DownTheShore

I like the show, but I'm getting awfully tired of the marathon sessions of it that HGTV is showing on the weekends and evenings.

A question for you all: center islands, yea or nay? I don't happen to have one, but from my experience with them in other people's homes, I don't like them. They narrow down the space between the island and the counter so two people have to turn sideways to pass each other. Instead of being able to move in a direct line to all the major appliances, you usually have to walk around the counter to get to at least one of them.

Bet they wind up putting a zip-lock bag filled with the wine bottle and ice in that indentation for easy clean-up. Or maybe a plastic bag from the local grocery store - lol.

I'm surprised how low the taxes are on the units.

Here's a local report about them: http://www.desertsun.com/story/life/home-garden/2014/09/05/house-hunter-palm-springs/15163851/

With that small of a townhouse, odds are good that there won't be people making noise in the living room when someone is sleeping in the bedroom above it. I was looking at the pictures of the completed homes here: http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/hot-property/la-fi-hotprop-flipping-the-block-20140509-story.html and http://www.bidkw.com/auctions/view/274 It's really clear why the brothers' home wasn't a hot seller - their kitchen is really ugly. Dishwasher right alongside the stove, no cabinets above the refrigerator, the washer/dryer in the kitchen next to the fridge is not enclosed in a closet/cabinet with doors. The living room looks extremely bland. Then the whole no-tub thing, too. I think the sisters' home shows the best in the images. The auction, as televised, didn't follow the address order, which was: A = Sisters B = Big Hair C = Brothers D = John & Whitney

Joss & Main got a lot of constant, free advertising on that show, much more than the cost of the furniture and accessories probably cost them to supply - wonder if they coughed up some cash for the purchase price? Don't forget that HGTV sold advertising minutes for the show so they made back the cost, especially if they are planning on having a second season of the show.

I actually didn't mind Big Hair's townhouse or the fact that it had some personality, so I don't think that it would have been a turn-off for someone who wasn't all fired up about "putting their own mark" on the place. Don't forget that was the only unit that had direct access to the garage via the side patio, which gave it an edge. The tankless water heater freed up some space for them too. The living room ceiling went with the whole shabby chic thing they had going with the second bedroom; if I had bought that one, I would have just painted the exposed wiring and pipes black and called it a day because I liked the look of that chandelier with the exposed wood. For me, the drawback would have been the sandy beach side patio, but I would have just used that sand as a base for stone pavers. I sort of took a perverse pleasure in John and Whitney not winning, mainly because they were so sure that they were going to win; Whitney almost dropped her sweet-thing persona for a moment there. I noticed how they had the shower curtain pulled shut in the bathroom upstairs when they were showing the home, so I guess they never fixed that tiling mistake. Surprise, new owner! I didn't really like their kitchen, anyway, with there not being enough room to open the oven and the dishwasher doors at the same time. The brothers never really had a chance of winning that competition - especially with eliminating a bathtub, which seems to be an essential item for most home buyers. They did have the best-sited townhouse, though, and the best side yard if you like the natural look rather than something styled to the n-th degree. And there was nothing actually wrong with their townhouse; I just don't think that it was decorated up to its potential and probably appeared drab compared to the others - especially if the furnishings are included with the house. The sisters definitely suffered by going first, though from the way the bidding went, it seemed as though the buyers each had a specific townhouse that they wanted, rather than just wanting to buy one of the townhouses on that lot - which is the way that I would have approached the auction, since they were all of similar desirability. Perhaps their townhouse suffered by being the one next to the driveway? That probably would have made it the least desirable of all of them. I would have expected the later townhouses to go for a higher price, if they were in a desirable location in the town; perhaps location had an effect. I would have thought that those townhouses would have gone for a higher price, given the prices we see asked for homes in CA on the HH episodes. It would be interesting to watch the auction over to see if everyone there bid at least once on the property or if there were some ringers in the audience. The fact that no one initially offered for Big Hair's townhouse made me think that the producers told the audience to pause for a moment before making a bid, because there was no reason for that delay in bidding. I'm guessing that the people at the auction had to pre-qualify in order to bid. On HGTV's house flipper shows, those people who buy houses at auction have to put up $100K right up front as surety in order to even bid, IIRC, and then have to be able to pay the rest right at the time of the auction, so I would assume that there would have been something similar to that with this show. I hope they do another one of these shows, and do not add any false drama to it because I liked seeing regular people just trying to get along with one another without any backstabbing or angst while working toward a common goal. I really don't identify with anyone on those reality shows where there's constant gamesmanship to harm another player's chances, and don't like to watch that. Hopefully, though, they won't invite Nicole back to be a judge.

