Tough Love With Hilary Farr - General Discussion

[sweetea]

On 10/26/2023 at 2:30 PM, Feline Goddess said:

The kitchen layout was obviously better than before, but apart from that, I didn't like anything in the episode. The backsplash was a beautiful color, but didn't go with the other colors in the kitchen and family room. I didn't like the grouping of photos in small frames in the family room. Seemed more like a 'before' decorative choice than an 'after' one. The powder room was ugly. The dining room transformed into a relaxing space was nice, but the wallpaper should've been just an accent wall, not the whole room. And again, like the family room, the furniture had a 'thrift store' chucked together vibe. Definitely not up to Hilary's usual standards.  

I agree with everything you said. The house in this episode is on my street, and I have the same model/layout so I was really interested to see what Hilary would do with it. The living room is a challenge with the corner windows and small amount of space. Nothing was said about this (maybe the owners don’t mind it) and the redo of it looked like an afterthought. The kitchen certainly turned out nice, but I wouldn’t like facing the door to the garage when I’m prepping at that island. And the itty bitty dining table she left them with? Where are they supposed to dine? 

[buttersister]

Glad that the nice couple were happy with their house. Hilary did a great job. But my favorite part was the wife keeping the brick and vetoing that awful grey tile. Hilariously, they barely showed the tile in the reveal. Is Hilary an exec producer? 😂

[ECM1231]

1 hour ago, buttersister said:

Glad that the nice couple were happy with their house. Hilary did a great job. But my favorite part was the wife keeping the brick and vetoing that awful grey tile. Hilariously, they barely showed the tile in the reveal. Is Hilary an exec producer? 😂

I didn't mind the brick wall that delineated the entry way. Liked the big island, and large windows opening up to the sun room, but hated the cabinetry.

Why was there no shower door in the en suite bathroom? So essentially, Hilary stole bedroom space to enlarge the bath. The new closet was nice, but again, I think she's pairing down the clothes going back in. 

$200,000 budget? Knocked down living room wall, entire new kitchen, refinished wood floors, 2 new bathrooms, some new furniture. To me, her numbers don't add up, but my last big renovation was 15 years ago and mine included adding an attached garage, stone front porch,  2 zone central air, new furnace, adding a 2nd floor extension, en suite  bath. Much more work than what was done in this episode where there were no additions added to the home. 

Given that a bath redo might be 20k and I'll even allow 75K for the kitchen (which seems super high to me), I can't see this renovation costing more than 125k max. Every episode this becomes more and more annoying to me. Am I really that much out of touch?

 

[quirkygal]

My brother and I are pricing out renovations to our parents' home so they can age in place.

Her estimates for the last couple of renovations seemed high to me too especially since she's not in a pricy market (NYC, LA, DC, etc)

I have no idea how people can afford homes and then pay for such major renovations.

 

[buttersister]

I have to assume all of the finishes are super high end. Irl, one could argue for her to make them nice/fit my budget. But this is her TV show.

One other thing that made me laugh was in the kitchen. Wasn’t it in last week’s episode when Hilary did not see why in hell the wife needed a big island AND a kitchen table with chairs? In this kitchen, she added both. And the table was practically in an identical spot (near the back door). LOL! Hmm, wasn’t so awful an idea after all, I guess.

[Katie W]

It seems to be a thing now to install a huge island and not leave room for an actualy dining table. I've seen this done in a few different shows. I have zero desire to sit at an island for all of my meals. I get not needing a seperate dining room (although I'd love to have one myself) but we use our dining table all of the time.