MaKaM

So the "tell all" was basically a waste (or a recap) right? I missed an episode or two so aside from some fishing scene I hadn't seen before, everything was basically same sh*t, different name.

I am also unclear how many guests at one time they are thinking they'll have. Is there really the demand to have someone manning the smoothie bar at all times? I haven't looked the place up online but catering to the celebrity/boutique/wedding crowd (as the rooms indicate) is usually a completely different price point than the scuba crowd. Isn't it? Unless you drop your prices for the off season for the scuba-ers? OMG, the applied moldings. At least she finally gave up on it because you could see that he simply wasn't gonna no matter how she tried. That said, the dining room either needed applied moldings or artwork on the walls. How boring did that look? (regarding the sewer gas issue, i was having my basement bathroom redone so my renters down there had to use my main floor bathroom and the builder took the toilet off and "plugged" the toilet flange with a few walmart bags. Not exactly air tight. We tried taping a plastic bowl over it but still the sewer gasses came through. I gave them a box of matches which does actually help for a little bit (it is not enough methane to explode like in a movie) but I have no idea how they slept through the night with that stink. It really is unbelievable. /cool story)

Yeah, they definitely bit off more than they could personally chew. With the show and kids and other stuff back in Canada, they definitely needed more "behind the scenes" managers actually running things. Sorry, I can't get over the lighting snafu. Okay, power is 120v and she bought 12v fixtures so they have to run new wire. I am not an electrician (and I don't play on one TV) but couldn't they just get a transformer (or several) and step the power down to 12v? Wouldn't that be easier than running all new lines in the practically completed resort? I also liked the tension cable/wine storage discussion. She clearly had no idea what kind of structure would be required for something like that and was only caring about the appearances while Bryan and Adam (and me, cuz I am an engineer) are looking at her like she has lobsters coming out of her ears. I was having funny visions of tension cables holding lots of wine bottles attached to all going crashing to the white stone floor. (my brother and sister had their AC freeze into a block of ice for the first and only time when they were trying to have a big party. It is almost like they can sense big moments and are like, ice, ice baby!) ETA: I agree about the blandness of the hotel rooms. Sure they are zen and lovely but they also look like hotel rooms you can find anywhere.

Absolutely nothing. I may have 7 possible bedrooms but only 3 people live here right now. But I have to have the septic pumped every five years, full or not because of local regulations. If I had 20 people living here, I'd probably have to have it done more often. And it isn't like there is any sensor in it that says "clean me now". But if you live near a lake or river, it behooves you to have the right sized septic (or oversized) and maintain it because any overflow into your body of water would be really yucky. The couple in this episode (especially since she was a former real estate agent) absolutely knew that a fourth bedroom (to code) was an impossibility and it was thrown on the list just to have something to bitch about and then eliminate.

Episode with Mary and Morgan (?) where they have a contemporary-style house in a lake and they can't get the guest room because they are on a septic for 3 bedrooms and that would be a 4th bedroom and they are just so upset that they won't get it. So fake. As if anyone on a septic would think they could just add a fourth bedroom without checking their tank size. People around here do it by saying 4th bedroom not to code or whatever, but if you want an official 4th bedroom, OF COURSE you have to make sure the septic can handle it (she says with a 5 bedroom septic and approximately 7 bedrooms in the house). And how hard would it be to get a foldout couch for visitors? I know it is mostly fake, but you'd think people would dislike having to parrot stupid things on TV.

North Carolina to Zurich. She was too loud overall and I do dislike the trope of the Americans going somewhere and insisting the place be movie-authentic. Like the countries just stayed stuck in time once Hollywood left and kept cooking in kettles in the fireplace or whatever. The "I get my way this time" was also not cute. Even if it was producer-driven, she came off like a pill to live with and so unnecessarily contrary. That said, I got to spend a day in Zurich on a high school European trip and living there would be a dream. But there is no way I could ever afford 7k a month unless salaries are a huge jump. So dream it must remain.

Big Texas Fix is by far the best of the second/third tier shows (shows that aren't being constantly pimped by the network) but google shows S02E01 on August 31st. Nothing mentioned on their facebook page or anywhere else or even any indication that they were filming another season so I don't want to get my hopes up. Probably just a "pop-up" repackage of a season 1 episode. Stupid google getting my hopes up. On First Time Flippers (or a similar one), there was an episode where the two flippers were putting down a laminate wood floor and they lined all the seams up. Full piece, full piece, full piece, cut piece. Repeat for the length of the room. They high fived over how easy to install it was. It was so funny, and they had no clue how wrong they did it. But someone must have told them because it was fixed by the reveal. There are definitely times on that show that I root for a flop, but somehow they usually seem to come out ahead, no matter how stupid or naive they are.

