Why the Heck Did I Buy This House?

This is a fairly standard, enjoyable HGTV home renovation show - except for season 1, episode 5, when the homeowners' guinea pig is moved into a bottom cabinet of the laundry room, with much less natural light and seemingly less ventilation than the previous enclosure. Overall, I appreciated the designer's ability to creatively reimagine floor plans, but the family didn't mention the guinea pig's location or enclosure as a problem (at least not in the footage that aired). The family seemed to love their guinea pig, so I'm hoping they were just being polite when they marveled at the cabinet and didn't end up using it. I hope Poncho gets lots of love and attention.

I gave this show a chance I couldn't get past the first episode. So many things wrong. Overall there was nothing exciting or new about the design. White on white, how original. Wasted innovative opportunities given the gigantic budget. Yawn, next.

This show isn't awful. Just pretty much the same as all of the other reno shows out there. What bothered me in the episode I saw was that they relegated the pet Guinea pig to the bottom cabinet in a laundry room. They're social animals. Seems cruel to keep them in a room away from the rest of the family.

Even by the standards of shows that air on HGTV and/or TLC, this latest variation of house p-rn sets the standard for having a blow-dried host acting as a project manager, making complex project come to life for unrealistic budgets, and ending up with irredeemably hideous final results.

I am diving in for the first time with the episode where the host who looks like a model is managing the renovation of a chef and his wife who bought some scabby little bungalow on some scabby little street.

The project proceeds, costs run up, hurdles both real and contrived are overcome.

Then comes the reveal: the front landing has wh-rehouse wallpaper; the bathroom has a garish combo of copper pedestal sinks and gold-framed mirrors, and on it goes.

In 20+ years of watching these shows on these networks - including all of Tex and Edna Gaines tributes to bad taste, and that pair of tw!ts in Vegas (is that still on?) - this is the ugliest, crassest, most god-awful ugly house I have even seen (whether "before" or "after").

If I ever bother to watch it again, it will probably be for camp value.

The show is entertaining, but there are a few things that really bother me. The first thing is the lack of researching when doing something they're not used to. The guinea pig is the epitome of that. If anyone had done a 30 min research on the subject, they would understand how terrible for a LIVING BEING that idea really was. Same with the "skate park". The second major problem for me is that in the majority of cases the home owners had a very cluttered space and we never get to see what was done with all those things. Like, of course, wirh the house emptied things look really organized, but how did you solved the real issue? How things will be when they will bring their stuff back ? The third major problem for me is that she seems unable to bring any sort of variety to her projects. She does her house with her taste over and over again. White walls inside, a lot of metal texture sprinkled around, an unecessary wallpaper, tiles and bad art that makes every house look like a boring pinterest board of someone that doesn't understand too much about architecture nor design, but it's a neat freak.