Favorite DIY shows

I used to watch all of the decorating and interior design shows on HGTV back when I had cable television. Loved them and learned a few things and got a lot of great ideas. My home actually transformed over the years from things I saw and I have a better design sense. I liked watching construction shows, but living in an apartment, couldn't ever use what I saw.

 

With the exception of his preachy self, I still enjoy any show Mike Holmes in it the most. I feel like I actually get something out of his shows... especially because Damon is the Man!

I adore the way he explains exactly what is wrong with whatever they are looking at, and explains the correct way it should be done. I love that he has 2 of his kids working with him, I hope that more kids will see this and decide to go into the trades. I would love to have a job designing renovations for people.

 

I like Color Splash with David Bromstad, Design on a Dime, Designed to Sell, Property Virgins, For Rent, Design Star, an Australian show call Lush House and How Clean Is Your House? from the UK. I love DIY and decorating shows. It used to be a summer tradition of mine to just keep the TV on HGTV all day and watch the marathons of House Hunters International.

 

I found a couple of old videotapes in my closet of a DIY show I used to watch called Interior Motives with Christopher Lowell. I used to be obsessed with that show when my daughter was a baby.
Do cleaning shows count as DIY shows? Because I LOVE How Clean Is Your House with Kim Woodburn and Aggie Mackenzie. When they walk into a dirty house and start screaming in horror ,it cracks me up.
I don't understand how they can stand to pick up dirty items with no gloves on.

They use mostly lemon, vinegar and other natural things to clean, except in the American version where they are sponsored by cleaning product companies.

 

I love Christopher Lowell, I liked the way he would show you how to take plain mdf and design items that most people purchased in the store for lots of money. I also watched a show that took a few things people had stuck away and restructured them, making them useful again. Now I look at items to see if they can be repurposed before they are thrown out. I do wish I had more carpenter skills to really be creative.

 

It's awesome that someone else besides me has Christopher Lowell nostalgia. 10 years ago, he used to dominate the Discovery Channel and they would show marathons of his show Interior Motives. I have a file box that I'm pretty sure is just VHS tapes of Christopher Lowell episodes. His background was in set design so he was great at taking cheap building materials and using them to create the look of expensive custom items, kind of like building a movie set, but in your house. I wonder what he's doing now.

 

I just looked up Christopher Lowell and he's on Twitter now answering people's design questions.
He also has a website, but his last TV DIY series was on Fine Living network in 2008.
When I think of late 90's early 2000's DIY shows, Lowell was the king.

 

I don't know if it counts but I like watching these shows in the UK where a rogue builder has ruined some poor family's house and the presenter then chases the builder down and shames him on TV and then sends in a crew to fix the problems the rogue builder caused. Cowboy Trap is the latest one.

 

We have a show like that in the US called Holmes on Homes. Holmes is a contractor and he goes to these homes where the builders have done terrible work and ruined a house, or run off with the money in the middle of the night without finishing the job, and he brings in a crew to help the victims fix their house.
It would be cool if he chased the builders down and shamed them, but he just comes in after dodgy builders have ruined the house, says some comforting words to the homeowners and helps them fix their house.

 

I recently got hooked on Love It or List It, a show which pits a designer against a real estate agent. The designer fixes up a family's problem house, while the agent tries to find them a better house. In the end, the family has to decide whether to stay in their remodeled house or sell it and move. The designer wins most of the time. Once people see their remodeled home, they don't want to move.

 

I'm not quite sure if this show falls under DIY shows, but my husband and I do enjoy watching 'Renovation Realities,' which is basically a chronicling of people trying to renovate a part of their home all by themselves, even though they've never really been around any equipment beyond a screwdriver. It's quite amusing what people think they're capable of doing on their own after having watched other people successfully do tasks on other DIY shows. The outcome of their renovations are mostly positive, but the process in getting there is quite interesting.