Also saw the one set in Puerto Rico where the family moved from Indianapolis, I think. He was working in downtown San Juan, and the kids were already attending school in Dorado and apparently couldn't be moved. The apartment in town had a beautiful view of the water and was close to the beach, but had one less bedroom than they wanted, but the husband would be close to work. However, God forbid that each child couldn't have their own room and that they might have to double up. ~insert eyeroll~ But the killer to that one was that the wife - who wasn't employed - would have to drive 45 minutes each way to take the children to school. Now granted, that's about 3 hours of drive time each day - but other than the housework (in an apt) what else is she going to spend her time on? The kids could also move to a closer school, but that apparently wasn't even an option. There was a choice that would have meant that both the wife and the husband would have a 30 minute drive to their respective locations, but nooooo, that one wouldn't do. Of course they took the one that was over budget, gave everyone their own bedroom, was bigger, that had only a 10 minute drive to the kids' school, and which gave the husband an hour-and-a-half drive one way to work. So it's okay for him to spend 3 hours on the road each day, but not for her.

I was coming here today to comment on that same episode. Her dislike of city living seemed almost pathological to me. Usually when people move to a new country where they don't know anyone else, they want to live in an area where they will at least interact with other people; she didn't want to to do that at all. And she made that comment in one of the showings how that soaking in that big bathtub (in the unit they didn't wind up choosing) would be helpful to cheer her up during the long winter nights. I would think that if she is worrying about the long nights, she would want to be located in a place where she could actually go out and DO something during those nights. I wondered if it was some sort of passive/aggressive protest against having to move to Iceland for her husband's schooling? She is making herself totally dependent upon him for her social interactions and punishing him by making sure that he has a longer commute. He's the one who is going to have to make friends and invite them over, and then she will get to critique them. He is the one who's going to have to rush home to be with her because "she's all alone during the day in a strange country". ----- Can someone explain to me why, if there is no oven in an apartment, the potential renters never think to themselves, "oh, we can just pick up a large toaster oven and that will serve in place of an oven for most recipes"?

Ditto that. I don't want a spa tub right in my bedroom nor do I want a sink. I want a bathroom with a door that closes. I don't want to watch anyone urinate or defecate, nor do I want them to watch me doing the same.

I don't think that pool is going to be as big a negative as we might think. There are only four townhouses using it and probably whoever owns the one right in front of it will be at work during the daytime. Once school starts, any kids in the townhouses will only have a narrow window of time to use the pool. Depending on who lives in the townhouses, it might not get much use at all - or just have adults lounging around it. Besides, they have their side yard to escape to.

wings707 - I was looking at Google satellite view of the property, and Google street view. ETA: I noted that on that Zillow listing their bathroom shot didn't show the shower faucet - lol.

Probably we should check the crime statistics for the area to see if the wife went mad from the loneliness and murdered her husband - lol. I thought the view was "beautiful" but that that feeling would probably last for the first month or so until the novelty wore off, and then it would be just unrelenting sameness no matter where you looked.

Looking at the Google satellite map, and facing the building from the street side: Front building has the fenced private yards to either side of it. On the left side of the building is a driveway leading to the back. Two garages are behind the first building, horizontally, on the left side of the property, separated by the parking pad Two garages extend vertically toward the back from the right side of the front building. There is a gap between the garages that leads to the second building at the back of the property. That second building has the pool and pergola area in front of it, with the private yards to the left and right of the building. The pergola is behind the horizontally-placed garages. I'm guessing that Big Hair's "boardwalk" to the pool area is behind the vertical garages that appear to be attached to the rear of their townhouse, which would make theirs the townhouse on the right side in the front building. The married couple has the unit behind the pool, and the brothers had the trees, so that would place them in the rear building, left side. That puts the sisters in the front building on the left side. Given that there are only four units (and it appears from Google street view to be mainly a mainly a nice single home neighborhood), the units in the back building aren't probably going to have that much noise from the pool and patio area and are probably the more desirable units. The "worst" unit is going to be the front-left one, IMO, since to access the mutual backyard they have to go around the front of the building, down the driveway, through the garage area and then into the yard. Behind the back building is the Good Samaritan Church property. It looks like they have storage sheds on their property that back up against where the brothers private yard abuts it.

