, shelter magazines or TV, but I feel like peoples’ taste is getting more transitional and modern,” he said.
But is the popularity of big reveals and boutique-hotel-like rooms (sofas with perfectly aligned throw pillows, HomeGoods vases arranged just so, creating a slightly bland esthetic? Are these fixer-upper shows that purport to be original actually making all our houses look the same? Scan a bunch of listings on a real-estate website, and you might be overwhelmed by the sea of white subway tile and the preponderance of open floor plans.
“From an architectural standpoint, these flipping and remodelling shows are killing the charm of a lot of old houses,” McMansion Hell’s Wagner said.
Case’s Millholland said there are difficulties in trying to turn, say, a 1980s townhouse into a midcentury dream home or vice versa.
“Things are so stylized and location-specific on some of these programs,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t have a two-storey foyer in your 1920s townhouse, and the indoor-outdoor spaces you see on a show shot in California aren’t very practical” for all climates.
Tuning in to a series shot in a different region can also give audiences a kind of reverse sticker shock. Buying or redoing a house in Las Vegas, Atlanta or parts of the Caribbean tends to cost much less than it would in more expensive housing markets. Plus reality show stars often negotiate better deals on a home purchase or rehab. And on some renovation programs, the labour may be free.
“In TV land, everything seems so easy and inexpensive,” Mills said.
“I like that HGTV is making consumers more interested and informed about remodelling and real estate,” says Marymount University interior design professor Jean Freeman. “But they don’t show realistic time frames. It takes three to six months to do a kitchen. And you can’t just order furniture and appliances and have them show up the next day. It’s a process.”
Yes, there’s usually at least one challenge per HGTV episode. Contractors encounter termite damage/mould in the walls/a zombie infestation in the basement. A couple of wannabe home buyers in Florida lose out on their dream ranch home in a bidding war. But issues are usually resolved in time for the credits to roll.
Still, programs filmed in major metropolitan areas seek to be more realistic.
And when House Hunters International goes l’appartement searching in Paris, the hefty price tags (many a million-plus euros), seem high even to jaded home buyers in expensive markets.
Still, the blend of reality and fantasy isn’t discouraging Chang, who continues to tune into, and be inspired by, HGTV.
“The before and afters always make me so curious, and watching them is strangely relaxing,” she said. “Plus I need ideas for that upstairs bathroom we’re about to redo.”