It has all been Holmes Makes it Right and Holmes and Holmes (sometimes Next Gen) which they only have a few episodes of each to show and they've definitely shown them all. Frequently. I was thinking about the 10 year old ones from the original show. Sure, seen 'em but at least I didn't see them last week on the previous marathon. If I needed a break from the constant Chip and Joanna reruns, I need a break from Mike and Jr. fixing up the work/play property and the country house. And the cops who got taken by the contractor and the family who for some reason couldn't tighten their own dishwasher drain line (or replace the dishwasher) and instead called their insurance which led to a 2 year dramafest of hotel stays, mis-installed fridges, holes in the floor, etc. Over a leaky dishwasher that probably just needed a valve tightened and some floor sanding that any reasonably competent person could have tackled in a weekend. Sorry, that veered off topic, apparently I needed to vent. 😛 I would say I would be interested in seeing how the show looked in its original state, but I am not ready to watch it all again any time soon. Though if they are chopping the episodes and condensing stuff, that seems pretty short sighted with the dearth of new programming they have on tap. If anything, they should be re-editing to make more episodes, not less. Bet HGTV wishes they had dragged the Brady show out for a few more episodes.

When they were doing the initial part of the reveal, they were being really careful to shoot Mina from the waist up or back only and it was like "we've all seen the previews, we know she is pregnant" and then when we got to the singing-in-the-bathroom part, they just were like, screw it, show the bump. I have a butcher block island and I like it but I wouldn't want all my countertops to be wood but at least it wasn't another undermount sink with the wood countertops. But yeah, for the linear feet of countertop, it wouldn't have been *that* much money. Overall though, I thought it was a cute house that wasn't overdone for the area. It didn't have a huge booty-addition like that one from a few weeks ago. 20k profit at least isn't them gouging the market.

I remembered to watch this week (forgot the last two weeks) and doesn't look like I've missed much. The "reveal" of the different rooms...they all look the same. They are such snoozers, the camera focuses on the accessories (though I did like the rock (?) walls that the sconces were in). How do you wait until a month before opening to worry about lighting? How bad are the working conditions that the sous chef quits the week before the soft opening? You'd think working on a tropical island in a kitchen that isn't going to be serving many people for a long time would be the dream job. I'll probably give their new-to-the-US show a few watches, but if they are as disorganized in their regular business as they have been here...it isn't a good look. I'm on Team Bring-back-Scott-McGillvray-and-Sarah-Richardson Old Shows. Or run old Holmes shows. I'd rather watch Sarah and Tommy do 10 year old designs than see yet another attempt to make Kortney and Dave from Tennessee into TV stars (they are on what, their third boring show?); stop trying to make fetch happen, HGTV.

I think for all seasons nearly everyone they have "revealed" the house to has not been a buyer. At first, my assumption was that they wanted the reveals to be different from the Chip-and-Johanna ones that were for a specific couple or the Flip-or-Flop ones that were open houses where everyone gushed over the gray and white. Maybe the producers required a different ending so it wasn't too much like all the other shows on the network. Eventually I bet they ran out of family and friends and are now doing friends of friends who pretend they are maybe interested in buying a house and can do the gush. I'll give Good Bones some props: I always remember to watch it on Tuesdays (I did not set my DVR as the commercials urge me to) while I've forgotten 2 weeks in a row (at least) to watch Renovation Island.

Unless they were going for the raw-wood/country look, chances are the treated lumber was just too fresh to paint. Now, I had my pressure treated porch posts vinyl wrapped but that would probably be too nice for the price point. Lots of their porches are the raw pressure treated lumber because building and selling happen so closely together on the show. ETA: now, they did look undersized for the mass of the porch jut out. The mcmansionhell girl would be all mad at those spindly posts with that huge porch roof-thing. Definitely should have found it in the budget to double them up at the very least. I don't mind walking into a dining space. :shrug: maybe I am weird but I'd rather walk into a dining room if it meant getting a larger living room.

Seriously. Was there no better way to tie the two structures together than that tiny hallway? Why even bother saving the front part if there is no way to nicely integrate the addition?

I believe (not an expert, trying to beat the information out of my brain) that lead pipes are not an issue as long as they are in constant use and there is some additive in the water. The issues in Flint were because the local government cheaped out and didn't put the additive in which leads to the pipes corroding and shedding their lead particles into the water. So Mina's pipes might not have been a problem but could become one in the future.

Some note: 1. Mina's house is seriously overbuilt for the neighborhood. The way it towers over the neighbors and the street just looks weird. 2. Don't use butcher block with an undermount sink. Terrible idea. 3. I am not a fan of the weird music choices this season. What is with the random song snippets? One of her relatives has a band maybe? 4. That house from the aerial view was terrible too. Too big for the area no matter what it looked like on the front. Why don't they do basements? It is frickin' Indiana. I could get over their usual tiny living rooms if they had full basement play room/family rooms.

