HGTV

I've been hooked. I have fallen in love with HGTV and now, instead of cartoons or sports center when I wake up - I watch HGTV. Also, sports center sucks nowadays. I watched the World Series, I don't need the hilights. Football this far from Sunday is boring cause it's just people yelling at each over points that no one cares about in the first place. And I can't pronounce any of the Hockey players names.

I woke up this morning and a show called "Design on a Dime" was on. I've now been watching it for close to an hour (apparently it's one of those shows that they just run for 9 hours in the morning). For those of you who don't know the show, the premise is that a HGTV personality is brought in and asked to redesign a room in a house for one thousand dollars (NOT a dime, which is ten cents still). With that being the case - let me point out some things I saw.

1. Cost -
The show has 3  people that are leading up the renovation, and all of them are professional craftsmen and decorators or designers. This may strike you as obvious because after all, it is a show on TV and professionals make the best workers. But here is my concern - when I have a guy that is constructing a wooden lodge-type chandelier out of drift wood he "found" and floral wire, I have a problem understanding how it would cost me 45 bucks to do the same thing. No sir, it's only 45 bucks worth of materials maybe, but what would it cost to have you build it? Cause while you were learning how to bejewel a chandelier I was learning what do with a bunt down the third base line with men on first and second and one out.

I get that the whole show is based on the pretense that these types of renovations don't have to be as expensive or intrusive as one might think and "anyone can have their dream house". But in reality - you would need to hire 3 very motivated, connected, and talented professionals to come do the work for you , which I'm sure will put you over your $1000 total right off the bat. I don't know how to build a subfloor, so it won't cost me 80 dollars.

2. "Faux"
Faux means fake. That's what that means. It's French, and the English translation is 'fake'. Now, some people may be well aware of that fact - but it appears that no one on this show is. I've never seen people more excited about their "faux rock wall". Ummmmm - that means that someone hung vinyl wall paper up with ugly pictures of "rocks" on it. That does not mean you just got a piece of the Louvre to bring home. But hey, French is a nice language and it it brings a smile to these people's faces then it's good for TV and good for the show. Just remember, "omnia dicta fortiori, si dicta Latina" (look it up).


3. Reaction
Most of the time the people love the space and truly, the designers did a really good job, but I secretly hope that someone comes into the room and just vomits on the floor in disgust. I think it would be so funny to see the look on someones face when they've been completely betrayed by what their house just turned into  - and maybe even more priceless would be the look on the host's face as he tried to convince them that they'd like it eventually and this is exactly what they wanted. I'm just weird like this, I'm also PRAYING that one day when the mascot races the little kid around the bases - he beats the beats the kid by an entire base length. *For those of you who have never been to a minor league baseball game - that last sentence didn't make any sense*


Thanks for tuning in, as always. I'm back in LA now, and will probably only be posting a couple times a week now (I can hear you cry). As always, if you have any questions or comments, go ahead and leave them on the blog or email me at colecook.soc@gmail.com. 


Have fun out there.