What a brave person you were, to face that hardship! ~smile~

I was wondering about the washer/dryer too. I had to laugh regarding the drama about those folding doors. Can we say "the contractor put them in backward" rather than "oh, they are reversible"? LOL I liked the folding doors, but thought that they should have painted the walls in the backyard a uniform color. I was wondering if they're allowed to put some lattice fencing on the top of those walls to give the backyard a bit more privacy? I liked the idea of the sliding counter to give more surface space, but I thought that the concrete cutouts seemed a bit superfluous. Are they really going to use those "spice cups"? Maybe it equates with a few less items for storage, but they still have the same cleaning chores.

My problem with her style is that while she restores homes, she doesn't add much appeal to them, at least in my eyes. I like older homes but she tends to leave the exteriors rather bland. I don't know enough about building to judge her work, and I do appreciate that she does expose and restore features that were covered up by subsequent remodels. I'm not into "re-purposing" to the extent that she is, though; I dislike sink bowls stuck on top of bureaus, for example. My impression of her has always been that she knows what she likes, but not necessarily what others might like, which was why I was surprised that she was chosen as a judge.

In that case, we're going to need one mighty big engineered beam...

Oh, that Papua New Guinea guy was another one! Wasn't he pushing for the stand-alone house, IIRC? Why on earth would you bring your family to a place where they had to live under armed guard? Saw the Bhutan episode last night. They are lucky their kids are so young and so will be adaptable to their reduced living conditions without really realizing that's what they are (speaking from personal experience). And come on, $80/mo is all they could afford for rent for a one year's stay? They have no savings whatsoever to up that budget? I'm guessing if they had two little girls instead of two little boys they wouldn't have even considered that $20/mo rental.

The Secretary forgot to mention gaining views of the Pacific Ocean - lol.

Saw that Coober Pedy Australia show yesterday, the one where the couple moves from Copenhagen to somewhere in the middle of Australia where the husband is going to work for an open-pit mining company, and where most people live underground because it is so hot. She's from Denmark and is used to city-living, and has never lived in such an isolated spot or even such a hot spot He's got to be making good money on that kind of job, yet he sad-puppy-eyed her into agreeing to the lower-priced underground home that had a hotter constant temperature (87F) and was more remote that the first, more expensive underground home they looked at. That woman is going to be home all day, living in what is basically a boiling moonscape, and he couldn't figure out a way to give her a cooler location and once closer to other people. I'm trying to think back, but it seems to me that in the Australian episodes, when the husband himself is Australian, the wife usually gives in to the husband's preference.

I don't think they know what it is either, because they have no conception of what the words they are using actually reference.

I thought that the exposed ceiling at least showed showed some originality and made that living room different from the rest of the houses. If they had gone with a little more of a French country theme with their furniture choices it would have worked even better, but I didn't mind the look. That's only a two bedroom townhouse, so there's not going to be a big family living it it; put some good carpeting and padding on the bedroom floor if sound is a problem. Speaking of painting an open ceiling like that, that's what we did with our semi-finished basement. We got a paint sprayer and sprayed the all the wood, pipes and wiring flat black. Looked great - better than a dropped ceiling would have. I really wasn't impressed with the brothers' living room; it was rather blah. Those guys really missed their chance to maybe score a show on HGTV; they just don't know how to accessorize. I think Big Hair and Daisy Dukes deserved the win; they created a nice room out of basically air. John and Whitney made a good decision with the understair storage - even though it detracts from the effect of the stair style - but their room wasn't memorable to me, except for those turquoise frames. I think the sisters did a good job, though I would not have included the "Love" painting and they should have put something else under those stairs, even if it was just a TV.

We lived on a corner and we never got double sewer charges. The address belongs to only one street, not both, so there is only one charge. The bad thing about a corner lot is if you are in a northern state where it snows and you have sidewalks on both sides of your house. That is is b*tch to shovel.