DIY/Magnolia Network Drama

[ssmjlm]

I’m admittedly not a Chip & Jo fan and would love if they went away.

That said, this has already been all over IG. Yet another renovation show where homeowners are screwed and in some cases unsafe and broke.

www.insider.com/magnolia-network-pulls-show-homeowners-allege-houses-ruined-over-budget-2022-1

Bring back Mike Holmes!

[maudefindlay]

And no one can ever just step up and make things right on their own, have to put the onus on the wronged ones. They have to do all the leg work and hire lawyers and live with the mess till it gets sorted. Chip and Joanna need to get involved and help make this right. They endorsed these crooks.

[tacokick]

I’m puzzled why the model is for the home owner to pay for the renovation and to be filmed. What is in it for the homeowner? Just being on TV?

We were on a show on TLC years ago and it is a long story I can only legally partially tell but they paid for everything they did.

[simpsongal]

tacokick, I would have thought some assurance that the work is done quickly and right but I guess not? Maybe free design work too? I do wish they were more transparent about budgets on some of these shows. It's hard to see how they can do so much for so little sometimes...

[tacokick]

Jan 10, 2022 10:37:40 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

tacokick, I would have thought some assurance that the work is done quickly and right but I guess not? Maybe free design work too? I do wish they were more transparent about budgets on some of these shows. It's hard to see how they can do so much for so little sometimes...

Maybe so? It has to be something! The budgets I’m reading some of the people brought to the show had to have been big enough to find a contractor on their own.

I guess being on a show is exciting and if you are doing the project anyway then you might think why not have it filmed?

Speaking from experience, they only do what can be seen on camera and will film well so a lot of corners are cut.

[bhnumbers]

This all sounds awful.

It sounds like all these were covid-era projects and a lot of supplies and even labor has been hard to come by, so I can see how that could slow things down. Also, lumber prices have been through the roof, BUT it all should have been communicated!! There should have been no surprise bills or people's houses just left in disarray or disrepair with no plans fix things. Zero excuse for that. I really feel for these homeowners.

tacokick , I also wonder why they have to foot the bill! For me, the least attractive aspect of something like this would be appearing on tv, lol. If I had to pay for everything myself, there is no way I'd do it. Then again, I never watch HGTV or any kind of home shows, so I'm probably not there target audience

[tacokick]

Jan 10, 2022 11:34:21 GMT -5 bhnumbers said:

tacokick , I also wonder why they have to foot the bill! For me, the least attractive aspect of something like this would be appearing on tv, lol. If I had to pay for everything myself, there is no way I'd do it. Then again, I never watch HGTV or any kind of home shows, so I'm probably not there target audience

Same for me! We did a show because they were filming in our neighborhood and they paid for everything (even food!) during filming. I surely wasn’t paying to be on tv.

I guess it keeps the production budgets down but we’ve all seen failures for decades now. I would need an iron clad guarantee the work would be perfect if I was paying for it myself.

[ssmjlm]

I remember reading about the Property Brothers and how what you see on tv are the only rooms that get remodeled. They don't touch anything else, so you've spent 6 figures, but don't have a fully renovated house.

I can see coming up with some of your money, but for there to be no paper trail, no permits, etc, is super shady. I'm not surprised Magnolia isn't saying anything publicly, it's not the first time they've had issues even before becoming a "network."

[ssmjlm]

tacokick, my friend's SIL was on Trading Spaces years ago and she was really disappointed in the end. She said it wasn't anything like you see on tv and a lot was done way too fast to be quality.

[deadwing]

Jan 12, 2022 8:25:59 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

tacokick , my friend's SIL was on Trading Spaces years ago and she was really disappointed in the end. She said it wasn't anything like you see on tv and a lot was done way too fast to be quality.

I can't imagine agreeing to be on Trading Spaces.  The concept is pretty much guaranteed a mediocre result at best.  It's being done in a ridiculously short time frame by non-professionals.  However, that's exactly what makes it fun to watch.

[ellipses84]

In construction there’s a saying that you can get it cheap, you can get it fast, or you can get good quality, but you can’t get all three in a project. All these home shows sacrifice quality.

Trading spaces was awful because it was people without experience working fast, although most of those were only cosmetic so at least they were easier to fix later, aside from a few horror stories.

On chip and joannas show, the homeowners have to pay $$$ extra if they want to keep any of the furniture so I’m sure many don’t and the end product doesn’t look as good.

Extreme home makeover was awful quality due to speed. It increased property taxes so homeowners were foreclosed on or had to sell later. Later they did start gifting them cash to help with that.

On love it or list it they seem like they had decent contractors, and even though I would “love it” from a redesign standpoint the wise thing to do was probably “list it” and sell it so they never had to deal with issues later.

[tacokick]

Jan 12, 2022 8:25:59 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

tacokick, my friend's SIL was on Trading Spaces years ago and she was really disappointed in the end. She said it wasn't anything like you see on tv and a lot was done way too fast to be quality.

Oh yes. It was not good. At all. But at least I didn’t pay for it! Our show was professionals only and it still sucked.