I gotta say, if I were doing something like this, I would get the clubhouse/restaurant open first (or at least the smoothie cafe) to get people used to coming to the resort and getting the name out there. Don't know what other resorts are on the island but offering an additional place for people to come for high class dining would be a good way to get some income. As for the open bar thing, are they going to have someone sleep overnight in it or does it close up in some way? You can't leave all the alcohol on display shelves when you have some big wedding party staying there... Guess that initial "we gotta open in 6 months or we're broke!" was a wee bit of an exaggeration. Also, geez, did they consult with anyone before making their budget/schedule? Survey the property? Also, I agree with the others, he sucks. Pissy. And yeah, constant change orders can drive a builder crazy so she's pretty useless in that way, but the way he acts, he's telling her that the job is the important thing, not the family. I see a divorce in their future without him doing a major recalibration.

I'd rather have the marble on the wall than on the countertops. Buying in a transitional neighborhood is always a gamble--it might never get better or you could end up sitting on a pile of money as your house appreciates. I mean, I think people living in San Francisco are nuts--the city is built on the rubble of the previous city which sits on top of an earthquake fault line, but if my family could go back in time and buy land in the early 1900s out there we'd be set for life. You never know.

Part of me feels bad but then the rest of me thinks that is what you get when you have two project managers who aren't communicating instead of one person (preferably not in a relationship with the other two) running and scheduling things.

I hadn't seen the "cat tube" episode before and there is a couple I wouldn't mind a status update on. Either they were great actors and really emphasizing the producer-driven strife or they were well on the road to hating each other.

Yeah, I didn't realize how much I liked the computer graphics lots of the other shows use to show what the overall project is and show what changes they are planning on making until now. To me, it just looks like they are going around like headless chickens doing a bit of a thing here, a bit of a thing there, and focusing most of their time/energy on one room/suite. Get Tamra Day out there to break it into phases!

I haven't seen any of their other shows (that I remember, though he is familiar so maybe commercials?) but I don't find them personable or interesting enough to be so much the focus of the show. If it were the couple from Big Texas Fix or even Chip and Joanna, it might work better but I am just not a fan of these two. Heck, I'd even take the Property Brothers over them. I still don't have a very good idea of how big this resort is or what they are trying to accomplish with it (except for making money). I've also only been half-paying attention, so yeah. As an aside, I too have ordered tile and because it came from different production lots there was lots of variation in the colors and the sizes were also different enough to be a challenge. It stinks when tile producers don't have good quality control.

I mean, there were people who were on the show for work or tagged along with their friend who threw themselves at him on camera. So, it wouldn't be surprising if he got an outsized impression of his appeal. But he generally seems like a nice, if slightly arrogant, guy. I guess if he wants to date and marry hot, young things, well, he isn't the first guy to do so and you have to censure the women too if they are looking at his money and fame first over personality and compatibility.

I'll admit it, I was thinking the Comedians stuff was going to be like when they shoe-horned the kids into the episodes, but it was better than that by far. I liked the commentary (better than popups) and the jokes really weren't mean at all cuz mustache-guy could have really gotten more ribbing. I hadn't seen either episode but wanted to say that I had to some work in Twentynine Palms CA but my hotel was in Palm Springs so I drove through Joshua Tree twice a day for a week and never noticed a town. Shacks along the desert road, yeah, I remember that. But a real town...not ringing a bell. I'm guessing they chose it because Palm Springs was too expensive? Looks like they turned the place into a rental (maybe air bnb?) called The Castle House Estate.

It's funny that HGTV is "going the distance" with Allison -- as in they haven't abandoned her to her own devices with her clusterfork of a business and off-putting personality, while every winner of their design star show except for David Bromstad is show-less. Maybe their talent scouts need to do a better job is all I am saying.

So while the wallpaper she chose this time (and last time) wasn't my taste, I do appreciate that she isn't making gray and white boxes. Modern wallpaper should just peel off if don't you like it. I was thinking about putting crazy wallpaper like she did in the laundry room into my pantry closet. big palm leaves and flamingos and then paint the shelves pink. Because it is the pantry (or laundry room for her) who cares? But then, I have an orange and cream dining room, a green living room, and a yellow hallway. I liked the light blue cabinets more than I thought I would and the busy granite actually looked good. The gold fixtures and whatnot, I assume she is getting at discount from the lighting store on stuff that didn't sell and she tries to pimp it out as top-of-the-line. The way she says "all" is the thing that gets me. "ohhhwlllll" or something. Seems like her husband is replacing her dad in the show now. And with her new store, guess they have to work the coworker (co-owner? designer?) in more now. Either way, I'd rather watch this with the ugly wallpaper than more Property Brothers gray boxes so I am still in it.