design shows
Years ago, my wife got hooked on home improvement shows. And so did much of America, apparently, from the boom of related shows on every network. It used to just be Trading Spaces on TLC and This Old House on HGTV. But now you can find home improvement shows around the clock on many networks - While You Were Out, Designed to Sell, Debbie Travis’ Facelift, Design on a Dime, Curb Appeal, Let’s Paint Some Random Crap in Your Backyard, you name it… As you read this, millions of people are sitting on their butts somewhere watching TV and not improving their homes.
The formula for these shows is pretty standard. You have a quirky host/ designer surprise a family with a camera crew. They take some or all of a house and paint it differently and a hunky carpenter puts in some shelves. They always remove ceiling fans. If the previous color was dull, they cover the walls with wild colors. If the previous walls were wild, you paint them dull. Anything you can do to make the before-and-after pictures moderately different. Then there is some artificial demand for time. “Oh no, we better paint this faster! So and So is almost home!” Then So and So gets home, sees the changes, and cries her eyeballs out. Then my wife cries her eyeballs out. Then I make crying sounds and she hits me with couch pillows.
I don’t like watching anything that is designed to make you cry. I remember the early years of dating my wife, back when things were new and unfamiliar, when I was still nervous about what her parents thought of me. The four of us went to see Phenomenon, the John Travolta cry-fest, and I boohooed in front of all these nice people. Later I was thinking, whoa, that was an amazingly bad movie choice. Next to the PG-13/R-ratings or whatever, they should have an emotional letter designation. Like a huge Teardrop with an exclamation mark in the center of it to warn guys not to watch these movies. Who wants to cry about something fictional anyway? Doesn’t life already have enough tragedy?
I estimate in the year I’ve lived in my house, including weekends, my wife has watched an average of one hour of home improvements shows a day. That is 365 hours, or over 2 straight weeks of days and nights watching other people paint houses that she doesn’t live in. Guess how many interior walls in my house are painted a color other than white? I’ll give you a clue: It’s less than one.
It’s funny how as the demand for more design shows continues to grow, the budgets become much shorter on the lesser networks. For instance, there is a show now where they don’t spend any money, and instead they just scootch your furniture around to different spots. They make you stand outside, then you come back in for your ‘reveal’ and act surprised. “Oh, I would have never thought of bringing that chair in here from the other room, thanks. Hey, did you pin my bedsheets to the curtains? I need those.” But if you’re the homeowner and ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover shows up, luckily for you they’re bulldozing your place and you’re getting marble floors and plasma TVs in every room. The bad news there is to get on that show, you need to have 12 kids who are all missing limbs and are allergic to the color green.