DownTheShore

I was taking a close look at those windows in that house - especially the second floor - and they looked like they were in really poor shape, needing more than just a scrape and paint. That's why I thought those windows were going to have to ultimately be replaced. They can get replacement windows that duplicate the originals and are more energy efficient. As someone whose lived with aluminum storm windows, they are a PITA in the long run if you want to keep them working smoothly and keep them well maintained. I don't know if they powder-coat them now, but I had to scrub those aluminum ones with a toothbrush to get the discolorations off the frame.

An interesting article today on the BBC website regarding taking a job abroad and what you should be considering about the move - especially the cost of housing and living: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140825-price-shock-moving-abroad

ROTFLMAO!

That's what I don't get. You'd think that if the people are volunteering to be on HH they would have at least have been HGTV viewers so they should know that you can: a) repaint the walls b) strip the popcorn ceilings c) tear down the wall between the kitchen/dining room and/or dining room/living room d) put a fence up around the pool e) use a baby monitor f) use the bathtub in the main bathroom g) put up or replace outside fencing h) put up or remove a ceiling fan

That's why I think Curtis and Amanda have such a hard time. They've (or rather, she) has this vision as to what the completed project should look like and they get bogged down creating it all at once, instead of getting the main bits done first - like putting the doors in where they should be, etc. The sisters seem to have a similar problem; the creative one thinks up the accent features and then gets bogged down creating them. Though their advantage is that they have the money to hire the contractors, which Curtis and Amanda don't have. I'm not all that put out by the turquoise tiles, because I don't think that they really overwhelmed anything, and I frankly would rather buy a house with some character and work around it, rather than a bland box. I'm not one of those people who has to "put their own stamp" on things, so if something is finished and done - unless it's especially egregious like an orange wall - that's just less that I'd have to do. I can live with a lot of stuff that's already in place and design around it.

I can't even remember the realtor in that show, the friend monopolized it so much! I thought she was a real PITA. She wasn't paying attention to what he wanted, just what she wanted for him. Granted, she was right in advising him that there might be more problems with an older home than with a new condo, but just because she apparently gave him the right advice in the past, doesn't make her an expert on what he needs now. If he just finished his residency and he can afford a $600+K house, then he can afford to hire someone to cut his grass, so that backyard was no insurmountable problem, the way she was making it out to be. I don't think that he would have been happy in that condo, especially if he likes to get together with his family often.

I don't think that I'd be worried so much about the bats being rabid, I just wouldn't want them nesting against the house, just because of their noise and droppings. They could have put up a bat house somewhere else on their property; God knows Florida could use all the help it can get reducing the mosquito population. I was really surprised that they took the Craftsman. While I like the style, I kept shouting at the TV "there's no air conditioning and you're going to have to replace all those windows!!" LOL

Something I hadn't thought about before, though, is that the people who are going to be bidding on these houses might be a lot of HGTV junkies, so that might throw the standard assumptions about what people like out the window.

I don't know what's going on but I, too, have noticed that in the evenings it's either Flip or Flop, one of the Property Brothers incarnations, or LIOLI, with some HH thrown into the mix. They really need more variety in the evenings and more design, less reno shows.

I don't really know. They'll pitch a hissy fit if there's no dishwasher, but no one mentions the bars on the windows. That also surprised me about some of the Australian ones - not the ones on the various "Coasts" but ones that were along lagoons/rivers. Where they protection from pirates? ;-> Ah, yes, Amber Allred and the animals. Another one who needs to go to a foreign country to save stray animals, instead of perhaps saving the stray animals or children in her own country, or perhaps the stray children in the country she really wants to tour. I laughed when she practically imitated a baseball player sliding into home base when she saw that caged cat in the apartment, and the cat gave her a "Puh-leez" look. Hopefully the other tenants will report them to the landlord re the pets as lease violators. I couldn't believe that they chose the apt. they did, given the fact that the time difference requires him to be online and working when she's trying to sleep, and the work area was located in the bedroom.

@ stafford - The kitchen remodel was permitted, AFAIK. They had a microwave and a warming drawer built into the island, so there was an outlet in the back of the cutout for the microwave. There was just nothing that could be accessed from the surface of the island unless you pulled out the microwave. ---- I think the problem with the ceiling fans is that too many people install obtrusive ones instead of unobtrusive ones. There'll be a small bedroom with a white ceiling and there'll be a fan with dark brown blades and those multiple, bell-glass lights dropping down low from the ceiling, instead of one that is light-colored and close-mounted to the ceiling. And you don't have to have the fan right in the center of the room to get the air to circulate. That is the place for the maximum benefit, of course, but in my sister's shore place, due to the slope of the roof, the smallness of the bedrooms and the fact that there are bunkbeds in one of the rooms, the fans have been placed at the highest part of the ceiling slope (to avoid decapitation - lol) and off-center, and they work perfectly fine in circulating the air in the rooms. They are also light colored so they are not the first thing that you notice when you walk into the room.

It seems to me that a lot of times the paint color choices (or wallpaper type) in the kitchens are dated and that in turn makes the cabinets seem dated too, especially if they are not really decade-specific themselves. We've got the honey-oak cabinets at the cottage, but the door style is the timeless Shaker style, so when my sister remodeled she just changed out the hardware to a brushed nickel finish to match what was on the accent pieces in the rest of the room (small lamps, clock, some picture frames) which tied things together.

If Nicole is judging, then John and Whitney will be winning, no matter what they do, since they match her design esthetic. I was thinking, the other day, about how much coordination must have had to have taken place with the city to get permits pulled and inspections done in such short time frames.

That's a very good idea about the potted plants. I don't know what to make of the twins. You're right about them thinking that they should win merely because they completed a challenge. The problem may be that they are missing the point of the whole competition and are focusing on what seems to be the easiest aspect of it - finishing a room - instead of paying attention to what makes the rooms of a house attractive to buyers.

My question is, what would Hilary do without Desta (sp?)? Desta seems to do all of the work and Hilary just swans in and out.

I like LIOLI 2 because of the more varied scenery and the wider variety of home styles. Though I have to wonder WTF kind of jobs those people have to afford the prices there? I never watched The Bachelorette, so I never had any pre-conceived notions about Jillian. I think that she's improved somewhat as the show has progressed; her color palette has broadened a bit more. I like Todd; he's sort of like a happy puppy and he has a better variety of homes and usually a larger budget to work with than David does. I also really wish that both shows would say, exactly, how far away the drive time is from the homeowners' "preferred area", so we could get a clue as to how reasonable/unreasonable it is to expect them to drive that distance. Of course it's all subjective, but for me for example, 40 minutes outside my "preferred area" wouldn't be too far.

I think I caught the tail end of that one so I didn't know their backstory. We were commenting on how much older she looked than him; we thought that she had just aged less gracefully.

One of my sisters is one of those "I hate outlets in the kitchen" people, so when she redid her kitchen in her old house she only put the minimum number of outlets required by code and just single outlets (two plug capacity). I think there were two outlets for the entire two-wall counterspace and none accessible on the center island. It was such a PITA to use any countertop appliances in that kitchen because you could never leave anything plugged in, much less use an outlet as a charging station for anything. That's also the sister who installed a fixed window over her kitchen sink, which totally eliminated the possibility of any cross-ventilation in that room. Need I add that she also did the white cabinets, white subway tile, black granite countertop look, too?

I don't like white subway tile in kitchens, and I really dislike it when they dark grout with it.

My sister used Corian for her counters and backsplash at her shore cottage ant that stuff is great. I'm down here now, looking at it as I type this. It's been wearing very well, looks as good as the day it was installed and she was able to get it in the perfect color to match her color scheme in this "open concept" area (lol - it had to be "open concept" because the cottage is too small for anything else). It's easy to keep clean and is standing up to the wear-and-tear of rental use. I don't understand at all why the HH'ers on TV look down on it. It's a very good product.

I really had to laugh when they were so proud of "adding color" to the room: a colorful rug that was mostly under the bed, and a small print pillow on the bed. Either their mom has no decorating sense either or else she's at home, banging her head against the wall as she watches them....

I thought that orange wall would have been much more effective and less overwhelming if the sisters had painted the shelves white. I think the married couple got it because of the washer/dryer in the hallway and the fact that it was finished with artwork in two places; also their room was multipurpose, which was the whole point of that room's competition. I actually did like the reclaimed wood in Big Hair's room but I thought that it should have at least been cleaned before they installed it. The brothers have, alas, absolutely no decorating sense.

Any place where every household has a machete is pretty much a no-go for me - lol. I wonder sometimes about those barred windows. I mean, I know that some places have had a lot of civil unrest in the past so I wonder if the bars are just leftovers from those periods, or if they are precautionary for the present. Or maybe it's just because some of the homes are vacation homes and it's the easiest method of security. There's also the fact that a lot of those countries seem to have monkeys in the neighborhood, so maybe those bars keep them out of the houses.

Remember when Roatan was the go-to place for HHI? Things have changed in Honduras....http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/alertswarnings/honduras-travel-warning.html I always wonder what happened to that family that moved to Cairo Egypt because the father wanted his son to attend the same soccer school that he did. IIRC, they went there shortly before the Arab Spring turmoil hit the Middle East.

What I don't get about the brothers is how, if they work together normally in a carpentry business, why they aren't better time managers? Amanada is probably the best thing to have happened to Curtis' life, because I get the feeling that he would be happier sitting in front of his TV with a cold beer than doing the amount of work that he is currently being pushed to do. Wasn't there some mention of him having been in the military? Maybe there's a little PTSD involved with him and that's why he's got the "I think I can't" attitude. One thing about pergolas that doesn't seem to get much mention, is I think that you have to orient the "ceiling" boards in a more N-S direction so that the rays from the rising and setting sun will slant across them, providing greater bars of shade below. Pergolas look lovely when they are covered with plants and really provide shade, but the only thing that I think of with that is sitting under them and having ants and spiders and such fall off the leaves onto me - lol. The sister's pergola was an awning, pure and simple, and a waste of time and money since it neither added to the look or did the job it was supposed to. They probably should have invested in one of those Sunbrella awnings over the doorway.